not all who wander are lost.

week 3, day 1.

i'm going home friday after the exam for labor day break. we'll see how that goes. hopefully it'll be therapeutic. there is a significant chance it will prove otherwise.

i'm very nervous about the exam.
i'm definitely excited to see melanie.
i'm definitely super excited to sleep in on saturday.

i like my anatomy group, they're entertaining. i wish i had more time to know them as people.

i'm not waxing philosophical tonight. no deep thoughts from this kid.

cookies. yeah cookies sound good right now.


as an adolescent i aspired to lasting fame, i craved factual certainty, and i thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life - so i became a scientist. this is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.

(m. cartmill)

that deserves a double yoi.

dr. schneck rolled our 180+ lb. cadaver over yesterday....

by himself.



makes me wonder if we'll ever be as strong as our grandparents.

vincero.

week 2, day 2.

in the past three months, i'm fairly certain that i've gone through an entire tree in terms of my kleenex usage. i'm so very tired of crying. i think i'll stop now.

standing on the starting line of the edinburgh marathon two years ago, i started crying. i missed melanie and was convinced that i wouldn't finish without her there. simply put, i was terrified. it wasn't enough that i'd already had one marathon under my belt. i was flying solo this time around and it was scary. the cannon--yes, cannon--went off and not wanting to pansy out just yet i hustled along with the rest of the pack. i finished the edinburgh marathon in five hours, one minute, and forty-five seconds.

five minutes faster than in pittsburgh.

starting med school right now is really no different from than that morning in holyrood park. i was completely out of my comfort zone--a million miles from home, lacking the immediate presence of a best friend, and only 26.2 grueling miles of unfamiliar pavement stood between me and satisfaction. pretty bleak, eh?

it's strikingly similar to what i'm dealing with right now. for the past 23 years of my life, i've never really failed at anything. not because i've been lucky, but because i've worked for it. sure, karma's kicked me in the ass a few times, but i've come through it. everything is unfamiliar: dishes are piling up in my sink, my bathroom is slowly becoming nasty, and i can't tell you the ninth tendon that runs through the carpal tunnel. every aspect of life is utterly frustrating right now. for the first time, i'm faced with a very real possibility of failure. this is hard. harder than it's ever been.

so i cry. alot.

today, i met with dr. lyons. his talk during orientation was very good, for lack of a better word. he did his first year of medical school twice. i figured he'd be a good person to talk to at this point. after i blubbered through my 'this sucks' story, he asked what i did when i wasn't studying. the marathons came up. turns out, he's run fourteen of them. he asked if crossing that line was worth all the icy mornings, the nausea, the blisters, and the fatigue. i saw his point. he also said to call him if i couldn't find someone to run with.

walking back to the subway, i realized what dr. lyons had done. he'd picked up a floundering first-year up off the pavement and set her back on her feet. four years from now, i'd like to be able to return the favor. pick someone else up. give them back hope.

next friday is my first exam of medical school. four and a half hours of the back, arm, leg, and chest cavity.

the cannon's about to go off.

and i'm going to run.

perfection is the enemy of excellence.

well said, dr. lyons.

so this post may not be an accurate reflection of my day since i've just gotten back from a smashing run and am still heady from endorphins.

our cadaver is getting a bit gnarly from all the reflected skin and fat. actually, the term gnarly doesn't come close. still, we can locate most of the stuff we need. three-fourths of my time is devoted to anatomy, the rest to the basic necessities: food, shower, run, riding the subway, and a chat with luis from 7 to 7:30.

life's been tough this week, not gonna lie. i strive so hard to keep it together, stiff upper lip, etc. but today i finally stopped trying for perfection--accepted the fact that i won't ever be on top of the material much less ahead of it. and it was like an alcoholic's moment of clarity. i started actually learning what was before me. it was the beginning of excellence. or so i hope.

my niece turned 5 yesterday. prior to that, she flushed a roll of TP down the toilet. so very epic :)

to those reading this who picked me up from rock bottom this week, thank you. you know not what you've done.

shower, dishes, tidy, smile, bed.

fresh fish.

first day of gross anatomy. on the whole, class was fine--i stripped down so everyone could use me for back surface anatomy, as i am simply skin atop bones these days.

today was dissection of the back and posterior triangle of the neck which is (of course) bordered anteriorly by the sternocleidomastoid muscle, posteriorly by the trapezius muscle and inferiorly by the clavicle. of course.

dr. schneck is easily the most knowledgeable eighty-year-old man i've ever met. thank goodness we have him for the first rotation of faculty.

i was glad for the step stools :)

and i would be excited to study right now save the fact that my water bottle decided to leak through my pen pouch all over my beautiful shiny anatomy atlas creating an endearingly blue soggy mess. wet books on first day of class=awesome.

in all honesty, when i pulled it out of my bag, i wanted to quit. hand in my scrubs. fly home.

sometimes it's the little things that do the most damage.

right, so, my choices for productive procrastination currently: eat, do dishes, run (away).



