Boards are over!  Hooray!  The questions were pretty crazy.  I never believed people when they said the boards were a whole other level above the inservice.  I thought, “How could that be?  There has to be some sort of ceiling effect on how ridiculous, difficult and ridiculously difficult a group of questions can be?”  Oh, naive me.  I think I passed but I will let you know in approximately 9 weeks.  If you don’t hear from me, it is because I will be pretending that the whole thing never happened.

So...how did I celebrate?  Well, Jenn and I went out to the Honch, tried to find the old chu-hi stand (fail), went to a rug auction and then went out for Thai food along with Dave.  The food was good, the company better and it was so nice to be out!

The next day, Jenn and I celebrated by trying to walk our feet off all over Yokohama.  We went to Queen Anne’s Tower, walked by the Ferris wheel, had Chinese steam buns for lunch, went to the Red Brick Warehouse and walked along the water to Motomachi/Chinatown.  In Motomachi, we walked along the super crowded streets.  There was a “Charming Sale” going on in all the stores.  We also walked up the huge hill to the Foreigners’ Cemetery.  It was a gorgeous day and I had my sunscreen on.  We sort of crashed in the late afternoon but it was so nice to be outside, exploring Japan.

And as promised, here’s my first foray into Picture Collage Maker!  

CW from top left: Red Brick Warehouse, a horse end piece only Karen could love, a
cat bench b/c why not, a dragon mural in Chinatown, and a flower by a foreigner's grave

When studying...

Sometimes I look like this...

But feel like THIS!!!!

Weekend Update!

This weekend was more of the same except that a typhoon is coming.  Whoa.  It's a little hard to take seriously since this afternoon was actually pretty nice apart from being humid as all get out.  I went for a run and it was slow going.  Although I started listening to "Where'd You Go Bernadette?" and it really made the run go by quickly.  The only problem is that the time elapsed for reading let me know just how slow I was going!

Man-yi is coming!  I can't wait for "Sunny and Nice!"

I am also excited about a new app I downloaded: Picture Collage Maker Lite.  I think it'll be pretty awesome for my travel pictures.  Its blog debut will have to wait since, currently, I'm not doing that many fun things but soon, my friends, soon.

Alright, off to study.  I'm feeling ok about the test coming up and it's time to transition from gloom and doom to some motivating pep talk!  I will pass this and then get to stress about the orals!  I can do it!

Driver's Ed

So, I'm on lunch break during the seemingly interminable orientation week. But at least I'm getting paid to listen to all the Powerpoint presentations! After lunch, I get to take my written driver's test. I thought I was 16 again but then I remembered I had to take a written test when I got my California license so I guess I still feel my age. This morning was the second-weirdest Navy brief I've ever sat through. Lots of driver safety slides interspersed with simulated (I think) clips of pedestrians getting hit by cars. In case you're wondering, the weirdest brief I ever sat through was a ship electrical safety brief that ended with a real video of a guy getting electrocuted on a train's overhead wire. That was weird.

I can't wait for the concert!!! (lastfm.com)

On one of the breaks today, I went over to the ITT office to inquire about purchasing tickets to The Killers concert in Tokyo. I had tried to do it on my own, but Google translate was only taking me so far. The woman was super helpful and I am now the proud owner of a voucher to take to 7-11 so I can purchase and get my ticket anytime before the 15th. I'm so excited. I love that band!

 In case you were wondering, I'm still stressed about the boards. Whah, whah. But in continuing education news, I'm going to try and use tuition assistance to fund a biostatistics certificate through UCSD. I think it should work although I have to move quickly since the online course starts 23 Sept. Taking the course will be useful since there's such an emphasis on evidence-based medicine.

In other exciting news in my life, I've started putting my Magic Bullet to work making delicious blueberry, pineapple, spinach, almond milk and vanilla protein smoothies. If my Mom is reading this, I can pretty much guarantee that she just threw up in her mouth a little bit. I also am using it to grind Love Potion coffee beans that SMS sent me from Cafe Calabria, my favorite coffee roaster/shop in San Diego. Bonus on the coffee front: I bought a single serve coffee machine yesterday and it was $8 down from $20. Why? I have no idea but gift horse, I don't need to look in your mouth! I'm trying to cut back on buying outside coffee. It's expensive! Over $3 for a Starbucks and $2.25 at work. That seems crazy to me, although I remember in Denmark it was $8/cup.

 Finally, weird jet lag symptoms are back. My body loves the 4 a.m. wake-up right now. But again, maybe it's stress insomnia. If it continues after 20 Sept, I'll be mad!

Oh happy day!

Lots of sunshine and look what I got!!!!!!

Flowers!  Although, yes, I agree, my double screens are PRET-ty awesome!

SMS is the best!  I'm so happy and it was so cute of him to do!  I'm so ridiculously smile-y right now, it's borderline nauseating.

