Stanford, CA

I recently switched gears from Napa, CA in the private outpatient physical therapy clinic to Stanford Hospital where I am working inpatient as a PT (physical therapist) on three nursing units. Two of the units are Oncology and the third is also considered Oncology, but it is specifically the Bone and Marrow Transplant (BMT) unit. The BMT unit, also E1, is my main home base because my CI (clinical instructor) or preceptor, as they call them at Stanford, is a senior therapist for these patients. These floors are special, in particular, the BMT unit is special. Patients in this unit have cancer that has unsuccessfully been treated elsewhere with various chemotherapies and radiation therapies. They have complex diagnoses like acute myeloid leukemia (AML), acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), multiple myeloma, and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) to name a few. Perhaps needless to say, I spent my first week at Stanford looking up acronyms and learning pager numbers and door codes. The hospital is a giant wealth of information at your finger tips, but it does take some skill and sweet talking to get what you want when you want it. Here's me in my white lab coat nerding out at Stanford :)



I have truly learned from one of the best. Christine, my CI, is an absolutely inspirational individual. I feel so lucky to have her in my life--and for her to be my CI is quite amazing. She is kind and patient. Patient care is always her top priority. I never thought I would feel so passionately about inpatient physical therapy, but I absolutely love it.

In addition, my life is pretty awesome. Palo Alto and Redwood City have some of the most perfect weather there is. The days are warm and sunny without being hot, and the evenings sometimes smell/taste/feel like cool fall evenings in Georgia. Also, there are no mosquitoes. Have I mentioned previously in this blog that, in general, there are far fewer bugs in CA than in GA? It's lovely. I currently am residing in Redwood City in a 3 bedroom house with a woman who is only around occasionally, as she works in SF and has a house there, and a younger woman who just recently graduated from undergrad in MA and moved out here for a job in Redwood City in something complicated that I don't really understand.

Anyway. Here's my house. And pretty flowers.

Napa!

Quick recap: Portland was AMAZING. We were beer hunters extraordinaire--and I'm practically a beer expert now :) AND, I got my unicorn tattoo whilst on the road--in Bend, OR to be specific.



BUT, there are other new and amazing things in life now! For example, I am currently living in Napa, on a lot that backs up to VINEYARDS.
Yup, I know, I have a rough life. A week ago, MommyDaddy were in CA visiting. We stayed in San Francisco for most of the week. We ate amazing food, had a nearly defeating bike ride across the Golden Gate Bridge (2 flat tires), and we walked our little hearts out. Then, we rented a minivan that fit nearly all of my belongings and moved me to Napa. Oh, and, of course, we made time to do some wine tasting in there.



This last photo is the view from my bedroom.

So, I'm in Napa for the next 7 weeks doing an internship for my Physical Therapy program. It's going really well. I really like my CI (clinical instructor), Eric. He owns the clinic. It's a private outpatient clinic called Eric Ewig Physical Therapy. We mostly see post-op shoulders; it's their area of expertise. It's awesome. Eric and Scott, the 2 PTs who work there, are both graduates of my program, so I'm reinforcing a ton of what I've learned. They each quiz me on a regular basis, and I've mostly been passing :) They both said last night that they aren't worried about me being successful in my internship. Eric is impressed with my assessment skills, which basically means that I can do some observation or tests on someone and actually figure out what's going on (the main point of PT). It feels really good to hear that. I think he likes me a lot, and it goes both ways. I think that the next 7 weeks are going to be great for my future career.

Speaking of careers, I have one more year left in school. I will earn my masters in March of 2012, then in June the doctoral part of the degree will be conferred. After that, I will be in search of a job. It's going to be here sooner than later! I hope I'm prepared! I am considering doing a little traveling--and maybe even practicing in another country before officially settling down. But, we shall see what happens.

Spring Break is SO close...

It's basically painful at this point. I hate this waiting. On Friday, I will embark on a road trip with 3 classmates: Brianna, Justin, and Andrea AKA TP, Hooter, and Crazy. (I am Squeaks). Together we are Wounded Pigeon. Or that's the idea we are currently throwing around. The Wounded Pigeon is a hacky sack/modified yoga position that is used frequently by Justin/Hooter in hacky sack. The move isn't often successful in terms of making contact with the hacky sack, but it is highly entertaining.

