Yikes. I am tired. I've gotten 20-some interviews, accepted something like 16 of them. This will be rather pricey. For most people, the typical interview goes like this: fly in the night before, go out to dinner with the residents, get a hotel, interview the next day, fly out. If you figure on renting a car, that can run about $500 an interview. Luckily, I am cramming them in all sorts of ways, and driving to as many as I can. And I probably won't even go to 15. Anyway. Lots of planning and organizing, which I am terribl at.

There was a bunch of stuff I meant to post recently, but... this is a super busy time so I haven't. The Peds ER is completely and utterly insane. I definitely don't want to work in one later, and probably don't even want to have kids. It turns reasonable people into monsters. Ah well, sleepy time.

Yay I have 6 residency interviews, 2 for programs I really really want. Wuhoo. :-)

I broke upwith Alex. This is going to be awkward in terms of the moving out. But my self esteem just couldn't stomach it anymore. Ah well.

Wuhoo! I have 3 residency interviews so far. I may just end up with a job after all.

Also, a thought on the McCain/Palin situation. If McCain dumps her, as it seems he is gearing up to do (and of course, it won't look quite that crass), and Guilliani steps in and there is such a sigh of relief from the Right that a bunch of middle-types swing back over, I will be super super pissed.

I can't resist posting one jab at Sarah: in part of the Couric interview they talk about how she joked about how old Biden is, and how he has the experience but America wants change. So, just to review, first McCain's argument was that Obama lacks experience, which is what Americans want, then he shot that argument by picking Sarah, and now she is saying that the Obama/Biden ticket has experience, but that nobody wants that. That's awesome.

Alex and I have turned into roommates who hook up. Lately it has been quite obvious that we have very few common interests; this weekend we didn't do anything together. We talk about weekend plans as "hey, what are you doing?" "oh, x,y,z, what about you?" I sometimes make the effort to do stuff he wants to do, but it is rarely reciprocated, and usually just makes me feel bored and vaguely used. We talked about breaking up this week, but I neither of us is quite ready to hit the dating market again yet. (Not to mention the added pain in the ass of separating an apartmentful of stuff.) Anyway, this sucks. Some internal clock finally hit "Time to get married and have babies!" and so the thought of starting over again is quite unpleasant. But. I have been here before... the right thing to do is admit he's the wrong guy and move on.

This is a perfect Fall weekend. I've always despised Fall (because growing up it signaled the end of Fun and the beginning of long Minnesota Winter), but this year is great. Yesterday I went to the local Farmer's market and got an armload of fresh basil and other yummy stuff. Last night I went to Oktoberfest, which was awesome. They were selling beer in those 1/2 gallon jugs you get apple cider in, there was a huge rowdy crowd, and I met some good people. Today I'm going apple picking and then I'm going to make apple crisp, which is definitely one of the better foods ever. And now I am listening to my current favorite songs, Star Mile by Joshua Radin, and Each Coming Night by Iron&Wine. Check it out. Yay!

Ok, Palin is a woman, wuhoo, so exciting... but oh my god, I have never heard of a more anti-feminist woman in my life. There are dozens of things I could mention; how she tried to ban books from her local library, the way she continues to tell bald-faced lies about seeking earmarks, that she is anti-choice, even for rape victims... but by far the most outrageous thing I've learned about Sarah Palin is this:

While she was mayor of Wasilla, she charged rape victims $500-$1200 for the medical exams required to gather forensic evidence. REALLY??? Holy fuck. That is so awful. Any woman who could know that and still vote for her should be punched in the face. She called it an "unnecessary burden on taxpayers" to have to pay for the exams, which, in the state with the highest per capita number of rapes (79/100,000) I guess amounts to a substantial amount of money. Couldn't she just use some of the $250,000,000 she kept for a bridge that she never built to pay for the tests? That is beyond sick.

Full story here:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-09-10-rape-exams_N.htm

Residency apps are in! (Bye money!) Wuhoo. That took WAY more time than I thought it would. Now I have to take the boards (Step 2) a week from today, and then I am back on track with life in general. Interviews happen in November, and the Match happens in March. Lots of time for stomach to be in knots before a computer decides where I spend the next 3 years of my life.

This is what I hate about the religious right-wing: they are the biggest hypocrites EVER. My sister's in-laws are so far right that I try not to talk about politics with them at all, but my mom likes to--I dunno--poke sleeping bears, and then tell me about it. So this is my sister's in-laws' take on Palin's knocked up kid: "everyone occasionally has family troubles; they are doing the right thing by keeping the baby and getting married." You *know* that if someone in the Democratic party had a knocked up teenager, they would be all over that shit, and label that person as morally unfit to be a leader. I hate that. Democrats, for the love of god, fight dirty for once. I hate that the Republicans seem to be 100% better at exploiting weaknesses in the other party than the Dems. I so so so hope that America doesn't fall for that bullshit again.

Am now on "vacation" month, which I am using to (a) study for/take step 2 of the boards, (b) finish a research project/write paper, (c) apply for residency and (d) go home for a week. Not too much of a vacation really, but if it somehow all miraculously gets done I will be incredibly happy.