30 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself. #10 Is An Absolute Must.

Good reminder.  Including not to worry about everything "will it matter in one year?"
http://www.lifebuzz.com/just-stop/

Myers Briggs: INTJ

INTJ

Introvert(22%)  iNtuitive(25%)  Thinking(12%)  Judging(33%)
http://www.humanmetrics.com/hr/JTypesResult.aspx?EI=-22&SN=-25&TF=12&JP=33

Wikipedia:

"Hallmarks of the INTJ include independence of thought and a desire for efficiency. They work best when given autonomy and creative freedom. They harbor an innate desire to express themselves by conceptualizing their own intellectual designs. They have a talent for analyzing and formulating complex theories. INTJs are generally well-suited for occupations within academia, research, consulting, management, science, engineering, and law. They are often acutely aware of their own knowledge and abilities—as well as their limitations and what they don't know (a quality that tends to distinguish them from INTPs). INTJs thus develop a strong confidence in their ability and talents, making them natural leaders."


But then, when I took another test the next day, I got ENFJ....what??? I guess my percentages for I and T are pretty low, so I could probably waver either way.

Extroverted 3%, Intuitive 35%, Feeling 8 %, Judging 11%

Apparently I'm assertive 28%, which I totally don't agree with, because I don't feel assertive at all. Hm, maybe I passively aggressively am assertive?

"ENFJs are natural-born leaders, full of passion and charisma. Forming around two percent of the population, they are oftentimes our politicians, our coaches and our teachers, reaching out and inspiring others to achieve and to do good in the world. With a natural confidence that begets influence, ENFJs take a great deal of pride and joy in guiding others to work together to improve themselves and their community."

Overall, I agree with INTJ more, except for maybe the altruism, tolerant, reliable, belief that everyone is good-natured, being indecisive, and secretly vulnerable to criticism (the strengths and weaknesses of ENFJ).  I dont' feel like I'm a natural leader, but it does say they ENFJ doesn't seek to dominate or direct people but attract by charisma.  I don't think I'm particularly charismatic, but maybe I do get along with people easily - although not to the extent of the description of an ENFJ.  The "skilled imitator" strength of an ENFJ is very interesting, but I'm not sure if I fit that description.

http://www.16personalities.com/enfj-personality 

How I Met Your Mother

It's funny this is what I get: Robin Scherbatsky (I can't even spell her name)

34 Clever Things Parents Can Do

http://distractify.com/fun/parenting-hacks-to-make-life-with-kids-easier/

Clever indeed, thanks ML

Romans challenge

"If you preach, just preach God's Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don't take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don't get bossy; if you're put in charge, don't manipulate; if you're called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don't let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face. Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle. Don't burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don't quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality" (Romans 12:6-13, MSG).

Science of cookies

How awesome is this? Science and cookies combined! Shows how tweaking different ingredients changes the common chocolate chip cookie:
http://www.handletheheat.com/2013/07/the-ultimate-guide-to-chocolate-chip-cookies.html

PATB #5

Parents are the Best #5:

Dad's first email:
Guess what is 795 for your brother?

Me:

How many push ups he can do!

His SAT score! 

How many pizzas he ate in one day!

How many inches he jumped!

His credit score!

how many books he read in his life time!

Dad's reply:

Sounds like Jeopardy.  Actually #795 is Alex’s locker number in his middle school.  Today is his first day in middle school officially!  He needs to get up early, cook and take bus by himself.  Mom and I thought he will eat microwaveable food, surprisingly he made fried eggs this morning!

He had a tennis try-out today also.  He told us about his first day in the school and was very proud of himself for out-playing his teammate-to-be (you know his confidence face) and 120% sure that he will be no 1 in his team.

Love

Dad

Roger Fed the Man

Wow, a friend shared this - didn't realize how awesome Roger Federer is!

http://mashable.com/2013/08/01/roger-federer-fan-wish/

Thanks LC!

