GamecockDoc

Ack! It's December!

Like so many others, December really snuck up on me. I can't believe the year is almost over. My internship is almost half over... in seven months I'll be expected to teach and supervise interns and medical students. There's no way I'll be ready for that since I can still barely take care of myself on the wards. And in just one month I won't have to have an attending see all of my patients in clinic. For the first six months of residency I have to precept all my clinic patients with an attending - tell them why the patient came in, what I think is wrong, and what I plan to do about it. Then they tell me what's right and wrong about my plan and go see the patient briefly with me. Starting in January I don't have to do that anymore. So if I feel comfortable with a patient, I can just make a plan and send him home. I'm still coming to terms with patients actually thinking of me as their doctor; not having immediate backup scares me.

The other scary thing about December it that I have less than a month to finish my Christmas knitting. This is a disaster of epic proportions. My mother's scarf is only half done. I'm knitting it in two pieces and will graft it together; that way the pretty curly edges will match. My major concern is length... I did 45 pattern repeats and got a piece 25 inches long. This is half of my yarn so I stopped, but I'm worried about the final length. My mom is little - only 5 ft tall - so I don't need a giant scarf, but 50 inches is definitely not long enough. Being lace I'm sure this will grow with blocking, but I've never knitted lace before so I have no idea how much. Any experienced knitters out there who can make some predictions?


Then there are my father's socks. "But Gina," you say, "that's not a sock. That's just a skein of yarn with no actual knitting." Yeah, I know. I started, got through the ribbing, and frogged. Now I have nothing. Two socks, 12 inch long feet, 23 days... yeah, that'll happen.


To make the Christmas knitting frenzy worse, I have to put it on hold. I have knitting for two swap to finish. My Handmade Christmas Gift Swap project isn't done yet. My partner generously gave me an extension, but I really need to finish it this weekend. And then there's the International Scarf Exchange. I mailed my scarf over a month ago but it hasn't arrived. And while it was going cross country there's no way it should take this long. I think I can safely say that the USPS has lost my ISE package, so now I'm frantically knitting a replacement. Of course me being me means I've already screwed up a couple times and started over once, so this is all I've got. This must also be done very soon, like this week soon, so my poor pal doesn't get stuck without a new winter scarf.


To add more trouble, I start my CCU (cardiac ICU) rotation tomorrow. That means 12 hour days, q 4 overnight call, no weekends. In fact, I only have 1 day off between now and my Christmas vacation, and I board a plane for home immediately after signing out post-call on my last day. This could seriously be a disaster. I think it's time to buy back-up gifts.

On a lighter note, it's my one year knit anniversary. One year ago I was driving up and down the east coast on interviews with a skein of Red Heart, some aluminum needles, and a copy of Stitch and Bitch teaching myself how to knit in hotel rooms. And here I am a year later completely obsessed with knitting and with a growing stash of yarn. So in honor of the occasion, a little contest. It's the "guess how much yarn I've accumulated in the past year" contest. I haven't actually counted it all up yet so I can't give a good clue, but it's outgrown the wicker laundry basket it was originally housed in. I blame the close proximity of Webs for my stash; I have no self control. Leave a comment with your guess and I'll post the winner next weekend. You have till December 8. The winner will receive an as yet to be determined selection of yarn from my stash.

I leave you with today's Saturday sky.

posted by GamecockDoc @ 10:42 AM