Sunday, October 21, 2007

Wisconsin, Vacationing in Wisconsin, and why I Heart Fall.

We took a weekend trip to Door County this weekend and I'm in love. Matt said some of the little lakefront towns reminded him of New England; I'm less familiar with New England, but they reminded me a bit of heaven. It was a perfect time to go--apparently the very last weekend of the tourist season, there were few people but a preponderance of splendid red-pink-orange-yellow trees. We are so lucky that Jeff Leach plays bridge with a lovely woman who happens to own a lovely condo in Ephraim, on the west coast of the peninsula. Here is the view from the back porch of the condo:

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Sigh.

Door County Peninsula protrudes north (and a little east) from Wisconsin into Lake Michigan, and as such has little towns and harbors dotting its more than 300 miles of shoreline (little fact: this county has more shoreline than any other in the U.S.). Here's a map to help orient you, if you're at all interested in being oriented (Door County is the part in red).

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As I mentioned before, we stayed in Ephraim, a village founded as a Moravian religious community in 1853. If you're like me, 'Moravian' means nothing to you--a little research taught me that it's a mainstream protestant denomination that apparently started in Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) in the 14th century. Anyway, there are several historic buildings still standing in town, including a one-room schoolhouse and Moravian church dating from the mid-1800s, but other than that I'd say there are several small shops and restaurants and many very pretty lakefront homes, and not much else. Here are a couple pictures of the lake right across the street from where we stayed:

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It was, as you can see, absolutely gorgeous. I nearly died the morning after we arrived, when I could see exactly what we had somehow fallen into. We drove into Bailey's Harbor on Saturday and then visited a kind of infamous little bar, the Blue Ox (probably only infamous to those who have heard Jeff's story of the Lawrence University pre-med Door County retreat--if you haven't heard this story, it's probably worth hearing at some point). Jeff, this picture is for you:

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We later went wine tasting at Stone's Throw Winery, which had some very good wines, and then went in the afternoon to Fish Creek, a very touristy but very beautiful little town with a stunning harbor.

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Vinny was Mr. Popular all day. I swear, in Fish Creek, every person who passed us stopped to exclaim how adorable he is (and he is adorable, so I don't blame them).

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Aly was in charge of dinner and it was delectable. For me personally, she did portabella mushrooms with goat cheese in a balsamic reduction, and I was HAPPY. Much wine was also consumed and we slept very well in the quiet of a basically abandoned condo complex in a deciduous forest on the shore of Lake Michigan. As you can imagine, this suited Matt, who is still recovering from a week of intense exams. It also suited me, who had to deal with Matt while he was dealing with a week of intense exams.

On Sunday we went to breakfast, packed up, and left Ephraim. I wanted a quick stop in Egg Harbor, which we'd driven through on the way up, just for photos. It's breathtaking.http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

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We drove home through the more rural areas of eastern Wisconsin and I must admit, I love those too. Wisconsin farms are different from California farms; they're greener, more old-fashioned; they seem as though they haven't changed in 100 years.

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It was a wonderful weekend. On top of the fall colors, it was clear and in the high 60s and low 70s all weekend. Perfect weather. If you want to see all the pictures, go to my Picasa website.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Work, then play.

Interesting week at work, to say the least. We started out with 26 kids on Monday, when our classroom capacity is actually around 14. We had to be a bit creative to accommodate all those kids and it got kind of crazy; also, everything was aggravated by the fact that a) the nurses are rather crabby and dissatisfied almost all the time, and b) we have some legitimately ill patients right now and I'm amazed at how no one seems to want to deal with them. There's the kid who won't talk and walks in and out of class as she pleases, not answering to anyone, with an apparent penchant for cleaning (she makes other patients' beds, picks up their clothes, etc.). I have been somewhat in awe of this girl since she arrived, but everyone seems to think she's faking so they pretty much just ignore her as she wanders the unit without consequence. Then there's a catatonic kid. Seriously, truly, this kid came in and was walking and talking and everything and then the next day he's unable to move, speak, even blink an eye. I have never in my life seen anything like this and have been fascinated by his recovery process (and the fact that no one seems terribly worried about him: "the meds will get him back to normal, eventually"). On top of all this the unit is sort of in a perpetual state of chaos. There's a lot of politicking going on between nurses and teachers, nurses and social workers, nurses and doctors--everyone is always complaining but it doesn't really seem like there is anyone who takes charge and organizes things. I try to appear neutral since my opinion doesn't matter much anyway; I will say, however, that I sometimes feel like peoples' priorities are a little questionable (um, sick kids, anyone?). Anyway, staying neutral allows me to just chill with the kids, and I like them best of all, and I think they trust me because I'm not technically part of anyone's agenda.

