See, this is the thing about having a blog and not updating it for months- when its time to finally update it, I don't even know where to begin.

I suppose I should start with the obvious: I'm ENGAGED! Yep, after four years, Shane proposed. I'd be lying if I said it was an absolute surprise- for one, we've been together FOUR YEARS, and two, we've been talking about it for a long time. That doesn't mean, however, it wasn't completely thrilling!

He did SO good! We had decided to go to dinner at a restaurant in Baltimore harbor, which, in and of itself, isn't so out of the ordinary. We do nothing but eat out whenever I visit. All day long before dinner, Shane had been quiet, and I was getting irritated. "What's wrong with you?" I kept asking, "why are you so cranky?" "I'm NOT cranky, just tired," he kept saying. "Get OVER it- I'm only here for four days." Yeah, I know. I'm an AWESOME girlfriend.

This being a nice place, I borrowed a friend of mine's dress for the evening. Rita is WAY more fashionable than I am, so this dress was not per usual for me. At the restaurant, I asked Shane, "So whats your opinion on this dress? I feel weird in it." "It looks nice," he said, "Not your usual style, but it looks good on you. It's missing something, though." I'm amused, thinking, what? Rita accessorized me- what in hell could this dress be missing, and when the hell did YOU become Mr. Fashion Savvy, Shane Lisowski? THEN he says, "I'm pretty sure you're missing something on your finger- will you marry me, dear?" Out comes a beautiful little box with the most STUNNING ring I could have imagined. It was SO cute, and SO very Shane- a proposal that was a thousand times sweeter than any I'd fantasized about. Of course, I had to ruin it by squealing, "ARE YOU SURE? NO, DEAR, I'M SERIOUS? ARE YOU SERIOUS? ARE YOU REALLY REALLY SURE?" That lasted for about a minute and a half, before I finally asked, "Have I said yes, yet?" He looks at me with these wide, exasperated eyes and yells, "NO!" "Oh, then yes." Then there was hugging and kissing and general lovin', followed by a ridiculously amazing dinner overlooking the harbor. Fabulous, fabulous evening. :-)

So we're getting married. Not completely sure of the date yet- likely the third weekend in May of 2011 (either the 20th, 21st), so I have TONS of time to plan. We had initially wanted to just get away, do a destination wedding and then throw and incredibly informal party afterwards. But Shane is actually surprisingly more traditional than I had expected, so we're going to plan the traditional thing. I've pretty well jumped feet first into planning- its too exciting not to! I have a dress, and some ideas for a ceremony and reception. Not committing to anything right yet, but its good to have some direction. I have a feeling, though, I'm going to have it planned by the time Shane gets back from Afghanistan. :-)

So, yes, Shane is leaving for Afghanistan in about a month. He'll get back sometime in June (hopefully)and while he's gone I'll be... well, I'll be a lot of things. Sad, for one, without visits every three weeks or go to refresh me. I'll be trying to be the tough one in the relationship, a role I've relinquished for the past three years (soooo many shrill phone calls about how 'I'M NEVER GONNA BE A GOOD DOCTOR!'). I'll be trying to stay insanely busy to keep my sanity (my surgical rotation in April will certainly help w/ that). I'll be sending him care packages as frequently as I can afford to. I'll be worried every single day, and I'll be so proud I'll tell every one I meet, "My baby is a Marine, serving his country in Afghanistan." But overall, I'll be ok. My little velcro dog will be here to snuggle with when I'm feeling sad. I have good friends who will keep me from getting insane with worry. And I have school, which is incredibly fulfilling most of the time. But the cold hard fact is that fiance, my best friend, my other half is going to be half a world away for six months, in an area. Its certainly not going to be easy. But I'll be ok, and that may all I may be capable of for a while.

Aaaaaah I should be in bed. I'm post call and exhausted. Actually, what I REALLY should be doing is studying! Medicine is seriously ramping up, and I have limited days left to engrave MKSAP into my brain. Have a good night, all. :-)

What did the number 0 say to the number 8?

