The less-dense Listserve emails are always my favorite, so I’m going to emulate those. I also love the food and book recommendations, so you get a little of that, as well.
First, a snapshot of my life: Like for many of you, the “You've won The Listserve!” email came at a difficult time for me. I’m a new physician slogging through intern year in internal medicine, which has been more draining than I could have imagined. I was never one of those people who knew that she wanted to be a doctor since age 5 (I decided to go into medicine during my last year of college) but I never had second thoughts about it until the past few months. Here’s hoping that changes. I was recently diagnosed with (a fortunately very curable type of) cancer, and having seen what goes on in operating rooms has left me very nervous about my upcoming surgery. On top of that, I just ended a significant relationship of 4 years with someone whom I love very much. Sometimes you just really really really want John Lennon to be right, but alas.
And now for a favorite quote: "What keeps you going isn't some fine destination but just the road you're on, and the fact that you know how to drive."
-Barbara Kingsolver, from Animal Dreams
And some recommendations off the top of my head:
Life-changing (or just awesome) books:
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Once and Future King by T.H. White
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (okay so definitely not life-changing, but I just finished it and absolutely loved it)
Delicious delicious food places:
La Cabaña in Venice, CA
The Nom Nom Truck, around Los Angeles
Glazed and Infused in Chicago
Más in Charlottesville, VA
Chandler’s Deli in Knoxville, TN
And beer, wonderful beer:
Breckenridge 471 IPA
Victory Storm King
Dogfish Head Raison D'Etre
And finally, a poem I wrote for a friend who died too young:
you were not in that box.
i felt the flames and saw the heat
shimmer away
out of that pipe and into the sky,
but you weren’t there.
you were in the tears and the laughter and the stories,
you were in the breeze and the sun
beaming down through the clouds.
you were in the hearts of your family and of us, your friends.
you were.
you are.
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I am not the best email-responder, but tips for surviving intern year (and residency in general), and for moving on, are always welcome.
Be well.
Nora
[email protected]
Washington, D.C.