Goods and Bads of being back home

The Girl has been hinting that some of her excitement over being here is waning. We have almost daily discussions about going moving back to the US. I would certainly have burned every bridge back to a career in Denmark if I drop out of this fellowship; the Girl would have to apply all over again for residency in the US, probably unsure of which specialty to choose. So moving back is not ideal, either.

We have talked about working in Greenland or Norway, followed by a stint of international medicine. As of now, the Girl is starting in ophthalmology, something she used to be excited about. Now, she seems to talk more about OBGYN, a far cry from looking at old people with cataracts, which she will be doing all day tomorrow.

All in all, work isn't very exciting for either of us right now.

We've been back a week now, which, after two weeks vacation in Wisconsin, is always a shocker.

GOOOD: Daughter is here. She now essentially understands all Danish but she refuses to speak it. Tomorrow is her first day of school, so I expect her Danish to take off from there. She had a great couple of days with my parents. Yesterday, we hiked in the woods and told stories. She pretended to be too cool for it but, at the end, she asked if we could do that every Saturday. Today, we are playing tennis and going biking.

BAD: A guy with his daughter passed Daughter and me. I said hi and he looked at me with surprise and suspicion. I forgot we are back in Denmark, where one does not greet strangers spontaneously.

GOOD: One of the receptionists told me that a lot of patients had been disappointed that I was gone and had been leery of seeing one of the attendings instead of me.

BAD: I got paid for my ER moonlighting here. One can't help compare my moonlighting here to moonlighting in the US. Here, it's a very busy ER, where I work almost non-stop. There, it's a slow ER, where I have ample time to chat with nurses, watch movies and eat Hot Pockets. The pay, after taxes, is almost twice as high in the US.

GOOD: My legs are back on. I ran last night, through the dusky woods, and felt very fast. There are still pains here and there but, overall, I feel fine. The motivation is there to train for something, say a fast half marathon in October.