The house is ready...

A lot of stress has been lifted... my parents came down this past weekend and helped me flip Kendall Ave into a home that is ready to be put on the market for a sale!  I cannot wait to have this sold so I can head home for a little while.  It would be great to have the opportunity to move home for a least a month before moving to school.  For some reason, I highly doubt that will be the case.  The next few months are going to move by so quickly...

I've been working on the website for Kendall ave, and it's coming together nicely.  I enjoy marketing, so at least it's not a drag to be listing the property in a bunch of different places.  I'm going to post it on the medical school website and also www.fsbomadison.com which is where a lot of the local properties are listed.  My parents did an excellent job pulling the house together.  We painted the living room from green to a tan color which made it a lot brighter and cheery, the green just felt old and dingy.  We also cleaned the bathrooms, the floors, the basement, and picked up miscellaneous stuff.  There were a lot of projects going on at once, but somehow it all pulled together.  The last thing I have to do is get some pictures/mirrors on the wall.  Erik Windpants might come over sometime soon to help me put those up, I don't trust myself with nails and a newly painted wall.

I really hope we can move the property.  I would love to keep it if I were here an additional year.  All the roommates will be here, so it would have been ideal to ride another great year out in Kendall Ave.  Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end... but other great things will begin.  I am started to look for apartments and summer sublets out in Pittsburgh to try to find a place to lay my head during the summer rotation.  I start June 1st, and I don't necessarily want to sign a year long lease (because I never know what's going to happen with Paul and I and our living situation) so I would prefer to have plans that are a little more flexible... a summer sublet would be great.

Lastly, today was horrible as far as my healthy eating goes.  I started by waking up to some cookies and candy corn... typing it makes me realize how sick that is.  I started my first day of P90X, as planned, but I had a horrible day for consuming.  Mom and I decided that we are going to go back on to the www.livestrong.com My Plate application and start keeping track of our diet and exercise.  Hopefully it will help me be more balanced instead of all the crash and burns I've been going through lately.

Well, we are expected a large snow storm tomorrow so I should get to bed.  Paul headed down to Chicago a day early in order to beat the storm before his USMLE CS exam.  I'm glad he went early, now I can sleep easy...  Good night, and hopefully I'll be able to post tomorrow, there's much more to catch up on.

Falling a little behind....

A lot has happened in the past few days, which is making it difficult to keep up on my blogging!  Let’s see, after my interview I flew into Milwaukee and came back to Madison.  My babysitting was canceled, so I was able to go out with Lyssa for her last night in town.  Paul joined us down at power hour, the line was freezing and slow moving.  It was a slow start, but it ended in Lyssa and I starting the “Go PACK GO!” cheer at the Red Shed.  Sunday we decided to host a packer game party for the NFC division finals game between the Pack and the Bears!  It still hasn’t sunk in that the Packers are as competitive as they are this year! 

Lyssa, Sarah, Lindsi, Nick (aka Richard), Jera, and Paul all joined me in watching the game.

We had a nice spread of cake, chips, bread, and hummus!  It came together pretty good for being a last minute party.  And after and emotional roller coaster of the game, the Pack came out on top!  Super Bowl Bound!!! It really is hard to believe that we are actually going to the Super Bowl and facing off against the Steelers!  Hah, even more classic because I want to head to Pittsburgh next year.  I am actually going on my second look visit during Super Bowl weekend, so I’m going to miss a lot of the celebration in Wisconsin!

Sarah doing the trophy stance... Football buff!

Nice shirt Lindsi... oh Favre...

Monday I spent most of the day trying to look up information about our Europe trip.  I can now say from experience that I dislike internet research very much.  It’s hard to know what sites are trusted information, and what stuff is a bunch of bull.  I originally thought we were going to do the Italy Marathon, but we just switched to the Vienna, Austria marathon.  I decided I will be doing a half marathon so I can be confident that I’ll be able to finish and also so I can be at the finish line and watch Paul finish his race.  He is going to be great, although he was running this week and pulled a leg muscle, so hopefully resting that won’t put him too far behind in his training schedule.  I’m pretty much on target.  It will be a challenge to get over the 5-6 mile hurdle, but once I do, I feel like the rest will go a lot smoother.  It’s just that I haven’t done anything over 6 miles before, so we’ll see.

