Weekend Review: Book Recommendation and Colleague Appreciation

This week involved: getting my laptop fixed (finally, yay!), enjoying summery weather (20 °C!), working my longest shift ever (60 hours; glad I made it), watching my first Hoarders episode (as one does on a post-call Saturday), and spring cleaning my apartment (for fear of getting "lost in the hoard"...well, not quite, but that show was surprisingly motivating). It's been a pretty good week. Here are some things I've appreciated in the past seven days:

1. book sharing -- I always get excited when I see book sharing places; it's just such a nice concept. I noticed this little one in the cancer centre.
   
2. The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto by Mitch Albom -- Speaking of books, I finished this one yesterday. It is a really wonderful story and so unique. The book is narrated by music (personified) and tells the life story of a Spanish guitar prodigy, Frankie Presto, weaving his fictional narrative into the recollections of musical giants of his time. There's also a bit of magic in it, which I'm glad enhanced the story rather than made it annoying (cough, Land of Love and Drowning).
   
3. mood cards -- I found this on the ward a couple of days ago, as part of a smoking cessation package. While it does lead me to question where our healthcare dollars are going, it's also a throwback to the Sailor Moon mood ring I had in grade one, so overall I'm fine with it. Preventative medicine's important. If mood rings cards help with that, great.

   

   Apparently I was stressed. Probably because it was 4 am and I was on call.

4. ugh, Apple -- Well I got a good 2.5 years out of my Macbook Air's power adapter, which is more than a lot of people judging by the close to 300 1-star reviews on the Apple Store website. I tried to do this...very unsuccessfully. So bit the bullet and shelled out the $100.

   

   lame

5. appreciating colleagues -- This week I tidied up the bulletin board in our residents' room which was basically just full of junk from years gone by and depressing articles on the lack of jobs in our specialty...anyways, it looks better and now also features an appreciation sheet, which I figure we can fill each month with awesome things the residents are up to. Anything from presenting at a conference to bringing in cookies is gonna go up there.

   

   boosting morale / promoting narcissism...whatever you want to call it, we'll see how it works