"I like your belt."

*giggle* I kinda liked that. :-)

So things have been good, and when I say 'good', I mean to say that they've been... well... a little insane. But good. Insanely good. Goodly insane. You know. That old chestnut.

Anyhoo...... where do I start? First of all, I started my internal medicine rotation at Loyola. It's been pretty fantastic so far, albeit exhausting. You'd be amazed how tiring it is to simply THINK all day long. I know, I know, you're skeptical. But next time you have a day off, print out the NYTimes Saturday cross word puzzle and go to town. I bet you by 7 o'clock that evening, you'll know what I mean. I'm not just thinking; I'm straining my brain to process, integrate and assess information from each patient in order to learn how to NOT kill people (so, ya know, no pressure).

Despite my bitching, however, I love it. I mean, I LOVE it. Internal medicine is by far and away the most intellectually challenging rotation I've had to date (and I think likely it will stay that way the remainder of the year). Adults just take such awful care of themselves that by the time they're older, several systems shit the bed at once. Almost every patient I've taken care of has a myriad of co-morbidities: heart failure, renal failure, liver cirrhosis, diabetes, coronary artery disease, hypertension, ect. Alone, each of these conditions have a set of criteria to follow for management. But when one patient has 3 or 4 problems, management, whether medical or surgical can get muddied. And I LOVE it. The more challenging it is, the more excited I get, the more motivated I am to study and learn, and the closer I feel like I get to becoming someone who can be trusted with peoples' lives. It's pretty great. I mean, not that these people are so sick... just the medicine. I'm not cold and heartless. I swear. Eek.

I'm on my inpatient month at the VA. In addition to simply enjoying the medicine, I LOVE the patient population at the VA. The Vets are just about the cutest, most respectful and interesting old men I've ever met. One of my patients last week was AT the Battle of the Bulge. I actually SPOKE with someone at one of the most pivotal battles of American history. Amazing. There's also a certain satisfaction to be had in caring for patients who've made a significant contribution to American society. Who deserves to be taken care of well more than those who've taken care of us?

I'm also coming to realize how much I enjoy procedures. I did my first ABG (blood draw from an artery rather than a vein) a few days ago and NAILED it on the first try! I jump to do venous draws at every opportunity, and have been taught how to do a paracentesis with the promise that if we have another patient who needs a diagnostic tap, I get to do it (see one, do one, teach one! :-)). I even jumped to put in an ANAL TAMPON yesterday, to my never ending horror. For the sake of your stomachs, I won't go into details. Even as I volunteered, I heard my voice as if an out of body experience and thought, "What is WRONG with me?" LOL. But I'm finding that I enjoy procedures almost as much as I enjoy talking to patients, which is definitely going to be an important factor in deciding my future career. For a while now I've been leaning towards a career in pulmonary medicine/ critical care medicine. It would mean some additional years of training, but I think it would be worth it to have a long, stimulating and rewarding career. Of course, I may change my mind a dozen times over the next few years. We'll see, I suppose. :-)

In other news, Shane found out a few weeks ago that he'll be deploying to Afghanistan in January. I know, I know what you're thinking, but its actually a good thing. He's deploying to an area of Afghanistan that is about as far away from the front lines as one can get, and will mostly be doing his duty within the well fortified confines of Bagram Air Force base. So, outside going somewhere like Germany, its about as safe as he could be. It will be an incredible experience for him, something he'll look back on with pride, which is more than enough motivation for me to support him 100% on it. Never mind the fact that it will be a huge resume builder, AND its only six months, during a time I'm going to be eye-ball deep in my surgery rotation anyway. Honestly, this is as good time for a deployment as any. I'm already brainstorming for ideas for kick-ass care packages (if you can offer up suggestions, I'd love to hear them!). While he's gone, I'll also be making some trips to Washington state and hopefully a few other places in our beautiful country. Maybe getting a dog, taking up pogo-stick-ing. LOL I don't know. We'll see what I'll do to pass the time.

