4 months in seattle

sean and i have lived in seattle now for 4 months. i've just completed my 4th month of residency. after 4 months of working pretty hard, i now have a month of mostly clinic and lectures with no call and no weekends. it is a great feeling to have 2 days off in a row!

residents, myself included, spend a lot of time bitching about how much we work. the reality, of course, is that we signed up for this, and are actually paid pretty well. i try to be mindful of what life was like before the 80 hour work week, because it seems so hard to manage now!

i'm feeling thoughtful about living in this new city. seattle is somewhat familiar to me from our multiple visits while living in spokane. i didn't know it well- just enough to navigate myself to rachel's house in capitol hill, and of course, to ikea. four months living here, and i still haven't really figured out my surroundings. we've found a handful of decent restaurants, gone to several parks, explored a little bit by bike. i've found the local food rainbow (much closer than in phoenix, thank god...). i've yet to find a middle eastern restaurant or a good breakfast joint. i haven't been to the art museum.

most significantly, we haven't really made any friends! sean has some folks from work we've hung out with a couple of times, but that's it. i haven't made friends with my co-residents yet. i'm hoping this will evolve over this month as we're essentially seeing each other for the first time, really, since orientation.

i really miss my medical school friends, and keeping in touch has been hard. everyone has busy schedules, and we are all over the country. i was the member of a very tight-knit group of people. we saw each other for literally hours everyday. we got on each other's nerves frequently, but also laughed and cried and had great conversations and generally challenged one another. it was great. a circumstance not likely to happen again.

missing them has made the transition to a new place more difficult. i am so thankful that sean is happy and successful. we are in a beautiful, green, lush, progressive place that i should embrace. and i will, dammit. i just need to find some good felafel first...