Home!

I made it home to Walnut Creek without any problems! I got some studying done on the plane and got to go straight to In-N-Out with mom upon arrival in San Francisco. Great times. Now it is raining but I am warm and it's not snow, so woo hoo! I also get to play with Max and Koa so that's great. Not sick from allergies yet, so here's to hoping all the precautions taken will work this time :)

Today is biochem day 1 of 2, so I'm pretty bored already. I know it's important though so pushing through! Back to First Aid now!

Study buddy Koa wanted some love

Done with M2 year!

Over the weekend I took my Reproduction sequence finals and officially finished my second year of medical school! It's crazy to think that I will never again have a week of my life solely dedicated to lecture, studying, and taking exams. I will have all three components, but mixed in with seeing patients and being in the hospital. Both of my finals went well and I passed everything in my preclinical years, yay!

Now I get to spend the next five weeks studying for arguably the biggest test I have taken or ever will take in my life. The score I get on this test is not do or die, but largely determines which specialties I will be competitive in applying to residencies in. Here's to hoping it goes well! I'm not too overwhelmed yet, so that's a start! I go to California tomorrow for the rest of my study time, which is great because its the end of March and was absolutely freezing here today. How is it almost April and Michigan is still having days with temperatures below 20º?!

In other news, the NCAA basketball tournament began over the weekend and both Stanford and Michigan made it to the Sweet 16!! Michigan was dominant and expected to move on, but for Stanford to move on they had to upset both New Mexico and Kansas, so it was really exciting! I'm hoping to building in a little study break to watch some of the games next week.

So off I go into the abyss of Step 1 studying. I likely won't be able to blog much, but then again I won't be doing much other than study, eat, study, eat, sleep, repeat!

Last Water Polo Tournament

This past weekend was my last water polo tournament of the season since I am headed home next week for Step 1 study period. The tournament was at Miami University in Ohio and was a really fun weekend. We woke up bright and early at 5:45am on Saturday morning and made the 4 hour drive to Oxford, Ohio. I never get sleep in these van rides, but I actually fell asleep for once and then the driver pulled over and asked me to drive ten minutes later. So much for that.

When we got there we pretty quickly had our first game against Lindenwood, which we won. I then played a half of goalie for the B team against Miami and I wasn't super awesome, but I also got dealt a lot of hard situations that weren't all that blockable since the defense had a few early lapses. Anyways, after that game A team played Grand Valley and we won't that game too. After all our games were over we went to one of my teammate's Aunt and Uncle's home for dinner and then drove the 45 minutes to our hotel. At the hotel we watched Frozen and then I went to bed pretty early which was quite nice. It was also dark in the room for once, something I do not get in Ann Arbor.

Sunday we got to wake up early again, around 6:45am, to eat breakfast and drive back to the pool. We played Miami first and won and then three of us played down on the B team against Lindenwood since it was a better match up for us and we knew we wouldn't have an amazing game against Ohio University since they aren't quite as strong of a team (so three of the B team girls switched with us and played up where they would get more playing time). We ended up tying Lindenwood with a pseudo mixed team and I played quite well, scoring 4 goals. I then played 2nd quarter goalie against Ohio University and had a shut out quarter. Fun times.

Now my season is over and it's back to 100% focus on school, and catching up on the massive sleep debt I have accrued in the last week. Only three more days of Repro lectures and the final and then M2 year will be complete. It's so weird!

On to Endocrine

Here we are into the second week of Endocrine already. Molly is back in California for spring break being all warm and I am here once again braving the sub zero temperatures. Thankfully they are over for the time being as of this afternoon, though I will not rule out their return quite yet. I just keep thinking to myself, in just three weeks I will be back in California and the winter for me this year will officially be over since I won't be back here until the first week of May! I may have to study for the longest and most awful test of my life thus far (Step 1, ugh), but at least I will be warm while doing so and I will no longer see ice and snow!! Lets just hope winter doesn't decide to extend into May just to let me see snow one more time like it did in Minnesota last year.

Besides winter I am getting through the end of M2 year. It is amazing to think that I am almost halfway through medical school. The first two years are definitely shorter than the second two years, but since fourth year includes a lot of vacation it really doesn't sound all that bad. The twelve months beginning in May, however, will definitely not be a cake walk. I get to look forward to very long hours with very little time off. I hope I can handle it. Before I get there I have three more days of Endrocine plus those finals followed by two weeks of Reproduction and those finals (regular final plus pathology final for both sequences). Thats it! Then it's back to CA for five super fun weeks of studying and then JAPAN! I can't wait. I haven't really thought about it much at all lately (see mom it's not distracting me haha), but when it does pop into my mind I get very excited. Speaking of which, I have to remember to add passport pages so I can get into the country. Fun stuff.

Also, here is a picture of my finished quilt on my bed! Its been there a while, but I thought Ann might especially enjoy seeing it in it final place. My bedding doesn't match it well, but I don't really care. Too much work to find matching stuff :)