Lots and lots and lots of other things to comment on, but I'll probably save them for another time. I have a hair appointment in like half an hour; my treat to myself on my first day off in fifteen days. I deserve some pampering, don't you think?? :-)

Have a good one, kids. :-)

I. Freaking. Love. My. Life.

Ok, well not all of it. I would love to be in MD, for example. I would love to be getting a paycheck. And while I'm at it, I would LOVE to be able to eat whatever I want and still lose weight, to be able to afford nice clothes, to be able to afford to travel... but that's all superfluous stuff, and I'm sure I can get by without it in the immediate future. :-)

But at least my professional life, well, is just freaking glorious. *huge grin*

I finish up six weeks on Pediatrics this week. The first few weeks were on outpatient, essentially clinic pediatrics, an I was bored to TEARS. By my 37th sports physical I was ready to gouge my eyeballs out simply to have something INTERESTING happen. I'm not kidding; I got straight desperate by the end of it. My fourth week was spent in the nursery, and hell that was just fun. All I did for a week straight was play with newborns. And who wouldn't love to play with babies all day long? But as much of a blast as it was, it wasn't all that intellectually stimulating. For these last two weeks, however, I've been on inpatient medicine. And holy hell. For the first time in a very, very long time, I'm completely, irrevocably, unequivocally in love with medicine.

What it really comes down to is this: I like sick and complicated patients. I don't want to see another case of otitis media in an otherwise healthy kid; I want a kid with hyperinsulinemia who had 95% of his pancreas removed, was still having hypoglycemic episodes complicated by the fact that he wasn't eating well (had that patient today). I want a case of croup so bad to require nebulized epinephrine to keep him from desat'ing (a patient yesterday). I want a baby born at 27 weeks with necrotizing enterocolitis who required TPN (a baby I've been following for the past week- they've taught me how to write orders for total parenteral nutrition!). I LOVE asthma, and failure to thrive, and congenital heart defects. The more complicated the medicine, the faster my thoughts start to race, the harder my heart pumps, and I canNOT for the life of my stifle the childish "Awwweeessoommmeee" that comes out when I contemplate the amazing mechanisms at work in my patients. I'm infatuated with the pathophysiology of incredibly sick bodies, and no one is sicker than the patient that needs to be admitted to the hospital, or, occasionally, critical care.

So, of course, I'm enjoying inpatient medicine. But to make the experience all that much sweeter, I'm learning from an amazing attending physician. He's an incredibly good teacher, and unfailingly patient when I take an hour and a half to write up an H&P. And the most amazing thing about him is that he employs this trial-by-fire method of learning in which he says to me: "We have a patient in the ER with asthma. He's yours. Go do an H&P, write the admission orders for him, and tell me how you want to manage his care over the next few days." There is magic in that statement: "He's your patient." By making a patient my responsibility, it pushes my motivation, my stamina, my desire to learn, my attention to detail, to a level I've never experienced before. It also makes the experience much more rewarding, as well as makes the information STICK far better than reading it out of a book.

As if THAT wasn't great enough, after doing the complete admission on a little guy with cellulitis of his upper lip, my attending says to me the other day, "Bethany, you're ready to be a resident."

*tear*

I love being an almost-doctor. :-)

First, best pick-up line ever: "Does this smell like chloroform to you?" Love it. :-)

Ah, Saturday evening. Productive morning followed by a distinctly unproductive afternoon. A cup of Earl Gray, a bath and my giant terry cloth bath robe are in my near future, and for the first time in a while, I'm feeling optomistic about life.

A few weeks ago, in the middle of my Peds clinic, one of the nurses, concerned, said to me, "Honey you always look so anxious; you need to relax."

