I'm Home!!

I got back home almost two weeks ago! Things have been nonstop since I got here- we have been moving into the new house and unpacking everyday. It has been pretty exhausting. So far I am almost done with the boxes from Omaha that were in storage. Tomorrow more boxes from Korea get here and I get to start on those. I can't believe how much crap we own!

After not seeing Jordy for a few weeks I was really worried that he wouldn't know who I was. Thankfully, he remembered me right away and gave me a big hug and kiss. It was just the perfect homecoming!

My son the make out artist!

This is my beautiful boy hitting on this innocent little girl. Apparently mid make-out the tables turn, and she becomes aggressive and Jordy doesn't like clingy women! He makes a run for it!

Less than 2 weeks!

Less than two weeks left in Korea! Another one of the ER docs leaves in the morning...I am starting to feel abandoned here...only Travis is left!

Joe is getting everything all ready in our in the new house! He picked out new kitchen appliances today, and they will all be installed when we get there. Whoever designed the house picked out the ugliest appliances! Who would build a gorgeous house and then put ugly stuff in it??? Anyways, Joe has been running around picking out stuff.

I am so excited about the new house! It is 4 bedroom, 2.5 bth, 2 story, 2 car garage, 3000sq feet. Joe said that he thought it was too big for us, I explained that I want to fill the rooms with babies! He was a little afraid....

21 Days!!!

I am down to 21 days till I get to leave Korea! I am so excited!

Although I will be sad to leave all the really cool people I have met here, I can not wait to be back with my Joe and my Jordy!

Damn you Hulu!!

In case you don't know, Hulu.com is a wonderful website where you can watch tons of television shows online, commercial free! There are many call nights that I survived extreme boredom by watching hulu...

Once we moved to Korea and had limited television choices, I knew we would be covered by Hulu...but then my hopes and dreams were slashed when I tried to watch from here and I got a nasty message saying because my ISP was out of the US, I wasn't authorized to watch!

Step in my knight in shining armor, Joe. He figured out how to get a proxy server to allow me to once again watch my shows with wreckless abandon....

Then Hulu got smart. Damn those wiley bastards!

When I tried to bypass by using the proxy server, I now get a new error message- this one actually says "It seems you are using a proxy server..." Those bastards!

Step in my newest hero... Justin.tv This has all kinds of shows too. I love this site....check it out and see how I am surviving....

I love clean sheets

I love the feeling of getting into bed with a clean set of sheets! I did laundry today, and just now when I got into bed- perfection! The sheets are crisp and smell wonderful, plus they are a bit warm on my toes. Enjoy the simple things in life- at least that is what I am trying to focus on while I am missing Joe and Jordy so much!

Almost...

I have almost recovered from the plague- well actually just a cold, but it felt pretty awful.

This was the first time I have been sick since Joe went back to the states. It is hard to be sick and alone. Joe takes such good care of me when I am sick, and it was hard to do it all myself! I hate to admit it, but I ordered in a lot of food...

Joe is doing good in Florida- he found us a house and should be able to move into it in 30 days- after closing. The house is gorgeous! It is really big though, and I imagine that it will look like a big warehouse for a while until we can afford to fill it with furniture!

I miss my Jordykins! Joe sends me lots of videos of him. This is one of my favorites of Jordan playing with Joe's little brother, Josiah.

Seoul Tower

Yesterday I had a fun day of shopping in Seoul and went to the Seoul tower.

Goodbye Pictures!

Last night we had our going away party at work. All my friends from residency will be leaving... Trent is off to Italy, Eric back to Omaha, Travis going all the way upstairs to primary care, Sarlay back to Ohio....

Here is our group pictures with our plaques:

This is the before picture...

and this is after a lot of photoshopping.

Goodbye...

Four years ago, I arrived in Omaha Nebraska to start my residency. On day one I met my fellow interns, and if first impressions were correct, it would have been a long three years.

Eric Grajkowski seemed quiet and shy...but I could tell he was smart.

Travis Stephensen seemed a little OCD, taking notes on everything anyone said, asking million of questions. Honestly I nearly killed him due to excessive question asking.

After day one of residency I thought everyone was pretty tolerable...then the next day Trent Elliott arrived. He was loud, cocky, arrogant, and quite honestly I wanted to avoid him as much as possible.

Thank God first impressions aren't always right. Dr. Grajkowski has the greatest sense of humor, with a razor sharp wit. There has been many times when his humorous take on things have kept me from losing my mind. We had a great month working our asses off delivering babies. Then at the end of that month I had the greatest honor being in the OR when his son Elijah was delivered. It was an incredible thing to be at his 3rd birthday party last May.

Dr. Stephensen's OCD nature has inspired me to do my homework and be a more detail oriented person. He has one the greatest minds- always wanting to learn more... I love our philosophical talks about life.

Then there is Dr. Elliott. He annoyed me to no end, but has turned out to be one hell of a guy. He is so kind. Anytime I have needed a favor, a friend to listen to me, anything he is there... Plus has been there for my family. Watching over us and making sure we made it though some tough times. I can never thank him enough for all he has done.