This is a road trip specifically scheduled to appreciate some wonderful, natural sights (taking HWY 1 N) and an opportunity to stop at as many breweries as we can on a single adventure. I'm pretty stoked.

Hopefully when I next write, I will be detailing a plethora of beers and potential food pairings, because that's what vacation is all about, right?

Cooking Kick.

I just realized that I really am quite obsessed with food. I love eating it, making it, making it for others and eating it with them. Food is good. :)

Tonight we had a roommate dinner. It was slightly sad as the reason for this dinner was because all 3 of my roommates are moving out within the next 2 months. I'm happy for all of them, as each of them is actually moving in with his/her significant other; however, I can't help but be a little sad. I will miss them! Anyway, to celebrate properly, we all brought our part. I originally said I would make a sweet potato something. Then, after working in a coffee shop all afternoon on that paper that I've been procrastinating (yes, it was every bit as painful as I anticipated), I decided that I needed to let loose. I went in search of interesting sweet potato recipes and ended up with this one. So, I ended up deciding on Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Maple Cinnamon Sage Brown Butter. I mean, if you are going to cook, might as well go all out? Let me preface this by saying that my only other experience trying to make pasta pretty much failed miserably--the end result was not really edible. Luckily, my roommate, Lena, has helped someone make gnocchi before! (Of course!) She helped me with the consistency and size.

They were so cute, I laughed as I rolled them into their little bee shapes. :) Lena laughed along with me. Then I made the brown butter sauce. If I could have captured the smell, that would have been ideal. The picture does not do justice to the sensation of being near this concoction.

In the end, they kind of looked like freaky little half-fingers, BUT they were pretty amazing. Scarlett even agreed--and she told me (as she was helping me roll them into their bee-shapes) that this is one of her favorite meals! (No pressure...) The final product:



If you are curious about creating your own gnocchi, here are a few things I learned from this recipe:

1. If you read the recipe, you'll notice it says "cooking time: 15 mins." Any recipe that only has "cooking time" is not to be trusted. Prep time is HUGE. ESPECIALLY with pasta. Luckily, I knew this. I started everything at a little past 5pm, maybe even 5:30pm. Dinner was served around 7:45pm. It's safe to say this took 2 hours and would take 2 hours again. Also, I knew that I would be facing a time issue, so that didn't include baking the potatoes; I stuck them in the microwave, and they were cooked in about 7 mins.

2. The recipe called for 1 1/4 c flour to be added to the "dough mixture." I feel like I added at least double that. I ended up sectioning out the dough into balls and adding flour with my hands until it stopped sticking to them. THEN, I rolled them into sticks, then cut them, etc.

3. When you cook gnocchi, you only want as many in the pot as cover the bottom of the pot. Don't do more than one layer. This is because...

4. Gnocchi tell you when they are cooked by rising from the bottom of the pot and floating in the water! Then you fish them out with a slotted spoon.

5. This recipe actually comes out tasting SUPER sweet. If I were to make it again, I would leave the cinnamon and maple syrup OUT of the brown butter sauce to go for a more savory dish.

All in all, making this dish was delightful, but I could not have done it without Lena's input, knowledge, and encouragement. She is directly responsible for #3 and #4 and also part of #2. Thanks, Lena!

More breakfast stuffs!

Again this morning I awoke, much like yesterday morning: in need of motivation to get out of bed. I didn't really want thick pancakes AGAIN (heaven forbid), so I went to the other end of the pancake spectrum, and I made crepes of sorts. I took out the Jiffy and added copious amounts of milk. Then I added wheat germ for kicks. The first one turned out too thick and it was a little gross and under-cooked, so I threw it out. The second one turned out well:


The third turned out really well, so I got bold and added cinnamon and some powdered sugar to the fourth. In the end I added blueberries, cottage cheese, and honey to them, and they were simply delicious!!!

Unicorns and Tattoos.