It broke my heart a little. Anxious? I look anxious?!? I don't think I'd realized how much I'd changed since coming to medical school, how much I've lost, until that moment. All of sudden, words such as friendly, happy, kind, nice, words that have been used to describe me in the past, are replaced by anxious. Something was broken.

That's the real trick of med school; remembering, and maintaining, your person-hood, what makes you you, in the thick of it. Amidst the chronic stress of classes, the crisis of confidence and self-doubt, and your focus always turned outward- on class subjects, rotations and patients, residency applications, whatever- it's so easy to neglect your own interests and happiness.

I'm sure every profession has it's own brand of this, but somehow medicine seems worse. Perhaps it's because the people we're taught to admire in medicine- the great physicians- are all incredibly selfless, freaking Mother Teresas of medicine. Paul Farmer for example, a Harvard physician, practically established a health system in Haiti, a country, for godssake, and among medical students, his name is said with reverence, with awe. That's the sort of physician we all aspire to be, and for the vast majority of us, this aspiration is unrealistic. For myself, I'm pretty freaking sure I'm no Paul Farmer. But I'm still guilty of neglecting my mental, emotional and spiritual well-being in order to achieve some unattainable ideal I've imagined for myself. And when three years go by like that, well, you're sure to lose pieces of yourself, often without realizing it.

Armed with this realization, I've embarked on a self-improvement program. Don't laugh at me. I'm serious. :-) First, I'm trying to get back to what I love, or at least ientify those things, bring them back to my awareness. An abridged list of things that make me happy:

1) BOOKS. Good books, whether poetry, non-fiction, nasty SMUT, no matter, just something that hooks me, draws me in, and leaves me a little changed after reading it.

2) Laughing. I don't laugh nearly as much or as freely as I used to, and that is certainly something I need to rectify.

3) Cooking. When I have the time, I really need to cook more. There's something distinctly satisfying about taking a random grouping of ingredients and making something ssccccrruuummmpptious. :-)

4) Autumn, snuggling and comfy clothing. Comfiness. Big fan.

5) Pampering. I deserve a facial with my next hair appointment, damnit.

6) Photography. I keep meaning to make it downtown while the weather is nice to take some random shots, but I keep getting lazy. No more of that, fat ass.

7) RUNNING. Why did I stop running? The rush of endorphins, the wind in my hair, focusing on my breath in time with my steps- it was GLORIOUS. I need, rather desperately, to get back into it soon.

So, along with simply identifying these things, I've taken some steps to reclaim what I feel like I've lost. I've got a library card now. I've also joined NetFlix, and my queue is filled with comedies (and, of course, some True Blood :-)). I made myself Shepard's Pie the other day (not nearly as good as yours, Bek, but I'm trying!). The rest, I hope, will come. But just thinking about them brings me some measure of satisfaction, some sense of self.

On that note, the sun is slanting just so in the trees outside my window- it's an awful beautiful evening for some photos. I think I'll go take advantage.

Have a good weekend, kids. :-)

Early afternoon. Fan turned on high to combat the Chicago summer heat. Lounging in a pair of shorts and a tank top, nursing a cup of high-octane coffee while I work up the motivation to do something other than NAP. You'd think it was the weekend for me, but no; it's MONDAY. The patient load is extraordinarily light on this service (at least today), and at 9AM (after about four hours of rounding, lecture, ect.) our residents told us to go 'study', that they'd page us if anything happened worthwhile, and if we DIDN'T hear from them, to go home at 4. I'm telling you, it felt like fucking CHRISTMAS. I had to stifle the impulse to SKIP outta there.

