Oh my goodness...I'M A TERRIBLE BLOGGER! As predicted, my intern year has been crazy, and I haven't been updated this blog AT ALL! So, I'm on vacation right now, and I've got time to update all our friends and family on what's been going on these last 6 months...
Well, I'm still an intern here in Chicago. My schedule varies a lot - some ward months (i.e. months that I'm taking care of inpatients in the hospital) I'm working close to 80 hours a week, taking call overnight, and working weekends. Other months are more laid-back and similar to a normal 40 hour work week, with no call and no weekends. Despite the hectic schedule, my intern year is much better than anything I could have hoped for. I was able to match into a Transitional Year, which is primarily for doctors who are going into surgical specialties (dermatology, ophthalmology, radiation oncology, anesthesiology), so it's ideally less demanding than a regular intern year. Rob has been working hard in grad school at DePaul University. He studies all day and then has classes 4 hours every weeknight. Our schedules are usually off, so we end up missing each other all day. But, we're able to catch up on the weekends and spend time enjoying the city.
Anyways, the point of this post was to update everyone on the DISASTER that happened this past fall. Rob and I were on a long-weekend trip to Knoxville for the UT-Auburn football game. We got a call from our landlord while we were tailgating with some bad news: our apartment in Chicago had been STEAMED!! Our apartment has old radiators in every room, and apparently when we moved in last summer, the floor cleaners never hooked them up. So, while we were gone, the building manager turned on the heat, and the radiators began blowing out hot steam into every room. It filled our whole apartment and permeated everything. Our landlord was finally called by our downstairs neighbor when his ceiling began caving in. I was freaked out, and mostly worried about our pet rabbit, Captain Doodles. We cut our trip short and rushed home to survey the damage. Sadly, we lost all our furniture, pictures, and books, and most of our other belongings were wet and moldy. Our apartment was destroyed, but somehow, Capt. Doodles survived!
The apartment got so hot that our fan was pointing to the floor!
Our brand new furniture...not so much anymore :(
Candles melted all over our bookshelf
We started the long process of replacing everything (Thank God for renters insurance!), bought new furniture, and had all our clothes, rugs, etc. professional cleaned. Because of all the repairs, we had to move out of our apartment for several weeks. We relocated to a hotel downtown, which was actually really nice! It was right off Michigan Avenue, and it was twice the size of our tiny apartment in Wrigleyville. After a month of madness, cleaning, packing and unpacking, and cataloging all our belongings for insurance, we finally got settled back into our apartment. Here's what it looks like now...