I recently decided I need a tattoo. I've wanted a tattoo since college. My limiting factor is that I haven't been able to decide what I want. I know, I know, I feel as though maybe I'm going about this in the wrong order. I should have something I feel endeared to and THEN decide about its permanent position on my body.

After some deliberation, I decided that I want a unicorn! Unicorns have had a place all along in my life. From the collection of My Little Ponies to the Blatant Unicorn, to the most recent connection with the all powerful mother monster: Lady GaGa. Let's explore these ideas a little more in depth, shall we?

In my childhood, I was preoccupied with miniature things. My Little Ponies totally fed into this mild obsession. I had quite a few ponies and my recollection (MommyDaddy, feel free to correct me) is that I would often assemble all the ponies in our front yard flower bed among the blooming daffodils and proceed to engage in pony life reenactments. From there, once I was a little too old for such things, I picked up fantasy books that included unicorns. Maybe I should reread some of those classics.

In college, the Blatant Unicorn was the name of my apartment with Katie O that supplied booze and pancakes to anyone at most any hour. The name developed in opposition to another Athens after-party spot called the Secret Squirrel. In addition, we (or Katie? or Adair?) managed to secure a pretty fantastic clock, which you can appreciate in the photo below behind Christine and me.



As for the Lady GaGa reference, Katie recently posted a quote on my facebook wall from Lady GaGa, mother monster herself: "I had My Little Ponies. I was obsessed with the idea of a creature that was born with something magical that sort of made them the misfit in the world of the stallion. I’m actually quite obsessed with unicorns. They are in essence a mythical creature. The unicorn is born magical and it’s not the unicorn’s fault and it doesn’t make it any more or less special or any less unique but it can’t help that it was born with that magic." In addition, the music video from her latest single reveals the following image:



SO, back to the actual tattoo talk. After asking for several submissions from friends, I received a couple that I really liked including these two images:





Then I got a referral to a tattoo artist who took into account "what I want" and came up with this:


Ya, I'm ok with it, but not wild about it. BUT, because I didn't hate it, I went ahead and scheduled to get this tattoo...TOMORROW. WTF was I thinking?! Anyway, I'm not going to get a tattoo tomorrow, no one freak out (mostly talking to myself, here). I think I have determined that I want to go with something a little more symbolic as opposed to so literal. Thus, I am gravitating toward the Lady GaGa image.

The Love of Life

Despite my incredible hiatus from blogging, I'm actually just going to post a fairly brief update on the reason I got out of bed this morning: foooooooood. Mmmm, hmmmm.

I went out to a fabuloso dinner last night with my friend, Henrik. He and I prefer dinners that are extravagant in most ways. Last night's dinner was no exception. We started with specialty cocktails with cachaca for Henrik and a vodka/champagne drink for me. We then had a green salad with cara cara oranges, pecorino, and a caper dressing. This was followed by the main attraction to the restaurant: coffee rubbed pork shoulder for Henrik (SOOOOO amazing) and beef sirloin (medium rare) with artichokes and horseradish sauce for me. We finished off with a crepe with grapefruit and dark chocolate ice cream for Henrik and little "hot date" pastries with candied kumquat for me. It was a remarkable evening of food and great conversation.

Thus, this morning I awoke and needed to find a good reason to get out of bed. I am procrastinating working on a fairly big presentation/paper due Tuesday, so that surely didn't help me think about getting up. I then decided that I would actually try and make some good oatmeal. (My main breakfast staple these days; but I usually just add hot water to instant oats with an occasional addition of dried fruit). Once in the kitchen, I became inspired by the cast iron skillet on the stove. I decided to make oatmeal pancakes! It got even more elaborate when I realized that I had a few leftover items from several batches of homemade granola: wheat germ and flax seeds. So, I took out the Jiffy and mixed in instant oats, flax seeds, wheat germ, and milk. When it reached the appropriate consistency, I poured 3 cakes into the hot, oiled skillet. Then I remembered I just bought blueberries as well! What resulted was a combination pancake/biscuit with great thickness and good flavor, which I augmented further with a little bit o' honey. I photographed the final product:


Yum!