July 2005

Saturday, July 30, 2005
Sniff sniff :o(
07-24-05-->7-29-05

Hello to all,

I decided to make a short entry for this week before I leave for Kansas City tomorrow. This week was bittersweet— for I was (am) sad for leaving, but still had a good time. Although I planned on going to lab this week, I ended up not. I just wanted to spend the last week with mom, dad, Omer and Midnight... It is definitely hard to be leaving again.

I got tons of stuff done at home— I finished going through about 3 or 4 boxes filled with school memorabilia. Everything from Pre-K through about 9th grade… It was just wonderful looking at Omer’s 1st and 2nd grade notebooks. SO CUTE! I got a kick of my million drawings, and it was just funny to read a few of the scribbles on the side of the notebooks. In any case, since we just had SO much of it, I decided that anything after 3rd grade wasn’t ‘cute’ anymore, and so I threw away most of the old notebooks and paperwork. I still didn’t get to go through High school boxes for both me and Omer, but I’ll do that on my next vacation.

A few days ago Omer and I swam in the pool. I waited all summer for the water to be around ‘pee temperature’. I just hate it when the water is cold. Since this was the first time I got in the pool this summer, I was very excited. We swam for a tiny bit, got Midi to jump in the water and play with us, and just had a good time. However, about 10 minutes after we got in we started seeing lightening in the distant sky. We had to get out fast and by that we (or rather, I) have officially ended the swimming season. Rats.

Yesterday (Thursday), the whole family went to see ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’. Even though both Omer and I saw the movie a week before, we enjoyed watching it again—It is such a wonderfully bizarre movie! :o)

Today dad and I finally finished putting all of the main pictures on the wall—plus the mobile! It is so much fun to see the house shaping up.

Well, that’s a short summary of the week. I still have to finish packing, get some sleep, and then I will be off early tomorrow morning.

Night y’all!

Reut.
30 jul 05 @ 12:02 am

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Sunday, July 24, 2005
it's cooler!
07-17-05 --> 07-23-05

Hello to all!

Not much is going on here— I am kind of sad that this was the penultimate week in lab. :o( I am planning to get everyone there some nice chocolate brownies as a thank you gesture.

Neat stuff this week—
-Omer and I saw “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”. This movie was just as bizarre as the original movie, yet in a very different way. It was fun and exciting and weird. I highly recommend it!
-The Half-Blooded Prince (Harry Potter # 6) was wonderful! I really enjoyed it, and was impressed by the change in writing style in the past two books.
-After much nagging from my parents I made it to the optometrist. I finally got prescription sunglasses. It is absolutely heavenly! It was really dumb of me not to get them earlier than I did. Thank you parents for the constant reminder.
-Took Midi to the vet—he had two abscesses in his paws. He needs to stop stepping on so many cacti!

Today I finally managed to take the time and re-stain a picture frame. It holds in it Ruth Tzarfati’s beautiful ‘Island of the Cats’ pictures (from the book אי החתולים ). This picture hung at my grandparents’ living room, and found its way to us. Over the years the frame lost its beautiful blue staining, and it turned a greenish-yellowish color. Well, now after I took care of it, it looks just wonderful! It’s a good thing the Arizona sun is still shining—it took the stain about 5 minutes to dry completely! Amazing.

Speaking of the sun—it has been much cooler this past week. We went from 116 to 105! Hurricane Emily’s moisture had finally reached us and we have been having monsoons every night so far! This change in temperature is making everyone’s mood much better. Even with the increased humidity (I believe it was 70% yesterday!!!), this feels much, much better than the scorching temperature we have seen in the past month.

Well, as you can see, I don’t have much to tell… It is a good thing that school is starting soon… you won’t be too bored then… :o)

Love you much,

Reut

24 jul 05 @ 11:56 pm

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Saturday, July 16, 2005
Short entry :o)
07-12-05-->07-16-05

Hello to all!

Since Harry (last name Potter) is currently at my house, my entry will be shorter than normal :o) … what can I do, I got hooked on this series!

This week was fine—I saw a case of AML, which was interesting. I must say that I am feeling ready to go back to school. My pathology knowledge has grown during the summer, and it will be enjoyable to use it in school.

It has been hotter than the normal average… it has been 112 throughout the week, and it should be cooling down just a tiny bit over the next few days. We still did not have our first monsoon, but there is a chance that the humidity from hurricane Emily will increase the potential for a monsoon sometimes next week. Hurrah!

