Harry Potter Dorks

Fear not, there be no spoilers here. Only a couple of pretty big dorks - but fun ones, so that makes it okay. You disagree? Well, all I say to that is: watch your back. The world is brimming over with Harry Potter fans, and you don't want us on your bad side, or we'll go all magic on your behinds.

So, for those of you who have, perhaps, been living in a cave (or perhaps a resident on the PICU or NICU service), let me fill you in: The final Harry Potter book was just released on Saturday.

To celebrate the monumental occasion, my friend Susan (of adventures of yore) came up from Alabama so that we could attend a Harry Potter release party. There were several in the area - we weren't picky, we just wanted to experience the insanity. Because it is the LAST BOOK. With all the ANSWERS! And we were EXCITED! And Susan and I just do stuff like this. It's what makes us so dorky - I mean cool. It's what makes us so cool.

We got to Borders around 9:30, or so, and entered through Platfom 9 3/4 (hee!)

Both of us were little worse for the wear - Susan was not only jet-lagged, but post call as well; and I was sleep-deprived from staying up late the past few nights re-reading all the previous Harry Potters. It is truly amazing the dedication I can show for studying when it is not at all related to what I should be doing.

There were hundreds of people there, and many in costume. I made the decision to go sans costume, for the very real chance that I could have run into some patients, and didn't want to undermine my integrity as their physician. Just kidding. I just didn't have time/energy to pull together a clever costume.

Susan and I picked out our favorite Harry:

I think we almost made him cry when we asked if we could take our picture with him (we got permission from his mom), but he was a great sport in the end. Besides, who wouldn't trust us? We're doctors!

There were several different activities through the night - face painting, palm reading, the great Snape Debate (friend vs. foe) and a costume contest. Susan and I mostly observed, though I totally would have gone for the lightning bolt face-painting if I wouldn't have had to trample over scores of little kids to get it. I do have some limitations to my dorkiness - I mean... well, yeah, I mean dorkiness)


They finally rolled in boxes and boxes of books about 20 minutes before midnight.

Susan and I were quite atwitter with excitement (though still dang tired, as it was freaking LATE!)

Here I am debating which is scarier: Match Day or Harry Potter release day.

The line to actually buy the books after the countdown was long, long, long. We were in the second hundred group, and got our books around one am (I think, I can't remember, I was just excited to have it).





We rushed home, giddy with anticipation and settled in for a long night of reading.
I crashed around four, but Susan - post-call, jet-lagged Susan was up until 6 am reading. Thus is the power of Harry Potter, people!

The rest of the weekend was filled with reading, eating, more reading, pedicures while reading, seeing the movie Hairspray (fantastic, go see it immediately), and a tad more reading. But now we know the fate of the characters in Harry Potter. And if you don't yet, well, I'm not going to tell you, so either get out there and read it, or just, you know, go outside your front door, because there is bound to be somebody out there right now talking about it. We may be dorks, nerds, geeks or just plain immature, but there sure are a lot of us:

Jump!

As our intern year approached its end, we were asked to submit schedule requests for our second year - what electives we wanted to take, any weekends that we wanted to request off, or any other 'special' requests.

I had one request: to do an ICU rotation before I did a general wards rotation. Why? Well, frankly, the prospect of being the 'senior' resident on the wards over night without having taken care of really sick kids kinda sorta freaked me. In a hugely major way.

When our schedules (finally) came out, I was delighted to see that I started with Nephrology - a subspecialty that I chose to take as one of my electives (the kidney is perhaps the most complicated and elegant thing EVER created, and therefore way above my head), followed by my first ICU month. Success! My one request granted. Happy was I.

Then, the schedule for the month came out and, horror of horrors: I was scheduled to be on call my first Friday night. Ever. On call, overnight, after less than a week of being a 'senior' resident with a brand new intern. Not to mention the fact that as a cross-covering senior, I wouldn't know the patients at all. Or how to take care of anybody if they got, you know, really sick.

Terrifying prospect.

And then tonight came. Oh boy. I literally spent the first hour or so telling myself repeatedly, 'You're the senior, Brenna. The senior. SE-NIOR. That means you're in charge.'

Now, I was fine being the intern overnight. In fact, I dare way that I was great being the intern overnight. The senior said 'jump,' and gosh darn it, I'd jump. I wouldn't ask how high (I leave that question to the med students), but I would get up off my butt and jump - over hurdles, around obstacles, or even just straight up into the air for no good reason.

But tonight, I find myself in the position of telling other people to jump. I don't know how I'm doing. I really don't have any clue. No one has died (knock on wood). I have my PALS card on hand just in case any one should try to, you know, die. (somehow carrying a laminated quad-fold card with lots of small writing and confusing diagrams with arrows pointing in every direction makes me feel more capable of handling a patient who is trying to, you know, die)

My week as a 'senior' resident on Nephrology was great. So far, my night as a 'senior' resident does not appear to be an epic tragedy. Or even a comedy of errors. So I guess that's good. Right?

I really wish there was someone to tell me to jump, though. Because right now, I'm just going to go to sleep. And I'm sure there are many hurdles that will remain un-jumped tonight.