Yesterday I went to a volunteer luncheon at the Yachtclub for the hospital where I work in the ER. At first I didn't want to go, because I wouldn't know anyone there, and I would probably be the only non-senior citizen attending. However, I decided to have an attitude like that was snobbish, so I went. Dressed up, drove into town, walked into a big ballroom filled with senior citizens, none of whom I knew. Ha. It was actually a pretty good time. They had a gardening expert come in by the name of Paul Parent (Abby, he's based out of Southern Maine, do you know him?), and he motivated me to want to start my own garden. Here are some tidbits I learned:

• chicken manure is better than cow manure
• seaweed is good fertilizer for sandy soil
• if you have a flowering tree like a dogwood or cherry that isn't flowering, go take out your hammer and hit it on the trunk about 16 inches up from the ground. This stresses it out, because I guess if it isn't flowering, it was becoming to lazy
• hydrangeas change color based on the acidity of the soil
• if you have acidic soil, wood ashes from a fire are great for the plants
• you should plant tomatoes 12-18 inches apart
• blueberries like acidic soil
• it's possible to grow square tomatoes
• peppermint is an invasive plant
• if you plant lemon thyme in between the rocks in your walkway, everytime someone steps on it, they will release a fresh lemony scent
• If there is a water ban in your town, go buy this product which is basically what is used inside of diapers, and it will hold the water in and cut your watering down by 50%

That's all I can think of right now, I didn't have anything to write the stuff down with. Most of the other stuff was a little too complicated for me. I did get a packet of giant Zinnias to plant...I just don't know where they are going to go.

After the luncheon, I hurried on over to spend all of 20 minutes in the ER. Now with all this stuff going around about H1N1 (swine flu), I haven't really given it much thought because it hasn't come anywhere close to where I am. I have paid attention to it almost as much as I paid attention to the bird flu a couple year ago. Well, as soon as I walked into the waiting area, I saw an advisory sign, and anyone in the ED that had anything remotely resembling flu like symptoms was wearing a mask. That's when it hit me that this is a little more serious than what I have been treating it as, although I still don't think it is as serious as a lot of people are making it out to be. Just to reiterate some basics: you can't get it from eating pork (that's why they are now calling it H1N1, because the pork industry has taken a huge hit), wash your hands, and if you are sick, stay home.

I wonder how this will affect flu vaccinations for next year, if there is an increase at all.

Today I went and visited my friend who had a knee replacement earlier this week, and talked to her doc a little bit. He found out my career aspirations, and was like "GREAT! DON'T BECOME A PHYSICIAN. YOU GET SUCKED INTO THE HOSPITAL TOO MUCH. YOU MAKE ALL THIS MONEY BUT NEVER GET TO ENJOY IT, SO IT'S NOT EVEN WORTH IT." His reaction was just kinda funny.

Also, I don't know if I have mentioned this yet, but there are some great podcasts on itunes that I have been listening to. The Medpod 101 and the Medical Spanish ones are great for sticking on the shuffle.

I'm all done with Medical Spanish, I got ahead with everything and finished about two weeks early. I'll have a lot more time freed up for the GRE.

Speaking of the GRE, I definitely had a dream last night where I overheard some people pondering the definition of "desultory," and I definitely kept on hollering "jumping from one thing to another, disconnected!" but they wouldn't listen to me.

Vocab is going unbelieveably well. My goal is to have everything finished by tomorrow, then spend the next week doing the huge book of practice questions I got from the library, and then spend the next week taking practice GREs before my test that Thursday.

---->I literally just opened my mail as I was typing this, and the GRE people sent me a test prep cd, which I had no idea they were going to do. Awesome!<----