The Great Outdoors

So, some of you may have already heard that my older sister, Katie, hooked me up with a friend of hers who lives in DC named Catherine. She (Catherine with a "C," that is) has been so sweet to me thus far, empathizing about the ridiculousness of my Washington Gas fiasco last week and inviting me to happy hour (which I missed because of scheduling issues, unfortunately). We were finally able to meet face to face on Sunday when she invited me to go hiking with her and some other recent transplants to the DC area in Potomac, MD. It's only about twenty minutes away and so beautiful!

It was unlike any hike I had been on back home, with few steep inclines and lots of scrambling up, down, and around rocks. So much fun! We went out for brunch afterward in Mount Pleasant and I also got to check out Columbia Heights, an area of DC I had yet to experience and a place I think I would love living in.

I am looking forward to doing more with these lovely ladies in the future!

12 Types of Med Students

I first saw this when I began reading this blog and I was highly amused. I think I have met several of these types already (the overly academic, the gunner, the missing, the crier, the questionable admission, the one-track mind). Check it out and let me know which one you think I am!

http://theunderweardrawer.homestead.com/twelvemedstudents.html

I am a Med Student!

I know I should have been better about posting since I got the internet back on Thursday, but with the White Coat Ceremony yesterday (that's me and fellow orphan/class of 2012 med student Chelly) and getting my driver's license changed to a DC license/registering to vote today, I have not had the energy to put together a decent blog until now. And all because the bus system has proved to be on the unreliable side of things. I should be at Kelly Times Irish Pub right now, but instead I find myself with my laptop propped on my lap, adorable puppy knawing contentedly on her rope toy at my feet, and men's swimming on in the background.

More about the white coat. We had been told that receiving our white coat and reciting the Hippocratic Oath for the first time would make us feel different and it's true. While I still felt uneasy when strangers would see me in my coat and congratulate me, even though I haven't done anything yet, receiving it made me finally feel like I am officially a medical student, even though I haven't gone to any classes yet. The rest of the week felt monotonous at times, especially during some of the more presentation heavy days.

As for the rest of things, I am feeling much better now that all the utilities are all up and running. The lack of internet access was particularly frustrating because it was exacerbating the feeling of isolation and loneliness that always comes with moving to a new place, it was making the navigation of public transportation all the more challenging, and it was making it difficult to look at class materials. The key to not feeling overwhelmed about being new to DC is to keep busy, which will probably be accomplished pretty easily once school starts. For now, it's okay. I wish Alex and I could be exploring the city together, instead of being forced to interact mainly through marathon phone conversations most nights. Happily, he will be here in less than three weeks, but it is feeling like an eternity at the moment.

I guess that's it for now. Stay tuned for my upcoming misadventures!

We Have Arrived!

As many of you have already heard and as is probably inevitable with any move, especially one of a distance such as that from Ann Arbor to Washington, we hit a few speed bumps on our way to getting settled. Perhaps the most irritating was our encounter with Washington Gas (that's for anyone wanting to complain about their terrible excuse for "customer service"). In brief, someone came to turn on our gas while we were home and did not bother to knock on the door, thus causing our all-night drive from Ann Arbor to be made in vain. Attempts to reschedule the appointment on Saturday were thwarted by incompetent "customer service representatives," resulting in my missing a pre-orientation BBQ today since I had to wait for the gas man (as I like to refer to him). Happily, it has been turned on now, so I will be able to run the dishwasher and enjoy a hot shower for the first time since arriving. (Those cold ones are brrr!, refreshing!) The next hiccup was that our internet went out shortly after the Comcast technician left on Saturday afternoon and we have been unable to get it back since then (and three subsequent calls to Comcast). I am hoping it comes back this evening or tomorrow. Thus, I am at a Starbucks at the moment, taking advantage of their T-Mobile HotSpot. It feels so good connecting with the outside world again! We had to make a trip to the Ikea in College Park to pick up the midbeam for our bed (among other things) since we forgot to buy one with our home delivery order and thus tried out our sofa bed that first night (super comfy for those of you thinking about coming for a visit!). There were other, smaller problems along the way as well, but overall it went okay.