Today I finally finished putting the photographs and albums in ‘library’ and packed some of it in plastic containers to go over it at a later day. One of the photos I found was of mom pregnant with Omer!!! This is the only known picture so far! I hope to find more :o) … So as far as house stuff, we really only have a few more boxes to go through and pictures to hang on the wall!

What else…? I tried making cupcakes on yesterday, but they turned out a bit too salty… yuck! I followed the recipe, and I am not sure what went wrong. Dad suggested that maybe the flour I used is a bit too old… I should go buy new one.

Well friends, I have got to go read!!!! I’ve been waiting for this book for over 2 years :o) :o) :o) I guess the next (and last) book will come during my residency… Oh well.

Goodnight!


Reut

16 jul 05 @ 7:52 pm

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Monday, July 11, 2005
cool week!
07-02-05-->07-11-05

Another late posting… sorry! I got very busy this weekend with building the “library” (a huge bookcase) that I didn’t get a chance to write.

On Tuesday I saw Dr. E at lunch and reminded her that I would love to see some deliveries and other OBGYN procedures. She invited me to come see a tubal (tubal ligation). It was very neat to see! It was definitely much pinker than the gross we get in pathology :o) I know that’s a given, but it was still interesting to see. I was suppose to see two C-sections on Thursday, but got there too late. Bummer. I hope that by the end of the summer (which is approaching rather fast) I will be able to see it.

Lab was interesting, but nothing too unique; although, I did get to see a 22 week fetus with trisomy-18. This I thought was interesting and at the same time sad. On Thursday afternoon I coined the term: “gallbladder-galore” to describe the amount of gallbladder we see everyday. This week we saw cholesterol stones, bile stones and mixed stones (which was bile and cholesterol together). So you see, nothing too amazing.

This weekend dad and I finally built the “library”, and I’ve been working very hard on putting our million books on the shelves (and organizing boxes for donations). Going through books is one of my favorite things to do—I love seeing who the book was from, who the book belonged to, but most of all remembering what it felt like to read the book. After so many years I finally found two of my favorite childhood stories: "אי הילדים" and "אורי".

Okay, enough shtuyes!

Love to all, see you next week,

Reut

11 jul 05 @ 1:17 pm

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Saturday, July 2, 2005
Summer time!
06-26-05-->07-01-05

Hello everyone!

This week was pretty interesting, I saw some very interesting cases in lab, but won’t bore you with the details… (lucky you!) :o)

Funny ‘Tzchokim’ on Wednesday: My grandma Blanka has this weird anti-hiccup magic that works all the time (until you learn it by heart). Still to this day I have no idea what it means, or if I’m repeating it right, but it goes something like this: “Etche-toopiscomeh, etcheh, ferekteh tzoorik, Lemichlipa lemichliplipa, etcheh, fereckteh, tzoorik.” Anyways, this week I’ve been having frequent hiccup attacks … it was terrible! Mom tried Savta Blanka’s magic words on me, but obviously since I know it by heart, it didn’t work. She then proceeded to make up some weird new magic sentence that sounds a lot like snake language—something on the lines of: “Maaaashhhhhaaaaaaa hhh.” During that afternoon, dad said to mom: “Maaaa haaaaa sha’ahhhh….. Shaaa loshhh Vaaaa chetziiiii” which means in Hebrew (still sounding like a snake whisper): “what time is it? Three thirty” mom and I started cracking up, it was SO funny!!! Okay… so you are not laughing? Guess you don’t speak Hebrew, and if you do, you probably never encountered an anti-hiccup magic sentence! :o) Trust me, it was hysterical!!!

A few weeks ago, KCUMB sent me the name and contact information of my ‘little sister’, an incoming first year medical student. Today (Friday), I finally met her! Her name is Sarah, is from Arizona, studied at UoA, and is just awesome! We met at Starbucks and talked for a long time; I tried to answer all of her questions, and give her the general information she needed about being a first year student. She is going to be such a great addition to our school, and I am sure she will love the university. Hope I didn’t flood her with too much info… Listening to her, I was reminded on how exciting and stressful it was to begin last year. It is nice to be of help, and I hope she will find my experience useful. Actually, I enjoyed our meeting so much, that I emailed the school and asked them to let me know if anyone else is from Arizona that might want to meet. Dad said it will end up being the “Arizona club.”

That’s about it from here—more to come next week.

Happy 4th of July!

Reut

2 jul 05 @ 2:18 am