 

Tuesday I babysat in the morning and I had all three kids for most of the day.  After that I tutoring Micro in the Pharm building. Paul came over to my place after work and he got to see my room, we walked home from Ebling library together.  Finally his girlfriend has a bedroom … I haven’t had one since we started dating.  We talked about Europe then I went to babysit.  I tried to get in a quick run by running over to Paul’s apartment while he drove over with my car.  I enjoy babysitting for the Krammer’s and the Carlson’s, they have great kids and it was a good time hanging out with the kids on a school night while their parents went out for restaurant week.

Wednesday consisted of an early morning Adolescent Transition Clinic meeting.  This is when I found out we lost our IT guy.  He was taking care of most of the blogs and all the techy stuff.  The stuff that we didn’t have much of a clue about.  Luckily since I’m a “blogger” now, I am able to take over updating and posting new blogs.  However, I don’t know how to get kids access to the blogs which will be a major challenge in going forward.  Not only are we having a time getting kids recruited, but those that are ready to use the blogs can’t because they don’t have a username and password.  I was really frustrated after the meeting.  I went for a 2 mile run and came home to vent to Paul.  It’s difficult working in the group because I was trained in such a proficient group in clinical trials.  The Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center is amazing, and their trials are run flawlessly.  They are great at recruitment, making sure the data is collected in the most scientific manner, and people are definitely dedicated to the cause.  It’s hard working in the clinic where this project isn’t anyone’s priority.  I’ve been trying to say that the project needs a study coordinator, but it’s not working.  The only person that was getting paid for their work was also working full time at UW, leaving few hours in the day to dedicate to this time consuming project.  Additionally, that person just moved home to pursue a private company.  I understand the reasons for moving, and I felt that this was indeed coming, but it’s so frustrating because of all the work and effort I have already invested in this project.  I feel that once I leave for medical school, it will not go any further and the grant funding will have been wasted.  It’s not fair that we keep making up excuses during our monthly reports.  People need to be held accountable.  Anyway, I’m done ranting.  The real people who should have this project are the teen patients.  I hope that they have the opportunity to experience it up and running some day.  I can’t do it all, it doesn’t pay the bills.  Perhaps I can get involved in a similar project out in Pittsburgh.

Wednesday night Paul and I made dinner and the whole gang was at Paul’s apartment, Teen, Tone, Foley, and Ash.  The others went out for Trivia while Paul and I stayed back because he had to study for Step 2 Clinical Skills and I had to work on some Transition Clinic projects (drugs webinar & dietary questionnaire).  There was unspoken tension in the air so we were able to talk to a few things.  It made me remember what I had gone through with past relationships.  The last thing I want to do is to put Paul through the same embarrassment and annoying situations.  It’s like I had completely traded places, and it made me sick to my stomach to hear how he was feeling because it hit home.  That’s all it took was a little chat between us and we’re again on the same page.  I will try to tone down some of my antics and Paul is going to spearhead the Europe research and trip planning.  What a relief….

Today is Thursday which means I get to hang out with my buddy Drew all day from the early morning hours until about 5:30PM.  He’s currently sleeping like a prince!  Tonight Paul and I might go for a quick run and go downtown for a little bit for Thursday night specials at Fresco’s and perhaps for Teen and Tone’s going away party at TC Cats.  We just found out that Teen and Tone will be moving out of Paul’s apartment and out of Madison.  They are traveling for a few weeks and then heading back to live with Tone’s family and extended family in Chippewa Falls, WI.  I really enjoy them both so much.  They are a ton of fun and always good for a carefree laugh and good time.  They balance each other really well and I hope it works out for them.  Perhaps we’ll hear some wedding bells??  Party in Chippewa!   

Alright, last thing.  I really want to plan a trip to DC and NY with Lyssa before we end up starting our separate lives … I am thinking late February.  I will blog as things unfold for our traveling adventure!  Tonight I look up hotels and flights to see how much it will cost... then we deliberate.  Peace!

My last MD/PhD Interview...

