After 2 Years...

...I am finally a 2nd year medical student. Phew.

Hoosier Wedding!

The wedding season, for me, was officially kicked off last weekend in the hometown of my Alma Mater, Bloomington, Indiana. It was truly a Hoosier wedding, as they are both teammates of mine from swimming for IU. The weather cooperated perfectly, the bride, groom and wedding party were beautiful, all was merry and I had a blast. Though, I must mention, going to weddings and not being able to drink puts a bit of a damper on the dancing. The only way to stand, walk, and dance in heels for 8 hours is to drink them numb, or become inebriated enough to not care about dancing barefoot through sticky, spilled beer and spirits. Lots of joy and crazyness, wish I would have remembered my camera...

Cheers! to Dr. Elizabeth and Mr. Richard Bryant.
May 17th, 2008.

Pathology Club at Bucca and Losers at Trivia

Pathology Club Officers, some old, some new: Liz, Susan, Allison & (If you don't know you shouldn't be reading this blog...)

Here are a couple of photos to commemorate a trivia night like none before...DFL!!! Our team consisted of 2 engineers, a pilot, a med student, a nutritionist, a recent college grad and a realtor (?) and we still could get no questions correct. Though, we definitely should have won a "cleverness" or "random" prize.

I don't know what the other's excuses are (Matt, Luke, Toma, Leah, Tommy and Lara) but I am attributing my lack of trivia knowledge to a food coma. I trekked over to Westport Flea Market straight from eating an entire meal, paid for by the KCUMB Pathology Club, from Bucca de Beppo. If you have been there, you know what I mean, if you haven't, well, then you don't. I would also like to credit my parents for our outstanding loss, because they randomly decided to give us one rule as children; you are not allowed to watch "90210". Yes, that was one of the catagories. The night turned out to be a crazy one...more so for some than others, but a good time, nontheless. (Guess it turns out we need Jon and Beth more than we even know.)

The Sparks of 70th Terrace

Recently, I have come to find out that Matt and I are the "neighborhood watch". Though, I cannot say I didn't see this coming. Suspicion of our current position on the block arose one evening as Matt, Beth and I turned out all the lights and ducked down below window level to observe the interactions between our neighbor "E" and her night visitor. We were even speaking in whispers, as if they might hear us through our walls, across 20 yards, and through the car's exterior. Though the whole situation was generally amusing, and we weren't taking ourselves too seriously, we were spying nonetheless.

The solidity of our position came to light the other day when speaking to our other next door neighbor, who is in the midst of selling her house. We began chatting about the neighborhood in general, and about how glad we were that our WT neighbors across the street were gone, and how we couldn't believe "E" had dated "the bachelor" from 3 houses up for so long, and how we could hear the old ladies with smoker's voices talking on the phone, outside, at 8 in the morning...who would pause to ask us "is that your dog?" This neighbor just laughed nervously as we spilled all of this information, which was really only the beginning, and says, "No, I never noticed any of this." What!? I thought everyone sat in their living room with the front blinds wide open and watched all the people do their thang.

To be continued...

DC & B'More

Phew. I finally got the obligatory "trip to our nation's capital to see all the sight's every true American should witness at least once in a lifetime" over and done. Now, next time I visit, I can relaxedly visit anything I want to, or not visit anything at all, and feel ok about it. Thus avoiding the swollen and blistered feet, sore, aching legs and back, and sun-burnt face. I have to add, Matt and I were in DC on probably the most beautiful weekend of the year. All the trees, and bushes, and plants were luscious, blooming, bright and thrilling. (I almost felt like Sister Mary Lavin, our cute little, slightly nutty - in a good way - high school art teacher, who would get insanely excited over witnessing "blue leaves".) We stayed with our good friends Maureen & Sean, thank goodness. Knowing Matt and I, without them, we probably would have made it to the White house, and that's it. We also stayed with Jinji one night in Baltimore, where we patroned the breakfast establishment frequented by her & Michael Phelps.

In the above photo, I stopped to pose outside the Capitol building during my trek between the House and Senate sides of The Hill. The reason for this whole trip was to lobby for my profession (DO's) and my future patients on health care issues.
The White House.
You would not believe how crazy and pushy people get when it comes to observing the Consititution, Bill of Rights & Declaration of Independence.

PS - We just missed Rob Lowe while touring the Archives Museum.

A lovely, flowering vine-type bush outside the Smithsonian Gallery of Art that beckoned to be the backdrop of our portrait.

I am pretty sure Jinji lives on Sesame Street!

(Isn't the only thing missing Oscar's tin trash can?)