"safe passage"

A few weeks ago, we had our lecture and discussion in our clinical skills class about death and dying. Last year I wrote about it, so I didn't think I'd write anymore about it this year. Truthfully, I was a little let down by the discussion my facilitators facilitated this year around the topic and so I wasn't sure that anything I wrote would be productive.

However, yesterday I read this incredible post by NPR on palliative care and I can't just not write or talk about it. We talk about providing "safe passage" to our patients when they near the end of their lives. Dying is not something we like imagining for ourselves or for our loved ones, but it is an inevitability for all of us. So that's where palliative care comes in. The goal is to allow the patient/loved one to continue doing the things that they love doing for as long as possible. Oh and a happy bonus is that it actually costs the country fewer healthcare dollars than to use extreme Western medicine measures until a person dies.

Well anyway, I don't have much time to write more about what I think, so I'll leave it open to what y'all think. Discuss!

oh, that's right...I have a blog

Full disclosure here: I have honestly been so busy and wrapped up with school and other life happenings that I completely forgot about the blogging. My apologies to my faithful readers! Here's a seriously quick breakdown of the happenings over the past few weeks!

• Technology fast: I am back in the social media realm. I think the fast was a really good thing for me. And honestly, I didn't miss much while I was gone for a month. Still considering deactivating everything all together...
• Challenges: This month's challenge is write a letter/note/email to someone every single day! As it turns out, I am UTTERLY failing at this challenge. Like I've only written two letters. And I wrote them both on the same day because I forgot to write one on the first day of the month. Sooooo it looks as though I'm taking a break from the challenges this month. No worries though, I shall start up again at the first of the year! Perhaps I will do both January (get up early) and December's challenges...I could write my letters early in the morning! 
• Ambur Lane: Mister Justin had a show with his band and I went back to Hastings to surprise him! I also spent some quality time studying at Morrison Reeves Science Center and Perkins Library. Needless to say, I miss both of those buildings immensely! 

  

  Ambur Lane! 

• Celebrations with food: I celebrated Thanksgiving 5 times this year. I think that means I'm extra thankful! :)
• Frozen Tundra: I continued to have class in the frozen tundra. Thank goodness for my orange blanket and snuggle buddy! 
• do juSTIce: Lots of great meetings and partnerships in the works for the jail/youth facility.
• Christmas sing-a-long: Dr. Binhammer has a sing-a-long every year. This year's was as fabulous as expected! 
• Holiday parties: Potlucks and Ugly Christmas Sweaters. Gosh, I LOVE this time of year. I have a perpetual stomachache from all of the sweets I've been eating...absolute perfection! Oh and an excuse to wear Christmas socks (btdubs, I fit into children's sized socks apparently...if you're looking for a good Christmas gift, socks are always welcome!).

  

  I <3 potlucks!

• NAP: Always an adventure at Nebraska AIDS Project. Last week was no exception!

• The Nutcracker: Ballet Nebraska outdid themselves with an INCREDIBLE production of The Nutcracker! And my wonderful friend and dance teacher was THE most beautiful sugar plum fairy!
  
• Husker Volleyball with the fam bam and roomie: we watched the 'Skers beat San Diego to continue on in the NCAA tournament. Unfortunately, they lost to Texas the following night. But it was fun to go to some games! 

  

  Papa, Mama and I!

• Test week: I keep telling myself that all of the sweets I've been eating are preparing my body for all of the energy I'll use up in the next week studying/taking my final test of the semester! This one is still on biochemistry, but focused on metabolism, the immune response, cancer and clinical genetics. 
• Christmas concerts: a capella jazz concert with my mama. Pure awesomeness. 

• Gingerbread Village: Mister Justin finished finals last week and returned the surprise favor by showing up on my door late one evening! It was really wonderful to hang out. We even made this nice gingerbread village. Straw poll...do you or do you not eat your gingerbread villages after creating them? 

Note: I did not do all of the decorating. So, if you are upset that things
are not symmetrical and/or without a nice pattern, I am not the person to blame.
If you do not care how your gingerpeople live, then this is the village for them. 

In other news: I like this video... Take a look!

Just a seriously quick review of what I've been up to since Thanksgiving! I hope all is well with everyone! 

Spleens...?

