Wednesday, June 16, 2010

School's Out For The Summer!

Today I took my last final of PT school. Hooray! Meaning, I am officially finished with the classroom portion of my education. Double hooray! And, since my residency doesn't start until the middle of September, drumroll please...I GET A SUMMER BREAK! For the first time in 3 years, I get to have time off during the summer. Triple hooray!

So what's on board for this summer? Well...lots of things! We (Jeff and I) will be leaving at the buttcrack of dawn on Saturday to join his family in Hawaii on the Big Island for 8 days of gloriousness. I've already promised my class, and a couple professors, to have drinks for them. Keep those lava flows coming! And I'm pretty sure a couple of them are squeezing into my suitcase too. Then I'll be heading up to SLO for a while, attempting to find an apartment or house for Jeff and I to move into at the end of August. And then in August I'll be going on the trip of a lifetime...3 weeks in Botswana (and a little of South Africa and Zimbabwe). I'll do a whole separate post on this, but it's pretty much the most amazing graduation present EVER! And those are only the big things planned...

It was bittersweet today saying goodbye to everyone. Now, I am not completely free of the grad school claws. Those of us doing an orthopedic residency must go back for a review week starting on the 29th. I have a bunch of readings I'm supposed to do before then, but at this moment, I'm not even thinking about it. Besides, who wants to lug a 10 pound book to Hawaii?! Maybe I'll photocopy a few sections to lighten the load.

Last weekend I babysat for the family I stayed with in Tustin. I was so excited to see my little buddy Ethan, and what was even more exciting was that he remembered me and got super excited when he saw me. It almost made me cry. He took my hand and proceeded to show me everything around the house, in case I had forgotten already, and then everything in the backyard. I spent the night because they didn't get back until 1 in the morning. The next day they had a brunch with a bunch of their PT friends, many of whom have been my CI, TA's, or otherwise present around school. It was actually pretty neat having them all in one place. Then with the major bucks I made, I headed to South Coast Plaza and did a little shopping for Hawaii. Ah, money! On Sunday, we attended 2 different graduation parties and had an early Father's Day celebration since I'll be in Hawaii.

Well, my to-do list only seems to be getting longer. I haven't even started packing, although I've thought about it several times. And there's a big project going on tomorrow, which hopefully I'll be able to sneak in a post about before we leave. If not, I'll post it when we get back. Until next time, I'm going to enjoy this little moment of freedom and satisfaction. Congrats APU DPT Class of 2010...we are literally almost done!

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Oops...It's June!

My apologies for the large gap in posts. I would do something interesting, but not have time to post about it, then forget. I think it's about time I update this darn thing now that about a month has gone by! I'm going to jump to where things started getting interesting again since my birthday so this doesn't get too long.

We had our last Sports Day at school. Our shirts turned out pretty cool. It was pretty hot that day...perfect for the water balloon attack on the 1st years! We had the traditional taco man come and make fresh tacos and played old school games like dodgeball, steal the bacon and capture the flag. It was weird to think that this was our last one, and how it really didn't feel like that long ago that we were the 1st years. Scary where the time goes!



That same weekend I headed up to SLO to hang out with Jeff. We went to Farmer's Market and ate some yummy pulled pork sandwiches from Mo's. We also decided to buy a book of all the trails on the Central Coast to help foster the newly found desire we have to hike more. For our first hike we decided to head out to Montana de Oro. My grandparents had always found it criminal that I had not been out there since I lived in such proximity for so long. And now I know why. Despite it being absolutely freezing cold and windy, it was beautiful! We hiked along the bluffs and tried not to get blown over the edge. We want to go back again, hopefully when it's warmer out!





This past weekend (Memorial Day) I headed up to Walnut Creek to visit my best friend, and co-maid of honor, Ashley. We haven't seen each other in quite some time since she started earning her master's and teaching credential. And I hadn't seen her parents since we graduated from Cal Poly. Yikes! Needless to say, the visit was long overdue! On Friday night we ate at this amazing place called The Counter where you build your own gourmet burger. It was delicious! And I just looked at their website and found out there's one in Westlake! SCORE!

On Saturday night we went to the Tim McGraw and Lady Antebellum concert. We got lawn seats so the tickets were insanely cheap. The concert was absolutely amazing, minus some crazy drunk people falling over stuff.





On Sunday Ashley and I got to show our domestic sides and prepare quite the feast for a bbq for the history department staff at her step-dad's school. For appetizers we made deviled eggs, capreze, hummus with pita chips, roasted almonds and peanuts, and fruit platter. We made pulled pork sandwiches with spicy coleslaw and a greenbean/red potato salad for dinner. For dessert was pear and blueberry cobbler. Everything was super yummy, and the weather was perfect for bbqing! It was great hostessing with you Ash!


So now I'm back at home in T.O. and am gearing up for the last few weeks of school. 2 more weeks of classes and then finals! Then we're off to Hawaii! Can't wait!