Funny Intern Moment #1

Funny intern moment #1 (from MNZ):

I'm checking up on a patient last night around 2am, and I find her sitting in her wheelchair in the dark.  We chat, and I ask her how she's doing.  Fine she replies.  Ok well are you sleeping ok?  Yes, I'm sleeping real good, doc.  Ok so then why are you sitting up in the middle of the night rather than lying in your bed?  Because I'm going to the bathroom doc.  I look down and realize her wheelchair is actually a commode.  Ooops, haha.  Good times.

Bruges food

Traditional beef stew in beer...yuuuuum

Yi

Tiwai Island

Tiwai means "Big Island," and it's the largest inland island in Sierra Leone.  It's a natural forest reserve, so it's meant for white people, so it's super expensive (relatively - $20/night).  There are these platforms with a roof where they set up tents for you with mattresses in side and there are solar lights at night with running water/bucket showers, so it's pretty cush camping.  

The island itself is surrounded by the Mao River. Here's a funny convo about it:

Guide: "Do you know what Mao means?"

Us: "No..."

Guide: "It means women"

Us: "Why?"

Guide: "Because it is dangerous"

Haha, anyways, the main activities include guided hikes in the forest to look at animals, canoeing/boating, and hanging out on the beach.  Since it's the dry season, the water was super low, and it was really nice to be able to swim from one bank to another or relax on the sand.  I think I have a hard time relaxing because while others were laying down, reading a book, or doing something that requires zero energy, I was jumping from rock to rock and swimming from bank to bank.  

The guided hike was pretty cool.  We saw red colobus monkeys, black and white colobus monkeys, diana monkeys, tracks of duikers and chimpanzees, saw hornbill birds who have the weirdes calls (like a low rumble) heard some kind of hog, and saw glimpses of chimpanzees.  The chimpanzee tracking was a lot of fun - we went off the trail deep into the forest and had to be super quite, although I'm pretty sure any chimp would have heard us from miles away.  It was pretty amazing to be standing there and hear them yell at each other.  It seemed like they were so close, but by the time we moved 100 ft closer, they've already gone 1 km away.  I'm not even sure if I saw any chimpanzees because they were so far away and I just saw some black blobs.  

They served us breakfast and dinner too, so it was a major relaxation trip. 

Dinner - Le15,000

Breakfast - Le10,000 (totally overpriced for what we got).  

Guided tour $4 (Le20,000/person)

Canoe Le10,000/person

Trouble with Transportation

Transportation is such a PAIN IN THE BUTT!

The other day it was such a hassle getting someone referred/transported to another medical center...

The person came in with diabetic ketoacidosis coma, and so we put him on a drip, and i only had 2 blood sugar tests (b/c the dr. didn't give me his test strips before he left).  If it were type 2 diabetes, he'll be ok with some normal saline drip and oral medicine, but then he went into coma again.   He would need insulin if he's type 1 diabetes, and we don't have that.  To add more anxiety, he started getting rigors and high fever, but we don't have blood tests for that. Also the fever messed with his blood sugar, which I couldn't test. Sighs. So I decided he needed to be transferred on Sunday night...

And then it took ALL day on Monday to get him transported to Kenema - 1hr drive.

Since the morning I had said he needed transport, but his relatives took forever to come to help him get transport

and it was his luck that the hospital's only ambulance got totaled last week.  When his relatives finally came, it took FOREVER to get someone with a vehicle who'd be willing to take them.  Then I found out they were waiting for the driver to get some other passengers who want to go to Kenema to decrease the cost. Seriously, this guy is in a coma and rigors and fever of 41C and you want to wait for other passengers??? 

The driver's phone also failed to work, so that significantly slowed down the process b/c the brother had to keep on going down to town to negotiate and find out what's the delay.  Then there was no fuel in Segbwema. In ALL of this town, there was no fuel. Seriously?  So the brother had to go to the next town 7 miles away to get fuel. ...and then the driver said he had to fix the car's tire. Dude, you had the whole day, and you finally decide to do it now? This is what happens in Sierra Leone. There's always something else, some other problem.

They finally got to Kenema at around 9p? 10p?  At least it's a happy ending and the man got treated in time.