It's been about a billion year since my last post. My apologies. I took Thanksgiving week off completely and now I'm paying for it since we had three days of classes that week! Well anyway, if you haven't seen this video yet, it's pretty good! Harvard Medical School usually has some pretty good videos. Enjoy! Something more about my life happenings and learning soon(ish)!

solo sushi

The usual culprits for pre-test sushi date are enjoying the John Mayer concert, so tonight I flew solo. But it's okay, I had protein synthesis to keep me company! Just 17 more hours until I'm done...

The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear!

Last night I went to Elf the Musical. It was absolutely wonderful! I'm not usually a Christmas person before we actually celebrate Thanksgiving, but I'll admit that it did put me in the Christmas-y mood. If you have the chance to go, don't be a cotton-headed ninny-muggins and miss it because it has great choreography and excellent music!

"I just like to smile; smiling's my favorite."
The show really did put a smile on my face throughout!

Exam Saturday. Thus ends the long and crazy 7 weeks of fall! HOORAY! I really am just hoping to survive until then! Carbo-load tonight with pasta hopefully and then sushi tomorrow night. Plenty of Thanksgiving celebrations coming up in the next week...so much to be thankful for! And I think I'm even in charge of a putting up a few Christmas trees and decorations. 'Tis the season already!

AMA Research Symposium

Hello all! Writing to you from a very cloudy and drizzly Maryland. Yesterday was my poster presentation. Based on how late my sleepy head slept in, I guess it exhausted me just a little! Well here are some photos of my trip! I'm SO thankful for Dr. E and my dear Uncle Dale for hanging out with me and keeping me calm when I got really nervous! I did eat a whole lot of food and I'm not sorry about it at all! Anyway, enough of me talking...pictures!  

This is the sign that my Uncle was holding when he picked us up!
The HFL is the fantasy football league that my dad (and friends) have been in since before I was born!

Singapore Rice Noodles. 

Sushi!
Spicy crunchy scallop and spicy tuna (they were serious about the spicy). 

I was gifted a sushi-making kit! 

National Harbor

National Harbor

PEEPS! 

"The Awakening" sculpture.
Yes, this is an awkward angle to take the photo, sorry about it!

"The Awakening"

Close up. "The Awakening"

It's blurry, but it's blue crab and corn chowder.
Yum!

This is about 1/8th the size it originally was, but crab cakes!

Fish tacos. 

3 berry cobbler.
It was SO big! And SO delicious!

Upside-down apple pecan pie. 

Oh here is me at my poster. It's beautiful!

This is me presenting my poster to a resident. It's a little blurry, but you get the gist!

Night two. Sushi again.
I'm not sorry about it. Judge if you want.
Eel avocado, lump meat crab, fatty tuna. 

Chocolate Fondant.
Soooooo good! Sorry about it dad (oh wait, no I'm not!)

There are still some photos floating around of all of the Nebraska AMA people and then also of Dr. E and I in front of my poster, but the is the bulk of the photos from the weekend. I'm off to Charlotte, NC in a bit and then finally on to Nebraska later tonight! What a quick and exhausting trip! I'm now going to listen to the lectures I missed while I wait for my plane. Adios for now!

Stress baking.

Apparently, I've been stressed lately. The best cure for that is clearly baking. So...

banana bread! 

It's delicious. My first ever banana bread loaf. I don't know what's taken me so long to jump on the banana bread train, but I'm definitely riding it now! Heading to DC tomorrow afternoon....! 

Welcome to the Tundra

This is a song about how the biochemistry core is going so far. Yes, I spent a significant amount of time working on this. And yes, I do believe it was a productive use of my time.

Welcome to the tundra, we got coats 'n' mittens.

Just to keep your sanity, you'll have to McGoogan pics of kittens. 

We'll be the people that you'll find when you're feeling ill. 

If you've got the money, honey, we'll fix your disease. 

(and your illness if we understand the psychosocial aspects of disease that you experience)

In the tundra, welcome to the tundra.

We learn only from the docs with the expertise 

Their lectures put us to sleep. 

Welcome to the tundra, we take it day by day.

To survive you'll surrender your social life, but it's the price you pay

Have you heard the Glu6Val sub, causes sickle cell anemia?

Oh and increased HgbF and HgbA2 suggests β-thalassemia? 

In the tundra, welcome to UNMC's tundra.

Feel my, my, my shivering knees.