Alex left this morning (at 4:15 to be exact), so that has been really difficult. The place looks so great (check out some pictures here), but we only got to enjoy it together for a few hours. I know it will get easier once orientation starts tomorrow and he'll have a lot of work to keep him busy, but four weeks is by far the longest amount of time we've had to spend apart.

Okay, I'm off now. I hope to post something again soon, but the tech people at Comcast get the final say on that!

Eh...What's Up, Doc?

As a cure for the packing burnout I began to suffer this afternoon (and to procrastinate further on my moving goals for the day), I decided to give Buttercup a carrot and see how she liked it. I have been giving her sliced up pieces of carrot lately when I am snacking on them, but today I thought it would be fun to see what she'd do with a whole one. Turns out she can put it away in less than two minutes, no problem. This video is less entertaining than it would be if my commentary was picked up by the mike (well, in my opinion anyway), but I still think she's pretty fun to watch (she is a lil camera shy, I think, cuz she always gets this self-conscious expression on her face):

It Has Begun!

Yes, after much excuse-making and avoidance over the weekend, the fun of packing up all of our crap has commenced. For some reason, whenever I am moving, I feel like packing up my DVDs, CDs, and books is going to be the most frustrating part, so I always start with those. It takes all of ten minutes, even though I have a fair number of books. Then I have to do the stuff I really dislike, like deciding which clothes to get rid of, packing up all my shoes, and going through all my desk drawers (which I haven't done since the last time I moved). My goals for today involved attacking the upstairs (which is basically our bedroom). I managed to get all my clothes together in one room (I still hadn't retrieved my summer clothes from storage and there were several bags tagged for the Salvation Army ages ago down there as well) and then I proceeded to organize them: five bags for SA (and I even dropped them off there!); two suitcases containing the majority of my clothes, minus sweatshirts, workout clothes, pajamas (all of which made their way into various boxes), those in the to-be-cleaned pile that is my laundry basket, a few things for the rest of the week, and of course, shoes (which get their own box); packing up towels, sheets, and blankets; and finding homes for miscellaneous books and the like that weren't already in boxes. Since I already took care of the DVDs, CDs, and books yesterday, as well as the breakables, the upstairs is in pretty good shape. Alex has his clothes to sort out and I haven't started on my toiletries or bathroom stuff yet since I will be using a lot of it between now and Thursday, but it's looking good. The venture down in the storage unit forced me to clear out and pack up a lot of that stuff too, so it's really just the aforementioned things and the downstairs. That is going to be a bitch...for Alex, anyway. He has crammed so much fishing equipment into our pantry/broom closet. I do not envy him that job! Anyhoo, stay tuned for more updates on our sanity status as the big move looms ever closer.

And here's Buttercup, amidst the deluge of clothing (all gone now!). She was pretty much overwhelmed by what she saw and that I continued bringing stuff into the house from the storage room (not that she knew it was coming from there...it probably seemed like magic to her).

After a while of making sure she was constantly in my way, her puppiness took over and she had to grab a nap (or two). Though if she smelled food or sensed I was heading upstairs again, her "I'm going to miss out" sensors were activated and she just had to check back in with me.

Well, it's a mere six days until we move (although technically we are leaving late on Thursday evening/early on Friday morning, so we will be in DC in six days) and we're starting to get a game plan together for how to best pack up all of our crapola. Rental reservation from Budget Trucks: check (I highly recommend checking out retailmenot.com, people, for coupons on all kinds of stuff- we saved roughly $120 on our truck through this bad boy!). Furniture purchased from Ikea and home delivery scheduled for Thursday: check (since we are heading out a day later than we anticipated, we decided to get our stuff before the move so that we would only have to focus on unloading and assembly in DC). Pick up a bunch of good boxes from U-Haul: check (did you know that these establishments are often little more than add-ons to your friendly neighborhood gas stations? You can rent trucks and buy boxes from BP- who knew?!). Now for the dreaded task of actually putting things in the boxes...stay tuned for pictures of our fun with that!

Of note: Alex and I have survived for two whole years as a couple as of yesterday. We don't have much money and he's exhausted all the time from working crazy hours, but we did manage to eat some yummy German food at the Heidelberg downtown (I love knackwurst, red cabbage, and apple compote, among other things!) and check out Stepbrothers (so ridiculous, it's hilarious) in honor of this milestone.