I am beginning my cross-country journey in exactly one week! I am equal parts thrilled and terrified. Lately, the terror side has been more obvious. More frequent stomach irritation, less sleep, and I think I am more irritable...

The anxiety isn't helped by the amount of stuff that needs doing this week: PACK! (so far I have but one box ready), prepare for the going away celebrations, catch up with friends before I embark, print maps for cross country travels, make sure housing and school documents are all in order...Lots to do!

As an aside, I just finished the book Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science, and I highly recommend it to anyone, especially those of you who are going into the health care field. The topics Gawande covered were both inspiring and frightening. I also started reading When the Air Hits Your Brain: Tales from Neurosurgery. The tag line for the book is, "when the air hits your brain, you ain't never the same." Probably holds true for most interventions, I think. Vertosick paints (in my opinion) a more realistic picture of surgery than Gawande sometimes, the stories he chooses to highlight don't always end with bunnies and rainbows. Patients will die on my watch and that's just part of learning to be a doctor.

Home, sweet home!

That counter (lower right) is sure ticking fast! I have exactly one month until orientation week begins, or until life as I know it is turned upside down. In even less time, my mom and I embark on what I am calling The Great Trek. My mom and I will load up my bitty car and drive just over 3,000 miles in about 6 days, and we'll see parts of the country neither of us has seen before. I, personally, have never driven east of Idaho! We'll stop at some key landmarks like Mt. Rushmore, the Badlands, and Montana Ale Works (that's key, right?). I am really looking forward to it, and I hope when the time comes my mom is too!


If you have suggestions of other places of interest along the way, please let me know! We don't have many stops planned after South Dakota, so if you have any suggestions for Omaha, St. Louis, Louisville (is Independence, MO worth a stop? I remember purchasing my oxen and wagon there in the Oregon Trail game) or anyplace else, please leave a comment!

In other news, I think I finally found a home in Richmond! My roommate and I will be living in the Church Hill neighborhood, just a mile or so from school. It's a historic neighborhood undergoing revitalization/preservation and is also the site where the largest Civil War hospital was located (according to wikipedia)! The church the area is named after was also the site where Patrick Henry famously declared, "Give me liberty or give me death."

I apologize for not updating frequently, for now I am spending most of my time getting organized for the move and enjoying my mini summer vacation. I'd hate to bore you (y'all) with tales of laying by the lake and cleaning my closet!