Ode to Regina
So part of the requirements for my residency program is a 6 weeks stint in Regina. This is one of those things where, when you’re reading over the syllabus for the year, you wince inwardly, shrug, and tell yourself you’ll deal when it comes to it. Then you spend a lot of time ignoring the fact that it is looming ever closer. Then one day you wake up and realize you have to get into your car, with your various accoutrements, and without either your new husband or your stress-reliever cat, and drive several hundred kilometers to go work in a hospital in a city you’ve never been to (but have heard about…and mostly not in a “gee, sounds like a swell place” kinda way) while staying in a sparsely furnished res apartment on a campus which is packed with people roughly a decade younger than you.
I may just need to vent a little bit.
Okay, depressing issue number one: I got myself all married and stuff like 3 months ago (not even), got myself all moved in and stuff like 2.5 months ago, and finally got myself feeling like I’d made this new home, heck, new life, complete about 4 weeks ago. I had routines, people I knew, teams I’d joined, preferred liquor outlets I’d frequented. After a time of the most extreme upheaval I’d ever known, I was finally settled. And then they sent me to Regina. I’m only here for 6 weeks, so the urge to do that all over again…pretty much nil. Plus I miss Jord something awful.
Number 2: did I mention the campus packed full of randy drunken teenagers? It bears repeating. I arrived during Frosh week. FROSH WEEK, people! I thought I liked university kids, I remember liking my time in Rez, heck, I loved frosh week…when I was nineteen. Now, at twenty-eight, not so much. And everyone is in full-on social mode, so I have to have these stupid conversations with people I could care less about in elevators, while standing in line, even walking across campus with my headphones on. Oh god, shoot me. Just let me be my antisocial self and get through these weeks with my head down and my sanity intact.
Also, my very first day here I was on call, and got NO sleep. Then, postcall, trying to nap in my horribly stuffy 6th floor dorm room (the windows don’t open, ostentatiously to prevent jumpers, but also possibly to prevent me from throwing my desk at the loud drunks who parade by continuously at night) I was awakened by some throbbing bass. K-os had decided to have a concert, right outside my window, starting at 1 in the afternoon and going on until about 5, at which point the drunk people came out and started yelling and took over the noisemaking duties.
Number 3: my apartment is a four bedroom thing, and the only occupied room is mine. While the department of medicine has seen fit to provide us with cooking utensils and dishes etc, but not a TV. Also, my internet is not working, something which seems to utterly confuse tech support. So…I’m just ever so slightly bored. I have been burning through books, studying, attempting to run in the 30 degree heat, but I still find myself with significant chunks of time in which I get to wallow in self pity.
It’s not all bad. Regina is surprisingly pretty. My fellow residents here are all very nice and we go out to dinner every week or so. I get to go home to Saskatoon on weekends…mostly. And the more time I spend here, the less alienated I feel.
But I still can’t wait to get home.
I may just need to vent a little bit.
Okay, depressing issue number one: I got myself all married and stuff like 3 months ago (not even), got myself all moved in and stuff like 2.5 months ago, and finally got myself feeling like I’d made this new home, heck, new life, complete about 4 weeks ago. I had routines, people I knew, teams I’d joined, preferred liquor outlets I’d frequented. After a time of the most extreme upheaval I’d ever known, I was finally settled. And then they sent me to Regina. I’m only here for 6 weeks, so the urge to do that all over again…pretty much nil. Plus I miss Jord something awful.
Number 2: did I mention the campus packed full of randy drunken teenagers? It bears repeating. I arrived during Frosh week. FROSH WEEK, people! I thought I liked university kids, I remember liking my time in Rez, heck, I loved frosh week…when I was nineteen. Now, at twenty-eight, not so much. And everyone is in full-on social mode, so I have to have these stupid conversations with people I could care less about in elevators, while standing in line, even walking across campus with my headphones on. Oh god, shoot me. Just let me be my antisocial self and get through these weeks with my head down and my sanity intact.
Also, my very first day here I was on call, and got NO sleep. Then, postcall, trying to nap in my horribly stuffy 6th floor dorm room (the windows don’t open, ostentatiously to prevent jumpers, but also possibly to prevent me from throwing my desk at the loud drunks who parade by continuously at night) I was awakened by some throbbing bass. K-os had decided to have a concert, right outside my window, starting at 1 in the afternoon and going on until about 5, at which point the drunk people came out and started yelling and took over the noisemaking duties.
Number 3: my apartment is a four bedroom thing, and the only occupied room is mine. While the department of medicine has seen fit to provide us with cooking utensils and dishes etc, but not a TV. Also, my internet is not working, something which seems to utterly confuse tech support. So…I’m just ever so slightly bored. I have been burning through books, studying, attempting to run in the 30 degree heat, but I still find myself with significant chunks of time in which I get to wallow in self pity.
It’s not all bad. Regina is surprisingly pretty. My fellow residents here are all very nice and we go out to dinner every week or so. I get to go home to Saskatoon on weekends…mostly. And the more time I spend here, the less alienated I feel.
But I still can’t wait to get home.
posted by Keltok at 9:18 AM
3 comments
