I'm an optometrist again...

On Friday afternoon the clinic manager, Anny, came by my desk to tell me they'd scheduled me patients on Monday to be seen. Not that I am opposed to seeing patients (it's actually quite fun not to have to run through each case with a student) but if I am seeing patients for routine contact lens follow up, dilation, visual fields, then it means that a student is not getting the patient exposure. I don't need another patient in addition to the 20,000+ that I've already seen. Their graduation requirements state that they must see at least 100 to be qualified. Yes ONE HUNDRED. And they also must pass oral examinations, which they are taking today and tomorrow. After those two hurdles, they are free to practice as optometrists. I, however, am still not qualified here unless I take a massively expensive board exam (approx $6,000 NZ) which 70-90% fail.

I tried to reason with staff why it was so silly that I am seeing these patients and taking away from the students, but they didn't seem to see it through my eyes. I suppose, also, I am a little miffed to be the only person in my position who is in the clinic actually doing this. But oh well.

Regardless of my thoughts, I'm enjoying seeing patients, as it's been just one day shy of eight months since I've seen one on my own and have not conducted a visual field test on a patient since I was a student (like 8 years ago!) So today is a glorious day.

I did get to enjoy the sunshine on my back this morning as I walked myself into the clinic. And I must say it is fun having about 20 exam rooms to choose from. Even though I am only scheduled five patients, I decided to go ahead and run my clinic out of TWO exam rooms... you know why not? :)

Saturday

Last night after work I went for chocolate mud cake, carrot cake and coffees with two of my part four students to celebrate Friday. They're all busy freaking out for orals, which are scheduled for Monday and Tuesday of next week. Then I went home and had dinner, and an early night in preparation for my long run Saturday.

This morning, I woke up early but made myself go back to sleep. When I was finally up for good (10:30ish), I stayed under the covers, languishing in the warmth and peace of morning and the bird chirp symphony outside my window. My usual goal is to start running by noon, hopefully avoiding any dastardly weather.

I left at 11:45 on my preplanned route, downtown, to the waterfront and back home again. I was in my own little ipod world when this guy ran by, tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Good on you!" like I was a two year old who needed encouragement. Either I looked like I'd never run a day in my life and was about to die on the pavement (highly likely) or he was just wanting to make himself known. Either way, it was scared me out of my little world.

A few minutes later, I was about to take the pedestrian bridge home to my place, but discovered that it had been boarded off by the city after recent heavy rains and unstable ground, so I was forced to take a route-lengthening detour. I tried to beg the construction workers to let me through. (No success there.) So I continued on, arriving home about twenty minutes later without any new knee pain. The goal is the Auckland Marathon on November 2nd. I'm actually on track this year.

I've really been enjoying my students (especially since I've started teaching part threes clinical examination with demonstration patients) that I'd almost considered staying a little longer. But we had a staff meeting on Thursday and I was reminded why I cannot stay in this position longer than one year. There'll probably be about four of us leaving at the end of this term. I'm not convinced that it will considerably improve even with a new head of department.

In other news, I've finally moved into stage four of the cultural assimilation process. Yes, I like New Zealand and I think I finally have a decent understanding of the country. Musically, I am also expanding. I often catch the weekly hip hop countdown in my lovely red ghetto wagon (it's the only station that comes in) and I actually like it. Egads!

Thoughts

It's hard to understand people's lives when you look from the outside. I may appear to be lost or misguided. But I can tell you, though this job and New Zealand were not what I expected them to be, I laugh more here than I have in years. I’ve renewed old friendships and started new ones. My life was stagnant in Portland and I was just going through the motions. Here I am flowering and alive. I am still deeply contemplative, but that's been going on my whole life. I feel like I have an internal energy and drive to be alive... and part of that is exploring the earth and exploring relationships. I think those are some of the reasons I am not ready to return to the United States, yet I cannot really see staying in Auckland.

In the cave with Carrie and Molly.

(Australia)

Lessons learned via New Zealand:

Once you've left home, it’s hard to return.
Having no plan can be a plan.
One of the greatest freedoms is to reduce your possessions.
TV is not that integral.
It is possible to get sick of reading books.
Negative people breed negativity.
Music can be restorative in all ways.

Recent horoscope

"Your career continues to look like an Olympic event without rules or referees."

Umm. Is that good or bad? I could interchange life with career and it would follow logically as well.

I think it could be positive... maybe I can continue to follow no rules and yet be successful? Or not? Or maybe I'm just all over the place, working hard and it doesn't matter, it won't get me anywhere anyway because I there's no linear way to get where I'm wanting to go? Or that I have no clue where I'm going anyway?