How do I afford my rock and roll lifestyle?

Obstetrics and Gyn(a)ecology is over, thank Christ. The only thing miraculous about birth is that something that large comes out of something that small. Also, to all the ladies in the crowd: GET THE EPIDURAL. PLEASE.

Emergency medicine is what I'm on now, two weeks of elective followed by four weeks of rotation. I love emergency, really; I've decided beyond a shadow of a doubt that it's what I must do. I spent most of third year wondering what I'd wind up doing; hell, I thought I'd be a psychiatrist becauase it was the only thing I hadn't hated. Well, that and you work like six hours a day for a quarter-million dollars a year.

But in the middle of my first ER rotation, I had one shift where we had two people who'd been shot by the cops while fleeing in a stolen car, one woman who'd had her face smashed in with a stereo speaker, three heart attacks, and one guy who tried to kill himself with pills and, when that failed, a very woozily-applied razor. So as I was stitching this guy's arm up - the wounds were a little weavy - I felt that hammer come down and smash me on the forehead. The sky opened up, beams of light shot down, and a voice said "THIS IS WHAT YOU MUST DO WITH YOUR LIFE."

And then the security guard gave me advice on stitching, because he used to be a surgeon in Russia. It was a weird day.

Now, one of the great things about emergency is that you only work 4 shifts a week; four eight-hour shifts. Compared to the 70-90 hours I was working on O&G, this is luxurious. Granted, the shifts are at odd hours, and your sleep schedule can get fucked up; f'r instance, I have to wake up in four hours, and I'm still wide awake because I woke up at noon today because I've been working weekends. Tomorrow's gonna suck... But the upside of all this is that I have time for the rest of my life. Time to study, time to update my blog, time to go to concerts.

In the next week, I'm planning on seeing three, possibly four concerts: local indie rockers The Mark Birtles Project on Saturday (they have a cowbell!), Metric on Sunday, Electric Six - my favourite dance-punk band - on Tuesday, and possibly Audioslave from the nosebleeds on the next Saturday. I haven't been to this many concerts since fourth year undergrad when I lived with the guy who booked all the bands. Now, I can do this through the magic of emergency.

Given the cost of tickets these days, I can also do this through the magic of debt. But that's why I get the high-income job in the future, right? So I can enjoy myself now? Racking up 20 large in debt a year isn't bad, right? Right?

Maybe I should start