Thursday:

It has been one heck of a travel day… I left Madison this morning at 7:30AM after getting up early to do my hair and fly in business casual clothing for the interview recruitment meeting.  I saw the same guy I always do at Quizno’s when my flight landed in Detroit.  It was awesome to land at gate A9 because I was located in a perfect spot to pick up a chicken cesar salad and still have time to catch the Airport Train because I had to get all the way over to the C-terminal.  The flight to Columbus was uneventful, except for the fact that they asked 10 people be removed from the plane so they could land safely on the snow covered runways in Ohio. 

We landed and I let my ride now that I was there for pick up, except I was warned that the traffic was pretty bad and he would be late.  No joke.  I stayed in the airport for up to 3 hours waiting for him due to traffic jams because of the 3 inches of snow.  Coming from Wisconsin, I was completely shocked by how much this rocked the city.  I missed the welcome meeting, but I was able to meet up with the gang for dinner.  It was a good time talking to current students.  I learned that the curriculum was very unique, in that you do your medical school portion completely on an independent study basis and that there were no shortcuts and overlap between med school and graduate school course material.  I am personally bias that this may not be and efficient use of time, and there isn't a reason to take similar courses again and again just because they are a requirement.  Doing additional course work doesn't mean that you are taught to think any better or solve more problems.  It basically means that you have become a sufficiently good basic science test taker and are repeating things, content, and a lot of the material I learned in undergrad with a biochemistry background.  Anyway, this curriculum issue frustrates me, ask Paul, he took a lot of venting that night.

Friday:

Today I was able to interview with faculty and had a great discussion about a faculty member's CMV project and his antiviral treatments.  I suggested he try a proteomics approach using one cell isolate that has been treated with his drug and another cell isolate that is a control, and basically look to quantify the phosporylation changes within those two samples.  He could run them concurrently with isometric tags to get a real good comparison.  Hopefully we'll be able to keep in touch whether I go there or not. I hope he tries this approach, unfortunately I will most likely be lost in the credit lines lol...

I also had the chance to talk with the students a lot and meet additional faculty.  One person is working on sphingolipids and how that relates to primary brain cancer, pretty interesting stuff.  Thanks to Dave Nelson, I knew with spingolipids were, and the guy was pretty impressed.  My meeting with the directors was pretty low-key, they basically asked me why OSU and why MD/PhD, two questions I had already anticipated.  One applicant in the bunch however stood out for me.  He was from Puerto Rico and married with a daughter.  His wife was in vet school.  He only applied to OSU, so I really hope it works out for him.

We went to dinner at the director's house and it was absolutely amazing.  The dinner was catered and I had a really great salad with a spinach bake, seasoned sweet potatoes and green beans.  It was so good I couldn't even move.  It enjoyed chatting with everyone and didn't intact much with the other applicants.  I kind of felt that I didn't click with the others that were applying in this round besides the man from Puerto Rico, perhaps it was he was at a different stage in life and a different maturity level.  I am really excited to pursue this track of training, but sometimes I get concerned that I am very different from others applying.  I consider myself a very outgoing and social person who enjoys good humor.  Perhaps I'm not as nerdy as some applicants and didn't get a 45 MCAT, but I may have a different drive and motivation for pursuing this program.  It's been interesting meeting everyone, and I am sure there are a few people applying solely because they have the numbers and publications to do so...   I have been fortunate to get acceptances and continue down the path I've dreamed of pursuing, but it has been exhausting and a lot of feeling isolated as an applicant within the pool of students.  I am excited to continue through summer rotations and into the medical school portion, because I feel that I will have much more in common with first year medical students, rather than the classic MD/PhD applicant... Time will tell.  Luckily I have Paul to keep my sanity, and my roomies to encourage my social antics.

Anyway, after dinner I opted to head back to the hotel and skip bowling.  I had enough of the forced social scene.  I wanted to get back and talk to Paul about our respective days.  It's nice to have the comfort of down time and be able to rant to Paul about the day.  He's such a sport about listening to my interview experiences.  They haven't all been pretty, but I think he understands what I am going through as a social person in a not-so-social atmosphere.  I've also had great experiences and clicked with a few applicants; hopefully they will be my classmates.

