NIH fever

today is the second day that the NIH--you know, the national institutes of health, the organization whose leadership i naively assumed i'd never meet--has been breathing down our necks. representatives are here from washington, from north carolina; they're all complimentary of the way that my office is running our study. at the same time, they never let us forget that they're the ones holding the change purse out of which they pull our salaries. (i say change purse instead of pocket book, because writing "pocket book" would imply that they're paying us in bills instead of pennies. and trust me, that ain't the case.)

the point is, even though these people have all been just as sweet as a mint julep on a veranda in alabama in june (that's sweet, right?), there is only so much work that i can pretend to do while they're in my office. that's right, i'm just going to come out and say it: although i'm busy training for two jobs, i enjoy spending my downtime--the time between phone calls, when i'm not in the clinic, when i'm not running errands--doing things like reading my friends' blogs or obsessively checking my bank account. that doesn't even include the amount of quality time i spend with friends, both near and far, on instant messenger. because of this glorious job, i've stayed close (and even gotten closer) to friends from college and high school, people who live in chicago or boston or even farther away. i guess that something good has to come from being forced to sit at a desk upwards of six hours a day.

somethings besides, that is, this 'blog.