Get me a latte, STAT

I sipped at my precious Starbuck's vanilla latte like it was mother's milk to me and felt a little bit more human. It was 6:15am and I was standing in main concourse of Penn Station watching the morning crowds of New York city rushing by me at their breakneck pace. I would join them, but as fate would have it, my train wasn't scheduled to leave for another 1.5 hours and I would be missing my mandatory morning intern lecture.

I took another sip of my latte and decided I didn't care.

Like usual, my weekend ER shift was completely crazy. This weekend, one of our patients decided to crash (go into cardiopulmonary arrest) not only once but SIX times. Magically, I managed to resuscitate him five times before the last arrest. It was TWO AND A HALF HOURS of intermittent arrest and CPR and arrest and CPR and arrest and CPR (in between all of which the dog decided to have a seizure) before he finally flat-lined for good.

I made us go for at least 10 minutes more before the techs finally pulled me, sweating and covered in dog hair, off him going "no one can say you didn't try Dr. Lau."

And all the while I was doing chest compressions going, "WTF?! I SHOULD BE IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE STUDYING SEA SPONGES RIGHT NOW, BUT NOOOOO I HAD TO GET INTO VET SCHOOL!!!! %$@$! @#$%! @#$%!"

Naturally, I couldn't get a hold of the owner on any of his numbers the entire time and I ended up leaving twenty messages of increasing franticness ala Jack-Jack's babysitter from the Incredibles.

In between all the craziness, I managed to help change a splint on a dog's leg, do an ophthalmic exam on a chow-chow that tried to eat me (had to get the big vet assistant from the ghetto help me tackle the dog down football style before I finally muzzled it and even then it kept snapping at me the entire exam and proceeded to pee and $%@# all over my exam room), treat a dog for its torn ACL in its knee and call and update the owners of the 20 patients I was looking after.

I finally have two days off in a row and I'm so geared up from all the go go go that I ended up only sleeping in an hour and a half which is very depressing for someone who used to be able to sleep till 2pm.

To treat myself, I decided to go out to the city to visit Gabe and the goth girl from my vet school class who is doing an internship at the most expensive vet clinic in the city.

Surprisingly, I've been making it out to the city a lot which is quite nice and exciting. I guess I must be fitting in more now cus I've had several ppl ask me for directions and whatnot on the train. What's scaring me is that I can actually answer them!

I've even adopted a "subway face" and now have a penchant for bagels, thin crust pizza with minimal toppings and soft pretzels.

Now all I have to do is talk with that horrid accent and I'll be asking for cawfee at Starbuck's before you know it.

Sigh.

Well, am off to work on my paper. That's right. They're making me do a paper. Growl. I also have to wash all the blood and @#$% I've accumulated this week off my crocs before they crawl away on me.

And then it's back to the grind tomorrow. Wumpf.