I promise you, despite the way it might sound, I'm not miserable. I'm about half-way through my Ob-Gyn rotation, and it's organized in such a way that we spend two weeks each on three different 'services', or flavors of Ob-Gyn practice. I was on labor and delivery the first two weeks and LOVED it; I could work a 16 hour day and not bat an eye-lash, be back bright eyed and bushy tailed at 5AM the next morning. (P.S. where the hell does that expression come from? Whenever I hear/ say it I conjure up images of the cartoon squirrels from Sleeping Beauty.) My second two weeks are being spent on Gynecology-Oncology, which deals with cancers of the female genital tract and is essentially a surgical specialty. If I've learned anything in the last couple weeks, it's that I have zero interest an surgery; even if I DID, my personality is not 'surgical' in the least. I'm not suffering by any means; the medicine is still cool, and I've followed some interesting patients. But at the same time, when they set me free from a day in the OR, I'm certainly not HEARTBROKEN. Next up is Uro-Gyn, which is more of the same, but I have some lectures and whatnot that fall on those days, so it won't end up being a full two weeks. Lord have mercy. :-)

All in all, although I've enjoyed this rotation, I'm pretty sure my future doesn't lie in OB-Gyn. It's just too darn surgical. Scratch it off the list of career possibilities. Next up is Peds, and what a freaking cliche I would be, peppy blond pediatrician, but Peds is definitely in my top three possibilities for a future career. I suspect I'm going to like it a lot.

In OTHER news, and much much happier news, I just got back from a surprise visit to Shane in Maryland! He had NO idea. I pretty much got a bug up my ass on Thursday morning that I wanted to see him, bought a surprisingly cheap last minute flight, and flew into BWI on Friday evening. Bekah, wonderful woman that she is, picked me up from the airport and dropped me off on base, where Shane was bowling. He had his back to me when I walked in, so I went up and grabbed his ass. Like full palm squeeze action, NOT something he could miss or ignore. God bless the man, he's so loyal to me, he turned around looking ready to slug someone, male or female, only to be confronted with my smiling face. HIS face was PRICELESS. He says "I'm imagining things," then, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?!?" and hugs me. It was a great start to a great weekend, which I think did worlds of good for our relationship. Long distance sucks; you really have to find things to hold on to, to carry you through when things get hard. This weekend was one of those things I'll hold on to.

He comes and visits again on August 14th. CanNOT wait. :-)

Aaaaaannnddd it's time for my nap. Being a third year is f'ing awesome. :-)

*i-love-sitting-down-sigh*

I've always liked hanging out in the hospital around 2AM. Even now, when I'm not getting paid for it, I enjoy it. There's something soothing about the sounds, the hum of computers and SCD machines, the rhythmic hissing of the vents, the frequent beeps of alarms and the clack-clack-clacking of keyboards as people try to catch up on charting, juxtaposed over the peaceful quiet of sleeping patients. The hospital is an entirely different animal at night, and if not for the severe effects a shift like this would have on my social life, I might consider committing to shifts like this in my career to come.

Aw, who am I kidding... I'm a medical student... I have no social life. :-)

Last week I started my third year of medical school, and essentially kicked off the clinical years of my medical education with a "bang"; on night float on labor and delivery, a notoriously difficult week for third year students. The shift is essentially 4:30pm- 7:30 pm, 15 hours through the night, and I'll tell you what, although you CAN adjust relatively quickly to working at night/ sleeping through the day, the adjustment period BLOWS. The benefits, however, WAY outweigh anything negative I can say about it. It's SO much more chill on the floor at night, so it's a very friendly, laid back atmosphere for third year med students who are COMPLETELY clueless about their role and responsibilities. Because it's a bit lighter and there aren't so many distractions (rounding attendings, confused pharmacy technicians, ect.), there's more opportunity for learning and DOING. I've seen some fantastic stuff in the week I've been here.I've scrubbed in to a few c-sections, assisted in the delivery of a few babies, done a few dozen admissions/ exams, and even performed a pelvic exam or two. Some of these experiences have been especially memorable...

