Happy Holidays and 2014!

Last winter break, the whole fam was in Beijing so we spent Christmas at our grandparents house and NYE in our pajamas watching Downton Abbey. This year, my only request was that we not go anywhere and just stay at home -- and it was all I could ask for. I was able to sleep in until 8 or 9 most days (depending on how ambitious I was feeling), eat some of my favorite foods, spend an obscene amount of time plopped in front of the TV, and catch up with lots of my friends (some of whom I only get to see once a year). 

For Christmas this year, we had our big dinner of hot pot on Christmas eve, took Charlie on a long cold walk, and then opened presents! The next morning, we abided by the cliche and headed out to the movie theater with all the other Asians and Jews to see The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. It was a good family movie, but not much more substance than what was in the trailers, so I wouldn't really recommend it. 

Christmas 2013: various shots to get Charlie's good side

Our NYE party is our biggest family tradition every year. It was especially memorable his year because we skipped it last year and hadn't seen some of our family friends for 2-3 years, the length of their kid's entire college experience. Before I knew it, kids that I had last seen when they were seniors in high school or just starting college were now seniors in college and accepting offers for their first jobs! Oh how fast we've grown up, especially since I've known them for over 15 years. My parents go all out by cooking their most impressive dishes (bao zi, roast duck, shui zhu fish), we stuff our faces for multiple rounds, then play games and watch movies in the basement (yesterday it was Stardust). I've never really had the quintessential party and freeze your butt off NYE that all my friends have seemed to have because I've always been at my family's New Year's party, and I don't regret it at all. I have the people I care about most around me every NYE and I couldn't ask for more. Cheers to a relaxing winter break, family traditions, and to an even better New Year!

NYE 2013

 The kids table, all grown up!

 Charlie had to sneak in there

Annual Thanksgiving photoshoot

With Christmas coming up in 3 days, I'm a bad blogger and am a month overdue in uploading pictures, but here are some of my favorite snaps from Thanksgiving. I'll aim to get Christmas pictures up, oh sometime before Valentine's Day. This year's theme: taking Charlie and his friend Lucky out for a walk!

Doctor

Warning: humblebrag post.

I've been lucky on my medicine service to have really grateful patients. You get so used to hearing the stories of the drug-addicted, narcotic seeking, alcoholic patients who threaten to leave AMA and can't wait to bust out of the hospital, but I've been lucky enough to have the mostly really kind, patient patients who take the time to know my name, ask me questions, always say thank you. Even the grumpy ones turn around in the end (One patient who would always give me one word answers in the two weeks I was following her, was sobbing when we discharged her because she was so happy that I rescued her daughter's picture from a fire!). It won't last, so I should just revel in this naivety for the time being, but I've also starting feeling like my patients have started thinking of me as "their doctor." Sometimes I don't bother to correct them when they refer to me as a doctor because to them, it doesn't really matter.

Today, I was so flattered when one of a patient's daughter's asked for me, by name, to talk to me about her father's condition. Another patient's daughter, of a 92 year old lady who was bleeding internally and had to receive 16 units of blood (she's stable now), always seeks me out to ask me about how her mother's doing and asks for my recommendations. She asks me questions like I'm her mother's doctor. In the beginning of the school year, I was also intimidated by a lot of the nurses, but now I'm much more comfortable talking to them and asking them to do things for me (get vitals, give meds, etc) and they update me and ask me questions about the patients too. As a medical student, it's not often (or sometimes never) you get to assume full responsibility for a patient, so it was just flattering to be recognized for it today, for the first time by having a family member want to talk to me. I'm on my way!