I have the great fortune of having a preceptor who went through the terror that is trying to find a residency. As my first interview is on Monday, he let me leave early today.
I made great use of my extra time by, er, taking a nap and then dinking around on the internet. All in the name of reaching that zen-like state of not being nervous on the interview! And in attempt to stave off the cold I can feel starting.
In my internet meanderings, I found this:
I've heard of photo a days before, but never managed to get the timing right. This seems auspicious. I'm going to give it a shot, I think. I'm a pretty awful photographer, but I've got to learn something if I have to take a picture every day, right?
Why dinner parties are awesome and not at all stuffy and lame.
When I moved from dorms to an actual apartment, I discovered that I quite like cooking. I gathered old, rejected cookbooks that belonged to my mother and started my process of learning how to really cook - mostly by opening the book to a random page and making whatever I landed on. Through this process I discovered a few things.
First, lemon is my nemesis. Second, I should not be allowed to use a broiler. Third, cooking is made even more enjoyable by doing it for other people. I'd create chocolate souffles, and strawberry cheesecakes, oreos, and all manner of delightful snacks and pawn them off to the people at work.
I then moved on to food themed parties. Pi Day was my most successful, followed closely by an evening of Mexican Food and Sherlock Holmes. Why Mexican? British food is kind of nasty. Call me biased, but mistaking blood pudding for chocolate pudding (served at breakfast, no less) when I was in England tainted my opinion forever. Getting a mouthful of congealed blood when my tastebuds were expecting the heaven that is chocolate pudding ranks near the top of my worst food moments list.
When I was back in Idaho for that fabulous research rotation, I discovered that my mother had found these two books.
They're freaking fantastic, and I order you to all go out and purchase them immediately. You can do so here and here.
Armed with these, I have embarked on a dinner party frenzy. The book Small Parties has meal plans for themed parties. Small Plates is a collection of individual dishes I pick and choose from to form the greatest menus imaginable. Every recipe I've made out of these books has been unbelievably delicious.
Chicken Piccata Brochettes, Molten Chocolate Lava Cakes, Prosciutto and Cheese Turnovers - the list is endless. And, now that I have a group of friends in Reno, I've got a ready made set of people to dinner party it up with.
It's fantastic.
I unfortunately have a tendency to not consider taking pictures of my culinary masterpieces until they've already been devoured, and the few I managed to snap during the last dinner party (which was mostly desserts) didn't save to my camera. So I don't have photographic proof of the wonders of dinner parties.
I am, however, planning another one to take place very soon. Expect a blog of nothing but pictures.
I may have put this blogpost off until, oh, 11:15, because I was scrambling for a topic that wouldn't totally embarrass me. So I won't be detailing here exactly what happened when I played Fatal Frame alone in the dark a few nights ago.
Instead, I'm going to give you guys the rundown on applying for residencies! Or, what I'm planning on doing for the next two years in attempt to get a better background for the time when I'm solely responsible for people's lives.
I want to be an infectious disease pharmacist. To do this, I have to do two additional years of training after I graduate. One year of an intensive pharmacy practice residency - basically a more advanced version of this last year of rotations; one year of intensive infectious disease work.
I'm working on applying to a bunch of places across the country right now, and it's been simultaneously the most demoralizing and exciting experience I've yet had. You see, when applying to pharmacy school, I had one option (due to an ill-fated run in with a poisoned chicken salad sandwich the night before I took the PCATS). I didn't have the anxiety of having to choose between programs, or the fear of not getting in. Or the soul-crushing experience of rejection letters.
Now, I've applied to nine places. One of my top choices turned me down before I even got to interview. Another one did the same (in a hilarious two-sentence form e-mail that didn't even include my name). Four places have given me interviews so far, and I'm waiting to hear back from three more. The fact that there's no way I'll be living in Seattle next year is pretty well countered by the awesome point that the first interview I scheduled was my top choice. I may have spent an hour running around the apartment yelling when I got the e-mail, before calling everybody I know and generally freaking out.
These interviews typically take hours. I'll have to impress the current residents, the residency director, a host of pharmacists and preceptors with my ability to answer questions and whatever clinical stuff they want to throw at me. I'll have to give presentations, analyze journal articles, and solve case reports.
I go on my first interview in less than a week. It's in Ohio. Weather permitting, I'll get there on time (at this point my biggest concern) and then I'll proceed to destroy all of my jitters by blowing the interview out of the water.
Remember Jaws? It'll be like that.
Except maybe with less raining of sharky bits.