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending), Loyola tends to get a lot of high-risk pregnant women, the moms with blood pressure through the roof due to preeclampsia or whose water broke at 22 weeks. Often, the outcome isn't very good. I wheeled one such Mom up to the NICU yesterday who, after a c-section at 22 1/2 weeks, was forced to say goodbye to her infant. He was so little, and the neonatologist said that his lungs were so poorly formed that it was impossible to ventilate him, even with a tube down his windpipe. It was so sad; he kicked his feet and waved his arms like an infant three times his size, he LOOKED like he was a little fighter, but it was all but a certainty he would die in the days that followed. Mom was seriously in denial, and that made the situation all the more heartbreaking. It's not ALWAYS sad, though. A few days ago, we had a woman at around 23 weeks whose membranes (the sac that holds the 'water' in place) ruptured while she was in the shower, and most often, when your membranes rupture you go into labor. The rule of thumb for premature babies is at 24 weeks, only 50% of babies survive outside the uterus. Of that 50%, half will be developmentally delayed. So, at 23 weeks and in labor, the chances were pretty slim for this patient. Attempts to stop the contractions failed, and she got an infection in her uterus, which is an indication for an immediate c-section. So we sectioned her, and out pops this baby thats just HUGE for its gestational age, crying like a little champ! I had TEARS in my eyes; I wanted to CHEER!

The few 'normal' births I've seen have been memorable, as well. If the birth is low-risk, and Mom has an epidural, often the residents let the med student themselves deliver the baby (with heavy supervision, of course). I was all set to deliver this one woman this evening, when on a cervix check being performed by the resident, the baby practically FELL OUT of the woman's vagina. We didn't even have time to get her into the stirrups or scrub in... this baby FELL OUT into our barely gloved hands. Mom is in an epidural-induced coma, baby's wailing away like she's proud of herself, and the resident and I are standing there covered in blood and amniotic fluid. Bizarrely, I didn't mind at all. Honestly, there was a very big part of me that even ENJOYED being covered in labor goo...... I know it sounds odd, but there's nothing that makes you feel more like a medical professional than being covered head to toe in someone elses secretions LOL. I just laughed. It was awesome.

So it's been hard, and humbling, and half the time I feel like an idiot, but its been straight, unequivocally, unbeleivably AWESOME. Pretty sure I don't want to go into OB-Gyn, but I'm really, really enjoying my time here.

It's almost four. We've had about an hour of downtime, and now I need to go do a few quick exams and write some notes. Have a good day, kids. :-)

Well, shit. I'm bored. Whoduthunk that after months of complaining about being overwhelmed by the tsunami of information that is medical school and Boards studying, I'd be bored after a week of vacation? Sad, just sad.

There are extenuating circumstances. One, I'm out of money until my next loan installment on July 6th. And not a lot of activities in today's society are free, so there's that. Two, I'm without vehicle. My parents visited Shane and I in Maryland last weekend, and my Dad took my car back to NY for a week to give it a once over (there is NOTHING like a father's love for his daughter, is there? No wonder women have such a hard time being content in relationships... if they're lucky, their fathers treated them like princesses, and no man can compete with that! :-)). So, I'm house-bound. And there's only so much cleaning, so much organizing, so much reading a girl can do before she starts to get stir crazy. And I'm there. I'm stir crazy.

I've been occupying my couch-time with somewhat educational activities, though. PLEASE DON'T JUDGE ME, but I've started reading my book for my up and coming OB-Gyn rotation. I figure a leg up will do me good in the long run. I've also been pouring through the NY Times website like a wild woman, trying to become current on the goings-on of the world, most of which I've been oblivious to for the last, oh, eight or nine months (Obama got voted into office?!?! Just kidding... :-)). I've developed an interested in the current debates on health care reform. Its an INCREDIBLY complex issue, and my knowledge of all of its facets is humble, at best. But I'm trying to become better informed. It does, after all, concern my immediate future.