(In case you didn't get the gist, it's VERY cold in the lecture hall. I cuddle under a blanket with my good friend Emily e'reday, just to survive lecture!) In other news, we were getting a lecture on amino acids the other day and the lecturer was talking about how glycine is small and flexible. Emily looked over at me and said "Just like you!". We both laughed. It was a funny amino acid joke...clearly we are losing it.

Oh AND (I'm about to have a major nerd moment)!!!! I got to see the COOLEST thing in clinic today! I wasn't even supposed to be in clinic. I was waiting to have a meeting with the sponsor of the neurology interest group and he snagged me to come in on this patient. There's a disorder called Orthostatic Tremor. It's super, super rare (like 345 people in the world have it) and often goes misdiagnosed for years.

OT is a neurological movement disorder, characterized by high frequency tremors, predominantly in the legs when in a standing position, and an immediate sense of instability. Patients often complain of symptoms of a sudden, unique, disabling event that happens to our legs when we attempt to do anything that requires us to remain in a standing position, rather than tremor. The muscles in the legs become hard, ankles feel weak and toes curl under as legs fail to support. There is a feeling of panic to find a place to sit, or if possible, walk to gain some relief of our symptoms. Other areas of the body, such as trunk and arms may also be effected.

It's the only condition that you can hear the leg muscles pulsing with your stethoscope, called the helicopter sign. Well anyway, it's very interesting. But also very debilitating. Because it's so rare, there aren't a whole lot of things in the way of treatment. BUT UNMC is apparently the leading institution in the world for OT research, so that's seriously awesome! What a lucky happenstance!

One week closer to break...!

I have survived the week. I honestly wasn't sure that I would at some points, but I'm writing to tell you that I have. It's been crazy, but really awesome and fun! (As an aside, there is no way I could have survived the week with social media and my phone distracting me at every turn, so thank you to everyone I ever text or talk to for being patient with me for the few hours that I actually do use my phone!)

Quick run down:

• Clinical skills exam (OSCE) Wednesday: I think it went alright. All of my standardized patients seemed quite nice, so that was wonderful!
• Conference: Today we presented at the International Association for Research on Service Learning and Community Engagement for the jail project I work with. It went amazingly and we had several people asking really great questions and interested in starting their own programs at their respective colleges/universities. The conference had people representing 12 countries, so it's pretty amazing that it was conveniently located here in Omaha! One of the other organizations from UNMC, Bridge to Care, also presented. They serve the refugee populations of Omaha (there are an estimated 20,000 refugees from several countries living in Omaha currently...and that estimate is probably teeny tiny compared to the actual number of refugees we have within our great city!). They did a wonderful job presenting and also do an incredible service to the community!

Some of my fellow presenters! Two of us had already headed back to
jobs/clinic rotations by the time we got around to taking the photo,
but this is us in front of the room where we presented!

• Anatomy grades: I passed! Woohoo! 10 weeks officially done with school! Well actually today marks the end of the 11th week, but 10 weeks officially done and graded. 
• This really awesome video: Ash Beckham talks at TedxBoulder. I highly recommend you watch it! It's about coming out of the closet. But not necessarily "coming out" at GLBT. "Coming out" in the sense that sometimes we have secrets or bad news to tell and that's hard. I think she does a good job of normalizing the telling of difficult news. It's something to look into from a healthcare perspective because often we have to tell our patients news that isn't awesome. Although it stinks, it's our stinky reality. Well anyway, watch it!

Okay, I think that was my week in a nutshell. Tonight I have a really hot date with acid/base titration problems. And perhaps some DNA transcription, if I'm lucky! 

Excuse me, my nerd is showing.

Here's another really awesome science video! DNA replication!

And don't worry, I survived my OSCE (clinical skills exam) this afternoon just fine.  I even stopped by Jones Bros for pumpkin cheesecake as a reward. Yummy!

I think I need to learn how to make this. It was honestly so much
more delicious than normal cheesecake or regular pumpkin pie...it's the best of both worlds!

Cells are cool.

This is one of the many things I'm currently studying. Look at the pretty colors! If you don't understand everything...don't feel badly. I don't either. And I've had cell bio more than 5 times by now! Our bodies are seriously incredible!

Endings and Beginnings

I am forever finished with taking anatomy in medical school (I have this really odd feeling that somehow, someday I will regret saying that, but for now it's true!). It really is a wonderful feeling! I adore our professors; they are so much fun and are very knowledgable, but I can't handle smelling like formaldehyde any longer!

