oh god is it over yet? part one

Part one of my attempts to avoid studying this week.

Commencement is this weekend and I still have tests the week after that. There is something terribly, terribly wrong with this picture. (The med school gets out two weeks later than undergrad, and we don't finish until next week. As if we're not haggard enough by now.)

On a somewhat sunnier side, Andrei and I and about a quarter of the senior class went to Martha's Vineyard this weekend as part of Senior Week. It was rainy and damp in the morning, but we made the best of it and spent most of the day gorging ourselves on ridiculously fresh seafood. At one point it started raining and we ducked into a harborside seafood joint to eat fried oysters and drink beer; I have never felt closer to my studying of obesity and appetite regulation than the food-fest that was this weekend.

Anyway, pictures will be forthcoming probably never.

Also, Andrei's lovely grandmother Lelia flew in from Bucharest today and will be staying with us until after graduation. His parents and mine are getting into town Thursday and Friday. Soon the rest of the campus will be crawling with proud mamas and papas and little siblings! Is it pessimistic that I am already dreading being pulled in all different directions by my family? The answer is yes.

Back to work.

what i do when i'm not studying

After a few failed starts to Ye Olde Medical School Blog, hopefully I've managed to settle down on this one. It turns out that I'm no good at starting a story from the beginning at all. I tried to write about my white coat ceremony, I really did. I tried to start from Day One and recount the sweaty-palmed anxiety of marching at the ceremony, feeling like I was about to ooze out of existence because of the unbearable heat of midday August in Boston. But to be honest, it really wasn't very interesting stuff to remember.

And even more amazingly, all of my previous attempts to entertain myself with the story of that one time in lab when my anatomy partner threw a human heart at me with a mean spiral because "it sorta looked like a nerf ball" -- well even that was a bust. So I'm going to start this story 23 weeks and 6 days into the semester, and try my best to forget that image of a projectile human heart.

***

Thursday morning was our dreaded Neuroscience final, and we all emerged bleary-eyed from the auditorium four hours later with grand hopes of two things we had forgone all week: eating and sleeping. I went out for lunch with two classmates to a place that I've already forgotten the name of (in my food- and sleep-deprived stupor, remember?) For the majority of lunch we talked about what we'd do with our "Free Time" now that Neuro was over and now that we had a three-day weekend ahead of us. Talking about our plans for the weekend buoyed us up even more than our good meal, and we walked out of the restaurant high on our freedom from ever having to remember the ventral amygdalofugal pathway again.

The rest of the day Thursday I spent in long overdue meetings for clubs that hadn't corralled its members since before winter break, and I finally got home around 5pm and threw myself in bed. But within 15 minutes of getting into bed I pulled myself out from under the covers and mewled piteously to Andrei in the next room: "I have all this free time to do whatever I want--whatever the hell I want--and I'm choosing to stay in bed?"

So we went out to the Coolidge Corner Theatre to see Up in the Air, which was a movie that I had meant to see after our FIRST neuro exam in December, but never got around to doing. On second thought, I think the reason I didn't see it after the last neuro exam was because I DID succumb to staying in bed for the rest of that night. Carpe diem doesn't always apply to med students, obviously. Yup, sometimes seize the sleep is my only motto.

The movie was good. The cast was magnificent, especially the female actors Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick (whose role in the movie was apparently conceived just for her, and you could tell). Andrei liked it, but I thought it was totally hyped up (much like I thought Garden State was hyped up in high school). It was a funny movie and maybe "representative of our times," but I couldn't help but think that it was trying too hard in some places. It was a little unapologetically emo, and George Clooney acting emo, doe-eyed, and lost was not really that interesting to watch.

Friday I spent all morning doing chores (i.e. watering our plants and tackling all the laundry I had not-so-judiciously avoided in the two weeks before the exam) and waterproofing the tan riding boots my mom bought for me over winter break. Before I knew it (or, alternatively, three CSI re-runs later) Andrei was home and we left for the Prudential Center to do some window shopping. Ironically, the only window display that caught my eye was a display of boardgames in the window of Barnes and Noble, and I made a fabulous purchase. It's something I've always wanted! More so than a Gucci bag (Andrei likes to pronounce it "Guck-y") or a Free People dress (Andrei always jokes about the name "Free People").

As expected, we ended the night at Trident, my favorite bookshop in Boston. I love their cafe, especially their teas and carrot cake! It's a ridiculously cozy place and it wasn't too crowded (guess not too many college students spend their Friday nights in bookstores). We caught the tail-end of Trivia Night at Trident and had some fun playing Scrabble. A perfect night in my book.

Saturday I felt equally as ambitious to get out of the house, and so we spent most of the day in the Coolidge Corner area. We had lunch at Dok Bua, my favorite Thai place in a one-mile radius. On the way home I did some shopping at the Gap. I made off with some yellow and teal opaque tights, a striped turtleneck sweater, and a charming grandpa sweater. It was a good haul, worthy of a critical Asian mother's eye :o)

Saturday night Andrei made chicken curry from scratch (there's no argument that he's the better cook between us), and the rest of the afternoon was awesome because Titanic was on, followed by the SAG Awards. Later Lijo and Anna G. came over to hang out and watch movies and do the whole catching up thing.

Today we're doing more catch-up: pho with med school friends in Harvard Square, and a visit from Anna S. later tonight. I really miss that girl! In the meantime I've got to put the finishing touches on this new blog, clean my desk out, finish the book of short stories I started Friday, and pre-read for class tomorrow.

Okay, maybe pre-read.