Despite my excitement about rotations, I'm becoming nervous, too, and not for the reasons you might expect. I'm worried... God, this is horrible to admit.... but that I'm not going to LIKE it. That's particularly terrifying when you think about the time and money I've invested in the career path, and although I've had tons of clinical experience over the years, those roles are going to be distinctly different than the role I step into on July 6th, as part of the medical team. What if, despite thinking I know what I'm getting into all these years, I truly don't? What if I've romanticized the role of physician, and the reality is much different? What if I become disillusioned by the system early? WHAT DO I DO THEN? Nearly 150K in debt, seven years invested..... what if I find out all of it has been for nothing, because, SURPRISE, I find I don't want to be doctor anymore? And I can't really picture myself doing anything else, so what then?

It's a terrifying conflict, one I'm afraid isn't going to resolve itself easily. I have a sense part of me will always be questioning the path I've chosen, maybe because it's my nature, or maybe because the nature of the profession and its demands of you.

At any rate, it will be an interesting few years.

Yesterday, the clerk at the grocery store gave me an extra discount on groceries simply, he said, "For being so nice." And truthfully, yesterday was just one of those days where I felt as if I was glowing, feeling so benevolent about the universe I was vomiting kindness and shitting rainbows.

The reasons are many; I had just left the salon with a straight fabulous hair style and was thirty minutes post- full body massage. Probably most significant, however, was the fact that I was also a day out from one of the most stressful periods of my life: United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Step 1, the first of 3-5 tests I must take in the next five years to prove I should be allowed to treat humans. A lot of people will tell you that Step 1 is the most difficult, and thus, most stressful. I think that's partly because its the test that bridges the basic sciences with the clinical applications of it, a test that requires a tremendous amount of integration. The rest of USMLE, Steps 2, 3, and beyond, are much more focused on the clinical aspects. So, after four weeks and a half weeks of studying, I sat down to take a seven hour exam that, like the MCAT, would decide the next five years of my life. And...... I don't know. LOL. It was HARD, and there were a LOT of questions with which I relied really heavily on my skills of deduction rather than memory. But, from what I understand, everyone walks out of that test feeling like they sucked it up. So, here's hoping that I did well.... or at least passed. :-)

Enough about that! It's over, and I'm on vacation, bitches! :-) Yesterday I spent the afternoon getting my hair did, and getting a massage, courtesy of my fabulous boyfriend. :-) Today I did some light cleaning, and now I'm sitting on the couch, drinking coffee, and watching Disney's Aladdin. Good day. :-) I'm on vacation for one couple of weeks before beginning my third year rotations. Although I'm perfectly content to allow these next two weeks to drag on as long as I can stretch them, I'm incredibly excited to be in the hospital and clinic, treating real patients, from now on. My first rotation, in fact, is Ob-Gyn, a specialty I think I'm going to LOVE. The only down-side, of course, is having to leave Shane again.

As you might know, I tried to transfer to Georgetown for a second time, and, as they did before, the admissions committee "chose NOT to offer you an interview." They claimed it was because they had "many qualified applicants," but I would have LOVED to see what made those candidates that DID recieve interviews more qualified than me. Can you tell I'm a bit bitter? :-)

But I'm alright. To be honest, I think its for the best. First of all, I'm going back to Loyola, which has been unfailingly supportive throughout this whole thing. The faculty is fabulous, the student body is awesome...... I mean, honestly, I don't think I would have a better med-school experience anywhere else. Also, I think my absence is going to allow Shane to take advantage of some opportunities in his career he may not if I were around. Apparently, someone up there is a HELL of a lot smarter than we are, and is taking care of us. :-)

And aahh, Shane. Seriously. Going on four years, two of which have been long distance, and I don't think we've ever been stronger, better, more in love. This past month has been straight blissful. The stupid man has wormed his way into the deepest parts of my heart, and although I don't know what I ever did to deserve him, I know even less how I could ever live without him. I'm an incredibly lucky woman. :-)

So I'll spend the next two weeks relaxing, reading books that have NOTHING to do with science, visiting friends and relatives, running and playing around my new camera. Hopefully, they'll go slowly. :-)