"and it's fatass by a nose!"
-hayworth, the shawshank redemption

12:28 a.m.

t minus 6 hours till med school.

well, kind of. orientation doesn't really count since there is no homework assigned. at least i hope not.

today was just another sunday. church at Our Lady of Hope this morning, dishes, breakfast, fighting with my computer, a movie, and some damn good gelato for a night cap.

philadelphia seems to be devoted to everything upscale---little stores selling just bathtubs or just pots or whatever you want. a trillion hip cafes, clubs, and bistros too. and while that's endearing, it's also exhausting. i shouldn't expect to fit into philly in just a day. nor should i expect it to be pittsburgh. or scotland. it's like trying to shove a square peg in a round hole. maybe this is what it's all about. becoming more round.

now seems like a good time for the prologue. most of you reading this already know that i'm 23, graduated from duquesne with a b.s. in biochemistry with a minor in bio. why do i want to be a doctor? love of science + an inane desire to change the world = medicine. what kind of doctor do i want to be? something that doesn't involve feet or the lower GI tract. thinking pediatrics or endo, but what's the point in picking? it's like choosing a favorite flavor of ice cream when you've never had it. are my parents doctors? no, they're both teachers. did i work in africa or cure cancer? no. i assure you that i'm quite average. as one of my friends would say, i bleed red just like you do.

other mundane details about me:
4'11''/~90 lbs/green eyes/brown hair/built like a beanpole
italian/german/polish/english
snow patrol/norah jones/dave matthews/ben harper/the be good tanyas
high fidelity/hook/braveheart/shawshank/life is beautiful
i run marathons.
boys make me nuts, but my life would be far less interesting if they weren't around.
i firmly believe that nothing i say is original.

i left pittsburgh for philadelphia. if you are from pittsburgh, then you understand why this is sacrilege. i love my city--it really is the biggest small town ever. leaving was hard. lots there that i love. mum still cries when i hang up the phone. they're truly 'empty nest' now--being at duquesne was just sort of pseudo-gone.

am i excited for tomorrow? i think i'm comfortably numb at the moment. at least there's no panic. yet. i'm excited to meet more people--those i have met so far are quality.

anyways, my mind's a beehive right now. time to stare at the clock a little more.

here.

i made it to philly. and my parents made it back home. that's a good thing, right? my apartment is nice. nothing fancy, but comfortable. went downtown today with two fellow classmates, both of whom live in my building. took the subway, which was uneventful save the large pile of feces in one of the station entrances. charming.

the entire commute was single-handedly redeemed by the reading terminal market downtown. it's like some magnificent assault on the senses. local produce, fresh cheese, flowers, coffee, people, music, beautiful. it's going to make me broke (ha)--at least on saturday mornings.

it's my first night alone in this new place. i'm still trying to sort out exactly how i feel. nervous? check. sad? check. happy? check. lonely? check. surrounded? check. awesome.

so much back home and so much here. i have to be thankful for it all though because as one friend so aptly put it last night--i am living so many people's dream right now. i am one of the chosen.

tomorrow feels like a good day for adventure. maybe i'll take the camera.

but for now, it's a cup of red rose and some ella fitzgerald.

welcome.

i'm not one to keep a journal. i look back at previous attempts and cringe: did i actually write down such lame, meandering thoughts? this could very well be the beginning of another soon-to-be-abandoned endeavor. but on the off-chance that it does cling to life, i'll explain now why i'm doing this.

tomorrow i move to philadelphia to start school at temple med. i hope to share with you as much as i can about what it's like to be a student in med school. however, it will be a biased account--what it's like for me certainly will bear little resemblence to that of my colleagues. i'd start on the prologue tonight, but most of my belongings are still scattered about the house.

time to pack up this life.