Tomorrow I am going to get up and run before grabbing breakfast at the OSU Union.  We get breakfast together, have a quick tour of the city before we're dropped off at the airport. I fly out around 1PM which will leave time to read my Nicholas Sparks novel, yes!  I hope I get to leave out of the terminal that has a Starbucks!  It's too bad they don't have Pumpkin Spice Lattes!  Haha, Paul loves my infatuation with Pumpkin!  I am going back through O'Hare and flying United.  Becca will be in the International Terminal tomorrow during my layover in ORD, but I think they are completely separate, so I won't be able to connect with her before she flies off to her European adventure!  I'm so proud that she's doing that, what a great experience!  If the weather and flights cooperate, I should be at MKE around 5PM, and then I am driving quickly back home to babysit for the evening.  I really need the cash to help save up for our Europe trip, so I thought it would be best to babysit instead of blowing money over a night out on the town.  Additionally, I will be fresh to finish up some of my weekly running schedule.  I was able crank out 4 miles last night in the hotel, and I am going to wake up early to crank out another 3-5 tomorrow morning before breakfast.  The workout facility is outstanding, so I have to take advantage.   Sunday I will hopefully run more with Paul and do Yoga before the big NFC Championship starts, featuring the beloved Packers!

Speaking of the Packers, I think this would be a fitting picture for this blog post...  GO PACK!

Lyssa and I at the Packer Game, hamming it up!

I am going to take some pictures at the Packer party that Tone and Teen are throwing, hopefully it be a hoot!  I am excited to get back to Madison, and to say that I am completely DONE with my MD/PhD interviews!  Yahoo!  Now... the Match!

Marathon...

So we're headed to Europe in April, or that's the current plan anyway.  Paul would really like to run a marathon in his time off before residency which I completely respect.  It's quite an accomplishment and I know he has the capability to do it with those long legs...  Now I have to think about whether I will join him and when we are going to sign up for a road race.  The races that would work best with his schedule would really conflict with our trip, so I suggested that he find a race in Europe.  What a great way to see the cities of Europe and also to be able to accomplish his goal.  Well, I went out on a search and I was able to find a few.  I really would have loved to join the Paris France Marathon, but that one is sold out unless you go through American travel agencies.  The other options are northern Italy and Vienna City, Austria.   I think Italy would be great but it's a week earlier than Austria's race.  If I start training today, that leaves me only 12 weeks to train for a race, which is substantially sorter than the recommended 18 weeks for a beginner.  I was talking to roomie Jera and she said to go for it, and I would say that I have to agree.  This might be the only time I would be able to cut out that much time to train for a race.  I could train for a half marathon no problem, but a full marathon is a little more frightening.  I guess we can see how it goes... 

Here's the training schedule I would would try to follow:

http://www.marathonrookie.com/support-files/16weekmarathonschedule.pdf

That said, I would have to shave off a few weeks of the schedule.  If I start today, and make up the Monday and Tuesday runs, and we did the Vienna race, the most I would have is 14 weeks.  Eeeek!  The benefit would be that I would be in amazing shape for our Europe trip and the start of medical school! That's definitely a perk, but one drawback is that when I run, my muscles tend to tighten up really fast, so I would make sure to do yoga on my rest days to try to improve my flexibility.  I really want to join a ballet studio when I get to medical school, so maintaining my flexibility is a MUST.  If I can pull this off, I would definitely have the endurance!

Well, that's the plan.  I will start today with a 3 mile run down to Walgreens and back.  Tomorrow I will attempt to run at the work out room in the Hilton during my interview.  Friday will be the same challenge, trying to run in the Hilton.  Saturday, that's a nice long 5 mile run which I will have to do in the hotel before I leave back for Madison, or flip-flop my Saturday and Sunday workouts.  It's too bad it's so darn cold out, because I am not a huge fan of running in cold weather... come on Spring!  All I know is that Paul is going to kick my butt...

Tuesday of a short week...

Last night was the roomie dinner and it turned out great!  We had couscous, toasted cheese bread, fruity green salad, and a broccoli penne!   I send leftovers home with Paul and I saved the broccoli penne for myself for lunch!  Jeanne and Paul were able to make it through the terrible driving conditions and stop by for some dinner!  I have some pictures to showcase how full we were!  I am really enjoying finding new recipes and trying them out.  I think I need to modify the fruit salad dressing a little bit… I would like to cut back on the oil and add more vinegar to make it a smiggen less heavy.  I am not a big fan of oil, so perhaps that will help.  Otherwise, the salad’s basic ingredients were amazing!