Speaking of families, it has been incredible getting to know Eric's, Travis's, and Trent's families. It was always so funny to hear the wive's take on you guy's!

I didn't have brothers growing up, but now I have three. Moving to Korea was a lot less scary because I knew I would have three smiling faces to meet me there. Now that we are all parting ways, it kills me.

The four of us have travelled an incredible road together; from insecure interns, to full fledged staff doctors. We have comforted each other through the hard times, stuck our brains together for the tough cases, encouraged each other when we just couldn't do it one more day, and appreciated each others effort- no matter how ill guided it may have been.

Every great era must come to an end, and so this is our end. The Offia must part ways.

I just want each of you to know how much you are appreciated in my life, how much I will miss each one of you.

New Blog

http://katsyear.blogspot.com/

This is the blog where I will post all my daily pics...Enjoy (or not....)

PT test

After finishing my PT test:
-Sit ups: 48
-Push ups: 25
-1.5 mile run: 13:30

What a night...

Last night was a crazy night...

It figures on the nights that I bring all kinds of fun stuff to do, all the drunks of Korea decide to go out in masses...

As soon as I finished working out, and had showered (thank goodness), we got a 911 call that there was a drunk guy who tried to jump out a second story window. The security forces were able to tackle him to the ground and stop him...otherwise my work would have been much more involved.

Once the medics arrived on scene to get the jumper, there was another patient having a difficulty breathing. They took her back instead. So while I was trying to figure out suffocating girl, jumper showed up...

Once they were all stabilized and I finally sat down to my DVDs of Grey's Anatomy (thanks for the loner Katie), we got another call. The next patient was a female who was out with her husband. Apparently there was a fight, long story short, he punched her in the face. She was hysterical as you can imagine. She had a blood alcohol 3x the legal limit. Once she was sobered up a bit, she admitted to me that he does this regularly. But since she loves him and all that B.S. she won't say a thing...

It is easy to judge a woman like that, but it wasn't that long ago I was in that same situation...okay so it was a long time ago- over 14 years. I thought that he was the one, but really he was just an idiot. After every time things got out of hand, he swore it was the last time- and stupidly I believed it.

So publicly I would like to thank that idiot from High School- you taught me more than anyone else about life. People will lie to your face, take advantage of you, and take what they want. Nobody will stand up for you. You have to do it yourself. That retard showed me that you have to teach people how to treat you. If you allow it to happen, it will.

The other night at work, one of the techs was looking at a picture of my residency class. She told me that I was a success story. My reply was to down play my success. I said I was just "lucky".

Her response floored me... "Well you didn't just trip and fall and wind up a doctor. You had to work at it."

She is right. I did a lot of work. If I had believed idiot from High School, God knows where I would be.

I just hope that girl in the ER realizes she deserves more.

101 in 1001...

Okay, I have been slacking on this... but since Joe and Jordy are gone, I really have nothing else to do...

I am going to start on my 365 project. This is taking a picture of myself every day for the next year! So I am not clear on all the rules, but to make things interesting (and since it is my own goal- I will make them up as I go).

everyday I will take a picture of myself.
I will post it. although I imagine there may be times when I do a bunch at a time....
Other people can be in the photo to keep it interesting...

Here is photo #1

This is a group of people I work with out at a club.

Only two more months...

My life is punctuated in count downs.... I am forever counting down to something.

But this is the most painful countdown ever....

I have two more months until I get to cuddle my little Jordy again. Two more months until I can snuggle with Joe and watch the Simpsons in bed and laugh at the same jokes we have heard a million times.

I used to be a fully self sufficient adult female human, now I am so lost without my family. I actually went into work tonight b/c I had nothing else to do. I voluntarily saw a patient to pass the time.

Then b/c it is the fourth of July, I watched a few fireworks, ate a slice of apple pie...felt incredibly lonely and then went back to my dorm room. Then I watched Sex and the City.

All alone...

Joe and Jordy went back to California to visit family three days ago...I am so bored!

I don't know what on earth I did before I chased Jordy around all the time! My entire adult life I have always lived with Joe! Some surprising things have occurred in the last few days of being alone- turns out I am not as clean as I thought I was. Joe isn't the source of all messiness in my life! It is nice being able to sleep in though without Jordy to wake me up- although I would give anything to wake up to his babblings right now!

Actually I am not really too bored b/c there is too much stuff to do. I moved back onto base. The movers are coming the 2nd of July to pack up the apartment. I have to move all the stuff around- stuff I want to keep with me, stuff to go to Florida. Plus I have to get the car ready to ship back to the states. My PT test is in two weeks- I have to run 1.5miles, do as many push-ups and sit ups in one minute. I wasn't worried about the test until I did something to my back and now am hobbling around. We'll see how it goes...

I am working nights for the rest of June and all of July- right now I am trying to stay awake. My dorm room does have some advantages; air conditioning 24/7, access to a real washer and dryer, close to work (about 100 feet), close to friends. But all that goodness pales in comparison to the biggest negative- no Joe and Jordy.

