Confronting the tiger

When I was a volunteer at the Denver Zoo, I had the opportunity to meet Inga, the Siberian tiger. I and two other teen volunteers had just finishing raking the tiger yard and the keeper asked if we'd like to meet her tiger. Having never met a tiger before, we all agreed. Before she took us over,the keeper taught us 'tiger etiquette' so that we wouldn't offend or upset Inga. Tiger etiquette mostly involves not showing your teeth or maintaining prolonged eye contact, both seen as signs of aggression. The she flipped the switch to open the door to the passage between the indoor and outdoor enclosure, and so Inga came through and sat down on the floor of the passage. When I went up to get closer and say hi, I was pretty nervous. I blinked every five seconds or so, just in case any longer might indicate I was hostile. Even knowing I was perfectly safe with the bars between us, I really didn't want to piss off a tiger. Of course, nothing bad happened that day, and Inga politely blinked back (far less often than I did, of course), but that day was one of the more exhilarating experiences in my time at the zoo.

I confronted a new tiger this week in the form of my first standardized patient in my CDM class. He was an actor, the symptoms were fake, and there was no danger of misdiagnosing or hurting anyone, but I was nervous as hell, knowing that someday my ability to interview a patient could in fact mean the difference between life or death.

Overall, it went okay. My nerves made me forget several of the questions I should have, (and meant to) ask, but I managed to get most of the pertinent information for his Chief Complaint and History. The best part about it was after the interview, during the feedback portion, where the facilitator helped us understand the interaction better and how to figure out what sort of questions should be asked, and how to ask them.

Today is my birthday, and my gnomes celebrated by installing a porcupine in my throat and developed a cough, my professors celebrated by making me attend class for 6 hours and I am celebrating by eating Pad Thai and Birthday cake, and studying for Monday's exam.
Pad Thai and studying for an exam is becoming a birtday tradition - I did the exact same thing for my 21st birthday.