Sunday, January 9, 2011

Generation 3- Chapter 5: Il faut qu'une porte soit ouverte ou fermée

The next morning I awoke with a rumbling belly...I'm not sure if it was from the drink or due to nerves but either way I wasn't exactly 100% myself as I walked out of my front door and headed to Briocheport University Medical Center.
They had given us our first pair of scrubs (pink? I guess they wanted to make sure everyone knew who the newbies were for sure!) on the day of registration.

As I closed the apartment door behind my and headed for the elevator I couldn't help but think: Am I really sure that I'm doing the right thing? What on earth possessed me to move to this huge city? I repeated this new mantra with the inability to answer myself in the metro on the way to the hospital. The site of the 'sterile' white colored building did nothing to ease my nerves. The only thing that helped was the fact that I knew the first day was going to be a brief orientation and then a meet-and-greet session.


 We were given a tour around the hospital and sat through several hours of lectures involving thrilling subjects such as patient confidentiality, sexual harassment, communication. Just about the third time my head was about to nod I heard someone stand behind and clear their throat and an amused voice, "Miss Tea, I'm sorry that my lecture is boring you into a stupor but I promise we'll be getting into more interesting topics in the upcoming weeks." My face flamed red as I turned my head to find a young, beautiful senior resident standing behind me. She sounded amused and flashed me a smile before she turned back towards the rest of the conference room and continued her lecture. Her name tag read Dr. D. Jones. I was too embarrassed for words, I was no longer looking towards the meet-and-greet, surely she would not be mild in her scolding later on. 

Someone somewhere must have been looking out for me when her pager alarmed. She looked down at it and her expression hardened, "I apologize class for having to cut this presentation short, but it looks like I have an emergency requiring my attention...I know you'll all be so terribly disappointed." She grinned and glanced in my direction.
The meet-and-greet was postponed to a later date. I headed home wearily. Who knew a day filled  with paperwork, lectures and videos from the 1980s could be so tiring? Just as I was digging about in my pockets for my key I heard my name. I turned and felt color rush to my cheeks as I saw the resident who had called me out in orientation.

"Miss Tea? I'm sorry for giving you a hard time earlier, to be honest I was the same way my first day. I'm Diana by the way."

I smiled sheepishly. "Please, call me Margarita or better yet Margie. Miss Tea is just...too odd sounding."



"Well hopefully it won't be long before it's Dr. Tea"

"Do you live here Dr J--I mean Diana?"

"Sure do, my husband and I are just around the corner so if you ever need a cup of sugar or anything.." her pager went off. "Crap, back to the hospital it is...life of a resident you know" she smiled again, "See you around kiddo and don't you dare let Dr. D'Asti see you bored or well, try to avoid him all together if you can."

I kicked my shoes off and threw the keys on kitchen table. Shower. Grub. Bed. That was the plan but it was not as easy as it sounded. Damn shower.
 After fixing the shower to the best of my ability, I took a cold shower and then heated up something unappetizing. As I sat down to eat, my mind went over what I had gotten myself in to so far.


I was already having trouble getting to know the students in my class...they were interesting to say the least. Nyguri Xu was from Japan and had this very...colorful style about her whenever she wasn't preening she was texting her boyfriend on her bejeweled phone. Meme Eski-Pie was from Chambrie and seemed to be a little too nervous herself to worry about making friends. Thank Berry she didn't have much of an accent or I'd have probably avoided her like the plague. All of the other students were even more disinterested in chatting. There were 7 of us total in this new program. Hopefully tomorrow would be better. I was getting a bit homesick and my sisters' text messages were getting farther and fewer in between. I checked it one more time with little expectation before I climbed into bed.

Nope nothing. At that moment I realized that I was being pretty pathetic and so I decided that I was going to do what all lost people do and throw myself into school. I was sure I won't have much time to be feeling sorry for myself much longer.

Boy was I right!

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