I often end a blog posting with the quote of the day, so instead I'm leading with quotes, 60 of them to put you in a positive frame of mind:
I am in a very positive frame of mind as I hit send on my 16 page pre- course assignment last night and I'm not sure who decided that it was 18 hours of study but I found that a very conservative estimate. I had to go to the clinic last evening and use the computer in the office as I don't have Word on my Mac, just a Text Edit program. Needless to say the alignment was all messed up between the two so I picked at it until 9 pm. As I walked home in what felt like milder weather as it had moderated from -35 to about -13 c, I noticed that the northern lights (aurora borealis) were putting on a wonderful show for me as the green lights danced over my left shoulder all the way to the apartment. My excuse for not continuing with the readings this evening is that I am first call and don't want to have to leave them and come back.
And mostly that there's no point in trying to retain anything after a full day of call. We had the usual busy day back after being closed yesterday, drew bloods first thing and there was a full list of regular appointments in the middle of the waiting room of lab patients. I had a few calls, then a few more when people got up just before noontime. The afternoon was well child immunization with its usual screaming plus we do walk in flu shots from 3 - 4:30 pm from now until the vaccine is gone. Planning on getting mine tomorrow so I'll be protected when I go across the pond. In between this I kept busy with walk ins and calls - a lady called for husband who got tired and took a nap…..okay, thanks for letting me know. One of the flights (Canadian North) flew over here this afternoon leaving a number of patients booked with medical travel so that was a bit of scrambling. One of my roommates headed home to BC today and was fortunate to be on First Air which did land and take off before the ice fog struck. Just think that'll be catching a First Air flight a week from tomorrow. Ah, tis time.
The latest smiles on the local front go a bit like this…..the very cute one year old who belongs to the
travel clerk came with her mother to work and even knew how to take a handful of papers and tap the
bottom on the desk to line them up. She's a smiley girl and when I patted the back of her head with some frizzy hair, her Mom explained that it was "packing shirt bed head" as she wears her on her back and Emilia naps as she works or the six month old baby with a full head of black hair or "millions of hairs" as one of the clerks referred to it or an overhead page is heard at least once a day saying "sewings for sale, sewings for sale in the lobby" and if you investigate you find someone displaying slippers, wall hangings, decorative zipper pulls, kamiks etc. or the request to "have my tubal out" was a bit disconcerting at first, thinking that someone had written 'informed consent' when the procedure was done and obviously the permanency of the situation had not registered but….when I realized that the slow patient requesting it, surely needed it for that very reason - it made sense or the very cute sixteen month old who came in with a parent and was very taken with one of the class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
'babies' in the waiting room. There is a black one (Femi the Nigerian mental health worker says it's his) and a white one in a display to discourage fetal alcohol syndrome. She insisted on bringing the dolly with her to the office and very carefully picked it up when I made a move towards it. What a good momma she is. Another full day tomorrow and then I'm on call Friday again. Getting into the countdown with only two more first call days left this time around. Almost there. And to close off the work related quotes, here is a link to something we already knew, although it's not an issue here, I'm sure we can all identify at one point in our lives:
The days are certainly getting shorter here as we head into the 24 hours of darkness. Sunrise is at 9:45 am and sunset at 3 pm tomorrow. It feels as if it is time to go home from work as the dusk appears. Some of the more northerly communities are already into the 'no sun' days now. By the time I'm outta here we'll be having only a few hours of light. One more week, one more week.