So, I placed out of the Wednesday and Thursday orientation classes because I'm so culturally sensitive. Or maybe it's just because I was stationed here within the last 5 years.  Today, people were talking about the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of living in Japan.  I wanted to stand up and say, "Lies!  You think so until they tell you to move back!"  But really, I'm not that bitter.  I am excited to be here and I'm meeting a lot of cool people that I'm secretly hoping will be awesome couple friends.  Of course, SMS has to be out here in order to be official couple friends, but I'll just stockpile them away and then come May 2014, be in couple friend heaven!

So, I'll go to work, study, see a little bit of clinic and then go to Driver's Education on Friday.  I'm still studying/cramming for the boards.  One more week and then it's over, for better or worse.  The next week, I'll be heading to Sasebo and Iwakuni, which I'm pretty excited about.  I'm staying until Saturday so my corpsman and I are going to take the opportunity to sightsee in Hiroshima a little bit and eat okonomayaki!!!

Cohi at the office

Hey-o!  Kind of boring in Nipon since I'm working and studying.  Not a lot of fun time yet but don't worry, it's coming!

First, an overview of vending coffee drinks.  There are lovely vending machines EVERYWHERE with various beverages, including coffee.  Lots of coffee.  The offerings are seasonal in that the Summer has cool coffee and the Winter has hot/warm coffee.  I think there's a temperature limit as the aluminum can would not tickle if it were, say, the temperature of the Seattle's Best Coffee that I spilled all over my hand the other day.  That was very hot and un-ticklish.

So, below I show you some of my various coffees over the last few days.  Seattle's Best is the hottest and not as bad as I remember.  That is not saying much since I've had some pretty horrific Seattle's Best in the past.  Next, there is blue can European, which has a touch of strong but is overall a tad sweet.  The ORIGINAL is very sweet.  The black European is my favorite- strong, chilled black coffee.  Finally, Emerald Mountain is somewhere between blue European and ORIGINAL in terms of sweetness.  I will upload a picture of the awesome coffee vending machine on the 5th floor of the hospital soon- I promise!

Next, my office which is where all the magic happens.  I can pretty much guarantee that this will be the nicest office of my career.  Amenities include a 5th floor, window with water view, my own bathroom(with a shower!!) and nice furniture/lots of space.  This could seriously serve as an apartment if I just ponied up the cash for a hot plate- which I might!

Welcome!   Please come in.  The bathroom is on your left!

My desk.  Clean-ish.

The view, I kid you not.

Work has been going pretty well.  This was my first week of clinic.  Exciting!  I booked a few surgeries out of clinic, which is also great.  

 My schedule is in a lot of flux over the next few weeks.  Next week, I go to the mandatory base orientation M-F.  Friday is the Japanese auto license day which is exciting since I bought a car this week from Mr. Auto.  Unfortunately, I need a car since I'm living in Ikego and I need wheels for middle-of-the-night calls during my call weeks on.  Fortunately, I got a good deal on a small, functional car which SMS cruelly pointed out is probably in a lot better shape than Bluey was.  Although this is cruel, it's true.   For one, there are no double cracks in the windshield.  

So, yes.  I have a car and no license so clearly that situation has to change.  The whole car-buying thing was a little bit of an adventure.  First, I went off-base to meet him and was waiting for him rather impatiently.  Rather than storm off and write the whole thing off as shady, I called him and politely asked him if our meeting was still on.  It was.  He just thought we were meeting at 1:30 while I thought it was 1:00.   So, eventually he showed up.  Question for you: if there was a guy named "Mr. Auto" in Japan who targeted his used car market operation to military members overseas, what type of guy would you picture?  Would you picture a morbidly obese African-American?  Yeah, me neither.  But Louis was really nice and we test-drove the car together.  He told me about his venous insufficiency, Japan and the car.  Then the ride was done.  I liked the car and the price was really reasonable but I didn't just want to pay face value for a car.  Car buying = negotiating.  But I wanted to be clever about it.  So, I asked if he offered a military discount.  I am so hilarious.  I got a small amount knocked off the price.  I paid the deposit and I'll see him in a week once I have my license and I can register the car.  The guy's been around for awhile so there is some online reviews to vouch for him so overall, I feel pretty secure in the whole transaction working out.

So, anyway, back to my schedule.  After a week of orientation, I'll see clinic the next week but have Thursday and Friday off since the 20th is my boards.  Dun dun dun.  After the boards, I'll have fun on Saturday and then head out for a week of TDY to two Southern clinics near Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Then I'll come back, see 1.5 days of clinic and then maybe, just maybe, have an extended weekend trip to see SMS in San Diego!!!!

Three Day Weekend!

Things I have done this weekend.
1. Studied
2. Googled things that were OMGsoimportanttofindoutrightaway rather than do #1
3. Ate Indian food with the Cragins and Liz

Boring!  Almost as boring as a blog with no pictures so here are some assorted screen shots of things I looked up on the Internet.

Uniform shoes!  Of course!  Why not?  Please note the upper right corner where it states "Relevance."  Relevance to board studying?  LOW!

This is cool.  And a time suck

But don't worry, it wasn't just about shoes.  I did use Google for work.

Clearly, the bottom one is in case my aversion to studying becomes a full-on allergy. I also can't spell Pradaxa but that just shows I don't sell out to Big Pharm.