Just some anatomy/pop culture humor. I wish our anatomy was as easy at this! 

We are now beginning Cellular Processes (aka biochem). It's the bane of most med school students' existence. We shall see how it goes...

And now some biochem/psychology humor! Complex carbohydrates...baha how punny!

And now for other life updates...

• We've been having several long meetings about do juSTIce (the project I'm president of that works with the incarcerated population on STI education as well as chlamydia and gonorrhea screening) and planning for the future of the program. I'm SUPER JAZZED about the direction we're heading! There are great things happening in the realm of STI education and prevention in Douglas County--which is good because our rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea transmission are unreal! I have the most wonderful board working with me and incredible community partners to make these things happen for us! We've also had some really great feedback and questions from the inmates hearing the presentation, so we can use that information in future planning for the program. 
• Speaking of do juSTIce...some of the gang is presenting at an international conference this Friday about our program. Go us! The program really has made a huge impact since its inception in 2008. We are struggling to get all of our awesomeness into a short 20 minute presentation. 
• My poster was delivered for my other conference (the one I'm presenting at about Mild Cognitive Impairment in DC). It's B-E-A-UTIFUL!! I'm getting pumped/nervous for that presentation as well. I suppose I'll quit stressing quite a much about that one and get through this week...
• This week we also have our OSCE (Objectively Structured Clinical Examination). Basically it checks our understanding of the clinical skills practices. This is week 4 of 7 for tests/conferences. As soon as I finish the OSCE, I will have survived 1/2 of the crazy fall testing/presenting schedule! Thanksgiving break is coming up very quickly and I'm quite grateful! 
• I've been going to my preceptor regularly. I get to see all sorts of things this year and do more physical exams and patient interviews than I was able to last year. It's really great fun! I'm sure everyone that knows me is utterly surprised that I prefer being around people to being around books and studying...not! 
• Challenges: I finished last month's stretching for 15 minutes/day challenge. It was hard towards the end of the month to carve out that time because I was busy and tired, but I know that I always felt refreshed when I did. This month's challenge is a technology and social media fast. It's been sort of hard (sort of like going through withdrawal!) so far, but I am also plenty busy this month, so I imagine that I'll survive just fine. The silence of not having technology around you is actually quite deafening, if that makes any sense. More on that later though... 

Just a quick and dirty update of the things going on in my world. I'll keep y'all updated on how the conferences and the technology fast are going as the weeks progress! 

Those People.

I read this incredibly powerful blog post today. It's about someone who has been hungry in her life. It's about someone who has used the services of a food pantry. It's about "those people".

Those people.

It makes me sad that those people have hit hard times are unable to feed themselves and their families. It makes me sad that those people are possibly even on their way to being homeless because paying for rent/mortgage, heat, electricity and water is sometimes an impossible feat. It bums me out that those people are often living in food deserts and the food they have access to is often not nutritious...which leads to other health issues such as obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and the list goes on. It bums me out that governmental assistance programs keep getting cut and so those people continue on being hungry. 

But mostly it bums me out that those people keep getting called those people by the rest of the people. 

Hunger is everywhere. It's not something to be ashamed of. You are not one of those people, you are a person. A person who is hungry. A person using their resources to no longer be hungry. I wish I could magically erase world hunger or even the stigma associated with it, but I alone cannot. Loyal blog readers, partner with me to end hunger? To end the stigma? 

Smörgåsbord

Admittedly, this will be a super random post. But that's what happens when I haven't blogged much in the recent past. Here we go...

