On call; another 25 hour stretch at work. Someone said to me today that he's finished all his Christmas shopping. The television is playing Christmas commercials and the radio is playing Christmas music. I don't know why; I'm just not feeling it yet. We thought about going to the tree farms this past weekend to pick out, chop down, and bring home a tree like we did last year. But it just doesn't feel like it's Christmastime yet. Every time I've gone shopping this past month, I've been buying things for myself and not for others. I guess I have this long wishlist... and I've waited so long for some of these things. I have never had any credit card debt, and hope to never have any (since I have over $260,000 in medical school loans that I have to consider), but not having credit card debt means having to exercise delayed gratification: wait 'til the time's right, can't buy anything whenever I want, etc. I bought the dress at Lord and Taylor's this past weekend. It looks little different on me; since I'm not as tall as the model, the dress reaches down to my knees and doesn't look as much like a nightie. The top still feels a little bare though; that's the tricky thing about these work parties... I don't want my attendings seeing me with too much skin... Some people were talking about the annual parties of years past. Apparently the group of physicians we belong to has very deep pockets. In addition to the glamorous downtown hotel, one year they even hired the city's prestigious ballet corps to do an excerpt performance from The Nutcracker!