TCM-Fried Brain

Oh kittens. This adventuregrrl is worn out and so very, very looking forward to two weeks from now when board madness is at least temporarily over, and hopefully over forever. My brain is so unruly and tired, the stuff I have left to learn is just resisting being crammed in, kind of like when I try to put kitties in the box to take them to the vet and they splay their legs out in all directions so I can't fit them through the little wire door. I know this is the biggest exam I've ever faced in my life, and so none of this is really a surprise...just...damn I'm tired, and stagnant, and antsy, and drained all at the same time.

The traveling isn't making things easier, but hopefully they will help ensure a good score in the end. The mock I took in LA on Sunday didn't go so well as I had hopped (even though it was ridiculously hard, with plenty of terrible questions that are apparently par for the course). It scared me sufficiently to figure out how to get myself up to the Bay for Kokko and Bina's review intensives for the next 2 weeks, coordinate couch-surfing and hotel rooms, craigslist rideshares, etc. I'm feeling a bit better now--Kokko and Bina are amazing, and I almost wish I had made the trek up to Berkeley every Sunday for the regular review class. Oh well. I took another mock in SF last weekend, and did considerably better (the questions were clearer too...). I've been doing well on case studies and other practice tests too...I just can't seem to make myself care about arcane pointless crap like crossing points that have no clinical significance whatsoever (then again, does knowing that a surging pulse is a yin-within-yang pulse help me not harm the public? but I digress...). I'm working on needling depths, precautions, techniques and the like, since I know that will feature prominently (and it should--that's the whole point of a board). This weekend's ortho madness will be a nice departure, as Dr. Neil has promised to teach us cool stuff like some kind of super cupping and whatever else he's picked up in his nearly 30 years of practice. And it will be nice to see the little whiskered ones again, and hug them and kiss them and generally squish them good.

The car thing is also semi-sorted out, which makes me feel semi-better. I fly out to Denver on Monday morning to pick up my little blue prize and drive it straight back to SF for one more week of review, and then a week of national boards and general relaxing in sweltering fire-smoked heat up in Redding afterward. Lars still sits awaiting his fate in a tow yard in SLO, waiting for an adjuster to go and tell me what I already know, that he's a total and he's only worth his salvage value plus whatever repairs I've made recently. Sigh. Blink. Sigh. Stagnant liver qi much? Should I be dreaming of volcanos or all my teeth falling out apropos of nothing or none of the above? Groan. No wait, groans are kidney...

Then there is figuring out moving without having a definite destination or end date in mind, as I need to go on ahead and look for work and see what happens where before I plunk down the money to lease an apartment, drag the kitties with, etc. And of course my JMT epic. I do believe I have everything except the wool undies for camp, the water tx tabs and the food. And renting the Bearikade from Wild Ideas. The Jetboil goes to 9 levels of awesome--I've been cooking stuff on and off for the last 2 weeks to avoid eating out, and it's been great. The tent weighs a mere 1.5 pounds--I think I'm going to seam-seal it and try it out in my dad's back yard while I'm up there. Maybe even a trip to Marble Mtns or Warner Wilderness is in order, if I can get James on board. Shasta has no snow, and Craig's transfer to the law school in Denver was accepted so he and Jen are scrambling to get their stuff out from Vermont and settled in ready to begin L2 in about 3 weeks, so climbing Shasta or Rainier is out this summer. I'm happy they are moving though--hopefully I'll be in Boulder or Fort Collins soon and then we can play together again!

And now...back to crossing points.