My mom has been visiting this weekend and we've had a really good time. The weather is so lovely right now--it cooled down this past week to the 40s and 50s and it is now officially fall. I love the cooler weather. My mom and I have probably walked a good 10 miles this weekend and in a long sleeved shirt and fleece it's very comfortable outside. Vinny is ok, too, as long as he's wearing a sweater. He's gotten many compliments on his wardrobe lately.

This morning we went downtown and had brunch at the Pfister Hotel. Again. It's such a neat old hotel. Here is a picture of the lobby:

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My mom also learned something about the very cool old building across the street (picture is below): it is an exclusive turn of the century Gentleman's Club that is still open today. You have to be invited to join, and apparently women can be members now as well (I don't really get what makes it a "gentleman's club," in that case, but whatever). Also, there used to be an underground tunnel that connected the club to the Pfister, so that members could sneak over to meet their mistresses at the hotel. Apparently that tunnel is now closed. How unfortunate.

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We also walked around downtown a little (mostly we were inside a mall, to be honest, because it was sort of pouring rain outside) and I took some pictures of the river walk area, which I love. I'll post one below. I keep growing more enamored with Milwaukee's downtown; I'd love to live there at some point.

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Matt has a block of tests this week and has been studying like a madman. Luckily, next weekend we are going up to Door County, a couple hours north, to have a little vacation courtesy of a friend of Matt's parents who owns a condo there. Aly and Phil are going with us. Door County is apparently very beautiful; I'm sure I'll have many pictures to post next week.

Monday, October 1, 2007

Back to Hi Mount, and a new job.

First of all, I returned to Hi Mount Road to take a few pictures of its loveliness. It was particularly stunning today in the aftermath of a CRAZY thunderstorm that kept me up all night and succeeded in knocking a whole lot of orange-yellow leaves onto the sidewalks and streets. Fall is coming! I would believe it 100% if it wasn't still so warm; tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and 76 degrees. Oh well. Here are the pictures, anyway....



In other news, I started my new job today. It's kind of crazy. I started off the day in a classroom of five kids, all of them about 11 or 12 years old. All of them had either attempted suicide or threatened to; most of them were pretty severely depressed; one of them apparently spent most of Friday on the floor screaming, even though today he seemed sweet and mild-mannered. They were all very well-behaved, actually, and most of them would talk to me if I prodded them. It was interesting listening to them talk about when they were going to be discharged. Some went home just during the course of the day, while one boy stated, quite matter-of-factly, that he thought he'd be there at least past Halloween. They're so acutely aware of the state of things, even though the adults kind of try to keep them in the dark in an attempt to promote positivity.

I spent the afternoon with the adolescents. We're talking 14 year-old drug dealers, heroine addicts, multiple suicide attempts, etc. And yet, they seemed so normal to me. That might seem strange, but hey, adolescents are adolescents. They clearly care a lot about their hair and makeup, no matter that they currently reside in a psychiatric facility. I was a little afraid that by this age the kids would be manipulative or just rude, but they were actually pretty subdued and they welcomed the opportunity to talk about themselves to someone new.

So, all in all, a pretty fascinating first day. Tomorrow I get to go to rounds in the morning and I'm really looking forward to that. All of these bizarre and sordid short-life histories. It's sad but I'm intrigued. These are not your typical special ed kids; these kids have been through more than I could even begin to understand.

I've had some people ask about Matt, so I'll tell you right now what he's been doing all day, every day: studying. He goes to school from about 8:30 am to 5:00 pm every day, and comes home and studies all evening, usually until about 11 pm. I actually think he's pretty reasonable about it. He doesn't stress himself out too much, he just studies A LOT. I got the chance to go "meet" his cadaver a couple weekends ago (the cadaver he and his group have been dissecting almost every day in anatomy lab). It was insane. I'll tell you what: seeing a dead human being, half dissected, might really affect your ideas of what constitutes a 'person.' I wasn't too disturbed by the experience because I didn't feel like it was a real person, at all. Whatever had made that man a person was completely and totally gone.

Well, that's about it for now. I have to go watch the end of this extremely disappointing Padres game. Matt has apparently taken a couple hours off studying to curse and pace back and forth while Peavey keeps giving up hits to the Rockies. Honestly, I'll be glad when the Padres season is over--they stress me out. Luckily, the Ghargers season is already over!! (I typed that very, very bitterly, just so you know.)