Hospitality and Visiting

I thought I was gonna be super lonely, but I've actually been pretty busy trying to visit people.  I don't really quite understand the culture...  It almost seems like it's an honor to the host for you to visit them.  Because I would go visit someone, and then someone else would say, "Hey!  How come you haven't visited me for 2 days? Do you have a new girlfriend???"  And when I visit, they always feed me, and would almost get upset if I don't eat with them.  It's strange.  So I've been pretty much having dinner with people everyday.  And I feel bad for just eating their food, so I've been cooking with them and bringing some supplies/fruit, etc.  But still...it's weird they seem so eager for me to eat with them.  I really hope they're not hoping I will give some huge donation when I leave.  That's the thing with Sierra Leone...it's hard to know if people are truly your friends or if they just want something from you.  But maybe I'm just cynical...maybe the smaller towns aren't like that.  Anyhow, now I have 3 places I visit pretty much now.  One is the under-5 nurse who used to cook for me, but now I just eat with her family when I go.  Another is this hostel of student nurses, and another is one of the smarter 1st year student nurses who speaks English pretty well and is super talkative.  One of the hostel student nurses is a lot older, and she's kind of a pseudo-mom to me now. Haha.  When I get upset, she listens to me complain. Haha.  

Match Day/B-day

When I was just about to find out where I match, my electricity ran out at 5p (1p eastern time), so I had to wait till 7:30p when the electricity went back on.  Those were two of the most anxious hours ever!

Result: Baylor Global Health in Houston!  

I was pretty surprised, and had an ambivalent reaction.  1) Couldn't believe I got into Baylor global health track 2) I was sad I wasn't going to be with KP's family in nice weather Cali and west coast w/my family 3) I wasn't sure how I'd like my new humongous Texan residency class.  4) I wasn't sure I'd like the 1 year abroad anymore because I had kind of a crappy day:

Present I got for my b-day (bad day): 

1) Newborn last night died this morning despite being on ampicillin.  Didn't cry when born, was blue for a long time. 

2) Heart failure patient died because I didn't go see him the day before (I was super sleepy and only looked at his chart, failed to do physical exam on him), so I didn't see that he had gotten more fluid overloaded and needed an increase in lasix or some other heart medicine.  And nobody felt like it was important to tell me that he was getting more swollen or had more difficulty breathing.  Darn it.

3) A lady w/high temperature started having convulsions, also heart went into some sort of arrhythmia/irregular pattern, and she ended up almost dying but got steroid and heart became normal again.  Her family, though, gave up on her, and decided to take her home.  But what was really sad was I hadn't made a strong stand to keep her in the hospital and give a strong enough hope that she would survive.  I didn't realize they were taking her home to prepare for her funeral.  One of the daughters was a nurse, and I thought she had her best interest in mind, but later, a student nurse told me she wanted the mother to die, and had told all the relatives on the phone that her mom had already died.  Sighs....why don't people tell me these things before it's too late????  Now it feels like I sent her off to her death bed.  Ugh.

4) A patient with severely high blood pressure ended up having a stroke 2 days later, I find she's still paralyzed.  Sighs...not a TIA (like a mini/temporary stroke).  And I think I had been distracted/trying to bag mask a kid when they told me she was having stroke-like symptoms...and so I said, ok, aspirin.  And forgot that a white doctor had brought in some thrombolytics a month ago.  Darn it...I need to pay more attention when people come to get me and tell me things.  Darn it.  

So yeah, those were my bad-day presents...

ODE to E

Haha, this totally made my day (Thanks friends for your amazing artistic/creative skills! Lol!):

Oh E, oh E

Every time I think of you
I crave candy

Because I want to eat you?
You're pretty sweet, I guess.
Never sour!
Like those awful Warheads that you strangely like.

Oh E, oh E

Every time I think of you
I want to dance.

Makes me feel like I have termites in my pants.

Thank heavens not!

But mice we had. A dozen mice! They all had names!
In our room, room 301

Oh Roommie, Oh Roommie
Every time I think of you
I laugh and smile.

Life throws its worst and all the while,
you've always been the best kind of friend
to share our lives with till the end [o_O]!

To think how different out lives would be,
if we had not met the one and only E.

For making this adventure brighter, whiter

Yummy-er, funnier

We thank you.

Happy birthday E!