Korean Folk Village

Yesterday we went with some friends of ours to the Korean Folk Village.

It was one of those places that I kept wanting to go to, but never got around to it. So yesterday when Trent asked if we wanted to join his family- I jumped at the chance.

We got to dress up in traditional Korean clothes and took some pictures. Joe wasn't to thrilled, and you can see from the beginning pictures that Jordy wasn't thrilled either. Thanks to the comedy stylings of Tammy and Trent, Jordy did smile pretty for the camera!

The entire place was really interesting and I had a great time. They had all kinds of traditional Korean homes- a mansion, a farmer, peasant, etc. They had pottery displays, horse show, acrobats- what a fun place!
Some things get lost in translation!

Here is a picture of Trent's Family! Jordy is going to miss the boys so much!

DMZ

Yesterday we went on a tour of the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. In the above picture, the land just on the other side of the river is North Korea.

It was a long day! We left at 7 AM and didn't get back until almost 7PM. It was a really interesting trip. We learned about the Korean war, all about life in North Korea, and got to go into the conference room and stand on the North Korean side! So technically Joe and I have now been to North Korea!

We saw a North Korean soldier on their side of the line. He is the guy in the picture with the dark green uniform.
In the above picture, the door immediately behind us goes into North Korea. We have heard stories of the North Korean soldiers pulling people through the door...fortunately they didn't want Joe or me!

The most interesting part of the tour was the story about Operation Paul Bunyan. Apparently several people were killed while trying to cut down a tree that blocked the view from one of the guard towers. It is a story that really emphasizes how retarded the North Koreans are. The UN officials went to go cut down the tree, the N. Koreans rushed out trying to stop them. They killed 2 UN men with an axe. Eventually to cut down the damned tree they had to have the entire Korean peninsula on red alert, tons of military special forces went in to take care of the tree. This is the site of the tree.
Here's a picture of me on the UN side. The blue building to the left in the picture is the conference room. The two soldiers there are South Korean. Between the two buildings is a gravel strip that leads to the line between the two countries. The big building in the back is North Korean. If you enlarge the picture you can see the North Korean soldier on the top of the stairs.

China Pictures

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

China...

Joe, Jordy, and I just got back from Beijing. We were there for four days total. Because we were short on time we decided to do a private tour. The tour because we were nervous about being in China and not speaking Chinese (most Koreans speak English around the base in S. Korea). The private tour because we didn't want to make other people suffer through our wonderful child's temper tantrums- something he has become quite good at these days.

When we got off the plane in Beijing, we were met with our tour guide who took us to a waiting van and we were off...we had hoped to the hotel to freshen up and rest a bit- but instead we launched into a full of touring right off the bat. This was bad news considering we had been up since 4AM and had already endured at least four of Jordy's temper tantrums. I was sweating buckets and couldn't find my deoderant- yummy!

We drove by the Olympic stadium- the bird's nest and the water cube. It was raining and we really didn't feel like touring, much less like stomping around in pouring rain to look at buildings.

Then we got out and went to Tieneman Square. Our tour guide told us all about the history, it was pretty amazing! We also went to the forbidden city on that day. Poor Joe and I were ready to drop dead by the end of day one. Of course when we got back to the room and tried to sleep, Jordan suddenly got a 15th wind and was ready to go! After Joe finally got him settled down, I tried to get on the internet.

Come to find out that none of our American or Korean plugs would work. My good friend Pat will be amazed to learn, that there is another type of outlet! I called down to the front desk to ask for a power converter. In ten minutes a beef burger was delivered to our door. So much for the English speaking staff!

The next day we went to the Great Wall. I expected to have great awe and admiration for this huge feat of human engineering. The wall at one time was a continuous structure. Really it was somewhat disappointing. We went to the Badaling section of the wall, and decided to go to the less crowded side- b/c it was also less steep.

I can't even imagine what the steep side was like, because our side was just awful. The steps were so steep that Jordy couldn't even attempt to climb them! Joe and I had a spat over him trying to climb. After I assured him that Jordan could at least go up with some assistance, Jordan fell and scraped his chin. Luckily I was there to keep Joe from seeing the blood on his chin. Surely if Joe saw the blood, the climb of the wall would be over!

Miraculously we made it up to the first guard tower. I had to carry Jordy the entire way. My legs are still sore 5 days later! Joe was terrified we were going to miss a step and plummet to our deaths. I kept seeing decrepit old women go up and down the steps and thought we could manage.

By the time we made it to the top, I was drenched in sweat. Joe was pissed that I was putting us in such peril. Jordan was mad I wouldn't let him walk on his own, also still bleeding from his chin.

At the guard tower we made it to, the view was incredible.

I am glad we went to the wall, but would recommend making sure you are wearing good shoes (I wore silly little black flats), and leave little ones at home!

The rest of the trip went well. My favorite part was the shopping at the markets. They are like giant swap meets. We got some good stuff for pretty cheap. Also I got a cheap watch, that stopped working 4 minutes after I set it! Oh well!