• I recently found out that one of the conferences I'm presenting at in November is featuring Parker Palmer as its keynote speaker (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). I'm about to nerd out real hard, please prepare yourself. For all of you science people that don't know who Parker Palmer is, let me direct you to this nice little bio. He is a rockstar. He's a writer about education, leadership and vocation predominantly. He is also a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quaker), so that's pretty darn awesome. We read one of his books in undergrad for the Christian Ministry program I was in (we read "Let Your Life Speak"...if you're interested in reading it, I will absolutely let you borrow it!). It was all about finding your calling/vocation and doing that with your life because ultimately it makes your life more full and affects those around you in a positive way. Well anyway, Parker (Do you think he will become my bestie at this conference? Gosh, I hope!) is speaking at this conference because it's all about service learning and community education. I think he is talking about his recent book, but I honestly don't know. I don't really care. He's awesome. He could be reading out of the dictionary and I'd still probably think it was interesting. So, I'm a little star struck and it's making it hard for me to put together a cohesive blurb about Parker Palmer, but the moral of the story is that I'm excited.
• This week I went to "Book of Mormon" with some friends. It was INCREDIBLE! Offensive, hilarious, gorgeous music, great choreography! I really wish I were more talented in the areas of singing, dancing and acting cause I would absolutely LOVE to be in musicals! Biggest bummer of my life that I'm not...boo.
• I had a test this week! It's done now though. Thank goodness. Still plenty more tests for weeks to come. I'm so looking forward to Christmas break (when I still have assignments to work on, but at least I don't have a billion hours of studying on top of that!). Perhaps I will get a countdown going on my computer so it will inspire me to survive until then!
• This week was Spirit Day (a day dedicated to eradicating bullying especially against LGTB youth). In honor of Spirit Day, I present you with this incredibly done video about bullying. It's been floating around the intrawebs for a few months now, but it's still just as powerful now as it was in February. As someone who used to be bullied endlessly as a child, I'm so glad teachers are better now about combating bullying--whether it's about a child's orientation or about their overall nerdy and awkward nature, it's not okay. We really have to start teaching our kiddos not to bully because otherwise they don't grow out of it and they are bullies as adults too. Adult bullies are so very not cool.

• Continuing on with the videos... Here's this video about STI prevention. I think this might be the best parody of a Taylor Swift song ever.

• A final installation of the videos for today...a very impressive tap dance to the song "Cups"! I love tap so much! They did a reallllll good job with it too!

• Challenges update: I have been stretching at least 15 minutes per day every day this month. It's been a bit harder than I expected to fit it in each day, but it has been really helpful! I've missed two days I think because I was absolutely too exhausted to do anything other than collapse into my bed by the end of the day. But I always stretched extra long the following days. Next month (in just 12 days!) I will be giving up my phone for the most part and basically all of the internet, so I'm guessing that will be MUCH harder, but absolutely worth it! I'll likely be much more productive with the studying, at the very least! Don't worry, you will still be able to contact me via email, snail mail, smoke signals and owl post. I will also be updating my blog throughout the month. You can subscribe to get emails whenever I post (shameless plug much?) since I won't also be posting them on the facebooks.

That was just a teeny tiny snippet of my life as of late. Perhaps soon I will write about something directly medically related. Perhaps not. But I hope all is well with everyone!

Ice cream for breakfast....?

I have heard more lectures than I care to count on nutrition. I generally eat pretty healthily on a regular basis, but this morning I had cookie dough ice cream for breakfast.

Sometimes you just got to do what you've got to do to make it through test week! This is week 1 of 7 straight weeks of a test and/or research conferences. I'm sure it will go by quickly, but at this point I'm just looking forward to Thanksgiving break!

Look for something a bit more substantial up on the blog this weekend sometime...back to studying!

No one has ever accused me of being concise...

Yes, yes, yes. I know. I have been slacking on the blogging. My apologies. I was busy studying for a test and then last week I spent my time in a bunch of various meetings! Here is a (very) brief snapshot of what I've been up to!

1. MTV Staying Alive Foundation (SAF) grant writing. The do juSTIce program applied for a grant from MTV SAF last year and was awarded substantial monies to start our youth program at the Douglas County Youth Correctional Facility. Well, the re-grant was due on Monday, and so the past several weeks has been spent thinking of ideas to expand the programming for the next three years and writing the actual grant. I have the most awesomest team (yes, awesomest!) and they did the bulk of the work, but there was plenty of brainstorming happening in my peanut-sized noggin! 
2. Current news crying. Speaking of do juSTIce...today I read this article on NPR that made me cry. This is absolutely terrifying to me. We have SO much more work to do in the area of sex education...teenagers don't realize that by not saying "no," a person IS NOT saying yes. They also don't know that legally, drunk/high consent is not valid. Some of the students we educated just last week were surprised at the concept that "consent" is ONLY a resounding "YES" and not just the absence of a "no." And the worst part, is that it's not just teenagers that don't know this. It's my generation. It's adults. It's pre-teens. 1 in 6 American women and 1 in 33 American men are victims of sexual assault within their lifetime. Those stats are staggering. We need to start having a serious conversation about sexual assault in this country. 
3. Preceptor. I precepted last week (shadowed the doc I'm assigned to). I learned lots of applicable and interesting stuff! Some well checks, some run-of-the-mill sick checks, some embryological malformations, some cystic fibrosis. Interesting stuff! And plenty of talk about which flu vaccinations are covered by which insurance providers. [Here's my plug for getting your flu shot this year...DO IT!]
4. Wood Auction. The Lutheran Center at UNL had their annual "Wood Auction" fundraiser. Always nice to support campus ministry, see gorgeous art and eat delicious food! I wish I wasn't a poor med student so I could buy the gorgeous art!
5. LGTB certificate. I don't remember if I've written about this yet...I've been accepted to be in a program that is dedicated to learning more about LGTB medicine and healthcare disparities. We've been doing online discussion boards for a few weeks, but last week was our first class in person! It was great! I'm SO excited to learn more! 
6. Accreditation. UNMC College of Medicine is up for re-accreditation this year...so our MD degrees actually mean something. And I was part of the group of students that got to talk to the big, fancy committee! For the record, I was 1000% behind the idea that we should be re-accredited! :) I'm sure we will, since we are a rockstar school!

