To Teach You About You

Some things I have learned about myself:

Hi.  My name is Mary, and I'm addicted to photo editing.  It's a problem; I rarely post any pictures on my blog without editing them first.  That's one reason why I'm very sad that Picnik is closing up shop.  I seriously use Picnik all the time--it's easy, intuitive, and totally worth $25/year for all of the cool things it can do to photos.  They were bought out by Google last year, and I don't know what the future holds for Picnik, there are some effects and editing properties in Google + that are Picnik-based.  Even so, it's not the same.  I don't know where I'm going to get my fix now.  I have been thinking about getting Lightroom, which is quite popular with professional photographers.  We'll see.

I like sushi.  I had only tried it once before last year, and that was at a seedy drive-through sushi place (which has since closed) about 5 years ago.  I ordered a California Roll and had no idea what to expect.  I thought it was nasty, and since then, I hadn't even tried.  When we went to California for vaycay last year, we took our friend Dom out for sushi.  Uh, DELICIOUS.  Of course, I didn't realize that you are supposed to eat each piece in one bite, so I totally got soy sauce all over my white shirt.  *sigh*  So I do the bite-size thing now, and I can even use chopsticks (not very well, but it is possible!). 

I'm not the same person I was a couple of years ago.  I'm not sure that I'm better (probably not, honestly), but I am different.  I was doing some ortho the other day at work, and the nurse I was working with said, "This isn't the same Mary" (i.e., I have changed since I worked at IMC before).  It's true; I used to be very apologetic when I didn't know what I was doing during surgery; now I'm more of a 'you-get-what-you-get' kind of girl.  I'm not an expert in any particular specialty; I just do a little bit of everything (except CV).  So, while I may be weaker in some areas, I can hold my own in most everything else.  Plus, I still remember when Dr. Van Der Werf asked me to stop apologizing.  Uh, yeah.  Anyway, I guess I'm a little more confident in my abilities, or maybe I'm just better at defending myself and what I need (i.e., I'm not embarrassed to ask the surgeon to help me do something I'm not sure of).  To be honest, I think working at Primary's made me <i>harder</i>, if anything.  I had to learn to be tougher in surgery, or I would have cried even more than I did (which was too often). 

I like action movies, <i>as long as there's a plot.</i>  One of my favorite movies from last year was Super 8.  I love J.J. Abrams: he's a brilliant director.  His stories have fantastic plots that make you think.  And his action sequences: WOW.  I also love that he has his favorite actors, who he keeps bringing back into his other projects, like Alias, Lost, Star Trek, Heroes, etc.  I've never watched Lost, because it will be another thing that I won't be able to stop once I start, and I can't invest in that much time yet. 

I love reading.  I forgot how much I enjoy it, because I haven't had much time to do it lately.  Being back at IMC, I have had some time to read (it's the slow time of year), and it's so nice.  I actually read an InStyle magazine from cover to cover yesterday--do you know how long it has been since I have done that?  A LONG time.  (Don't worry--I always have my vocera, so I'm always available to work; I'm not THAT big of a slacker!)  I have read five books this month.  Crazy, right?  Of course, three of those were the Hunger Games series, and I literally could not put them down.  Thankfully they were relatively quick reads--I only had to stay up until 3am to finish them.

So there's a few things about me.  What about you?