Paul and Becs making their spots on the couch!

After the meal was devoured!

Lyssa is stuffed to the rafters...

This morning got up early to do a little yoga, showered, and now I am hanging out with my little buddy while I babysit.  He is such a good baby and so easy to hang with.  I have been fortunate to locate some great babysitting jobs during my time before medical school.  It has made the days fly by even faster, gives me a little spending money, and has made me really comfortable in dealing with kiddos.  The more I babysit, the more I am thinking about going into pediatrics.  It is going to be quite some time before I have to decide because I do not match into residency for another 7-8 years!  Paul starts neuro today which will hopefully be a rotation where he can take some time for himself and refresh.  The rank list feature opened up, and I think he already put in a preliminary list.  That is so exciting!  He received a few responses via email from his last interview.  I hope that ultimately he will end up where he wants to go.  I am sure it will all work out the way it is meant to!  The weeks are going to fly past now… my fingers are crossed!

This afternoon I need to focus in on getting some of Kendall’s rooms painted.  I have to do some sanding in the bathrooms which is my top priority.  I think I am going to put another coat of plaster on the ceiling in the downstairs bathroom.  We’ll see how ambitious I get I guess!  It’s been odd cleaning out all of my old stuff and sorting through what’s necessary in this next phase of my life.  It is terrifying and exciting all at the same time.  Once Lyssa moves out, it’s going to become real.  But, fear not, we pledged that from this year forward, we will attend at least one Green Bay Packers game per year, AND if the Packers ever play the Steelers in the next 8 years, that I will find us two tickets and we will go to the game.  We might have to dress in disguise so we don’t get murdered at the Steelers stadium, but it will be worth it!

There's so much to do today... I should probably start cracking.  I'm going to start with the powerpoint and end with a work shift tonight! 

New week...

It is Martin Luther King Jr Day with a beautiful snowfall outside...  Paul and I are enjoying some of the Pumpkin Spice coffee I picked up the other day at Walgreens!  We cleared out the deal section while Paul bought 12 boxes of cereal and I bought Godiva Pumpkin and Starbucks coffee!  So delicious, and my favorite taste of the winter/fall season.  

Right now Paul is writing his thank yous from his recent interview which we are particularly excited about.  I am wrapping some things up and getting a hang of this blogging.  I am trying to locate a countdown Gadget so I can have an up to date countdown of Match Day!  Today I have to work over the noon hour and then going to invite everyone over for a roomie dinner.  I am going to make a fruity green salad with all the fixens and then broccoli penne for the main course.  Should be a good, healthy meal!  We are celebrating one of our last weeks in the Kendall house as a whole roomie crew.  Lyssa is moving home this week because her student teaching is over with, so I think that's an acceptable occasion to celebrate with some home-cooking with recipes out of Kath's kitchen! Last week we had Tiggy salad and Spicey Pasta for the house!  I went to pick up Paul from the airport with some home cooking...  It can't get much better than that!

Other things I am trying to work on are getting the house prepared and ready to go on the Market.  I have some painting and sanding to do sometime this week.  I also have to prepare a power-point presentation about IBD Medications for our blog!  Such a fun project, I can't wait to see it up and running!  

Well, I will hopefully be taking pictures and video tonight during the roommate dinner!  It will be fun to have everyone together!  It's too bad we are missing a few roomies: Lizzo, Emmalee, and Drewium...  We'll be toasting to them!

Spicy Pasta and Tiggy Salad at the Marsh's!

 

I just realized I can update my blog from my cell phone... This seems a little nuts! TESTING it NOW! Send!

Getting the hang of this...

So, as it turns out... the multiple pages are really just to store generic content and not to put blog posts.  So, instead of updating each one individually, I am going to tag my posts with different labels according to the tabs.  Hopefully this will make it easier for everyone.

Although it's not ideal, I will update the sections as things continue to evolve in with my friends, family, school, and traveling.  Should be a wild ride!  Thanks again for joining me!

Poster presentation at UW-Madison!

First Timer

I am new to the blogging world, but looks like we are off to a good start!  I want to learn how to use a blog to connect with my friends and family while I am away for the next few years.  Facebook is a little overwhelming, and I am not a fan of sharing my life stories over a large social network site.  So cheers to the start!  Let the blogging begin!