So I said this would be brief. I sort of lied. Not intentionally though. It's just been a busy week! We're smack dab in the middle of the thorax and abdomen section of anatomy...so I'm learning about hearts and guts. Let me know if you'd like me to check you for a heart murmur...I'm getting pretty good at identifying them! 

When I grow up, I want to be...

...a world traveler! 

Great news, I'm fulfilling my dreams! I've been accepted to go on a service/global health trip to Jamaica for spring break through UNMC! And I'm STOKED!

We will be working in day clinics in the hills, an established clinic location and doing some outreach. Of course, there will be some touristy beach time as well one day, but I'm really mostly excited to get into clinic!

I don't know many details about the trip yet, but don't worry, faithful readers, I'm sure to write more about it. Stay tuned!

Just a (not-so-subtle) reminder to my family...
This is what Jamaica's flag looks like.
I'll be expecting my very own tiny replica when I come back! 

happiness

Want to know what will make you happy? Watch this video (it's science). You may also shed a few tears if you're prone to crying, it's super sweet.

Be gracious. It makes you happy!

Memphis....a photo blog

So I went to Memphis this weekend. It was fabulous. I don't have much time to write about how fabulous it was (it's test week!), so instead I'll just post some pictures instead. Yes, there are lots of pictures of food. Yes, I basically ate my way through the city. No, I don't want to hear your judgements about my poor eating habits!

Enjoy, my Memphis photo journey!

**Actually this is from Omaha Restaurant Week...
blackened catfish from Plank**

**Also from ORW at Plank...fruit cobbler in this cute little individualized cast iron**

**Megan's desert from Plank..chocolate squares, yum!**

My first rental car!

Central BBQ. Pulled Pork Nachos.
A gift from God.
Yes, I'm a vegetarian. And yes, I ate them.
And yes, they were absolutely delicious!

MUDDY'S!!!

BEST CUPCAKES EVER!

One of my favorite places to study!
Good food, good coffee. 

Breakfast of Champions!
Lil Momma's Special from Brother
Juniper's with cheesy grits.
AND a cupcake from Muddy's. 

Soul Fish got new cups!

Fish Tacos and Slaw. Soul Fish.

Pink lemonade in pretty "P" glasses for the Pippin wedding!

Appetizers:
Chicken skewers. Bruschetta. Cheese and fruit skewers.

Beautiful centerpieces!

Me likely this one!

Look who I found in Memphis!
Thanks for being my date, Lassie.
(Oh, and a BEAUTIFUL golf course behind us)

The cake!

Cake close-up.

The incredibly gorgeous bride.
So thankful to have been part of your day, Mrs. Pippin!

A few others that I got in there, but don't have photographic proof of:

• Huey's Midtown for burgers.
• Tour of the Southern College of Optometry.
• Hanging out with my good friend Ginny and her beautiful kids. 
• Yolo (frozen yogurt) with Jimmy!
• 6:30 am Panera run with Rachel. 1.5 hours is not long enough to catch up with that one...
• Watching The White Queen with Stacy. And bonding with her corgi Samantha.
• Wedding Day brunch at Owen Brennan's with the ladies of the wedding party. 

I loved every second of my trip and already miss my second home. Thanks everyone for the quick visits to catch up. I wish school wasn't so darn time consuming so I could have stayed longer!

Exam Friday...back to the real world.