My back burner is getting crowded. Recently I've moved brushing my teeth back there, where it joined washing the dishes, wearing contacts, shaving, and other miscellaneous hygienic pursuits. So about half the time, I walk around the hospital with plaque-covered teeth, bad breath, glasses, and the asian patchy stubble. It's like I'm back in junior high. Or high school. Or college. Actually, never mind.

I'm on my surgical oncology rotation right now, and I have the good fortune of having two medical students with me. In addition to helping me with the workload, they provide me with no small measure of amusement. One of them, especially, reminds me of one of Judd Apatow's coterie with his goofy, slacker-type approach to things.

Zach: What does RSN stand for?

Sai: Registered... something nurse. Surgical?

Zach: Super?

So now I'm considering adding SMD to my signature. And if I get sued for misrepresentation, I can always say that the S stands for sexy. Ugh, never mind again. Smelly, maybe.

After 3 days, I hated Italy. After 4 weeks, I'm still - if just barely - alive. In 5 years, I still want it to mean something.

So now that my schedule is back to something resembling relative normalcy, I'm again trying to juggle work, study, and church, and wondering if I'll ever have to make room for a personal life.

I helped fill in for BYG small group today and it made me feel useful. I'd been visiting as much as I could since the spring, but I hadn't actually been helping with anything, and last week, as I was driving home, I was asking myself what in the world I was doing. Well, today was the first day of the first month of the first year of Pastor Myung, and the word of the Lord, lacking any donkeys nearby, was briefly handled and passed, ever so clumsily, by yours truly to an eager group of teenage girls. And they were disappointed because we could only cover so much. Oh for a hunger like that!

So I do feel revived a bit, since I had the care beaten out of me during the last rotation. After looking like an idiot every morning before most people had had their bowl of cereal, I'd developed a bit of a callus. Compounded with the lack of sleep and food, I was mostly just numb. But I'm starting to get feeling back in my fingers and toes. And my spirit? Stirred.