Unprepared

Ahhh, where do I begin? It is not just me, my whole world is unprepared. I am stuck in my hotel room on a Thursday afternoon after finishing up my interview at Swedish Medical Center. Not stuck because i am a sissy about snow, but because the whole city of Seattle literally shuts down in the rare occasion that it snows and there is nothing to do!! I am in this beautiful city with fun places to go and see but the weather has cut me off from all of it. Even the restaurant where i am staying (and planned to eat dinner) has closed early due to the weather.

In addition to my restlessness i am cold and personally unprepared. After my trauma from my 100lb luggage on my last trip i packed super light this time. Too light. I packed my suit but forgot to pack clothes to wear after my interviews. I left my boots at home which would have been very useful in all this snow. I don't even have a warm hoodie to hang out in and i spilt coffee on my sweater that i flew here in (the warmest thing i brought) and now i can't wear it.

So wish me luck when my hunger drives me back outside to search for food. At least i have a coat, scarf, and gloves, even if i have nothing to wear underneath!!

My second home, the airport

It is 8:34am and I am sitting in the airport in Albuquerque, NM. I am on my way to Seattle but of course have to change planes to get there and I have a 2 hour layover.

I must say that I love the fact that most airports these days have wireless internet. I honestly don't mind layovers because they give me a chance to pee in a real bathroom, get some food, and get some space. I was resisting this trip all day yesterday and therefore feel a little unprepared because i sat on the couch last night instead of getting ready. In my resistance I also decided that I would go to the airport at 6am for my 6:55 flight.

Normally this would not be such a bad idea, the Tucson airport is pretty quiet and i have always gotten through in 10-20 minutes. Today however i walked in to find a HUGE line for Southwest as they had 5 flights leaving within the same hour. I started to get nervous but i soon realized that everyone else in line had not planned for this either and people with flights at 6:30 were just arriving. Needless to say, Southwest had quite a bunch of people to deal with and we got filtered this way and that and they had to delay flights but I we all made it to our respective flights just fine (i least everyone around me did!)

Now i know that even if I don't plan enough time, most likely I won't miss my flight. Not a great rule to live by, but when you are traveling as much as I am lately, it is nice knowledge to have in the back of your head :)

Pics from Cannon Beach in Portland

I survived!!

Well I am back and recovered from my two week interview trail, just in time to leave again tomorrow! I have been all over and I learned a lot of things along the way. To be honest the hardest things were not the interviews, those were actually fun. It was not really the transportation either which i kinda expected to be tough. I never got lost cruising around New England or had a taxi come late. What was hard you ask? Carrying my luggage!! Yes, hauling around 103.1 (i weighed all my bags at the airport just to see) was terrible, and no i did not over pack! I wore everything i brought, sometimes two or three times! When I finally got to Phoenix, my last place to carry everything at once, they gave me the car the farthest away in the lot and I almost cried.

I did learn some things along the way that I might never have had the opportunity to learn or do again. I learned to eat alone in a restaurant without feeling uncomfortable. I learned how to enjoy art, scenery, and discovery by myself. I have mastered how to pack a suitcase that weighs exactly 49.8lbs (no charge under 50lbs!). I have become quite confident navigating my way around completely unfamiliar places, i might even venture to say i have developed a sense of direction. I have changed planes in airports across the US which is not really a big deal until you get to Detroit where it is necessary to go outside, take a shuttle to another terminal, go through security again, then take an escalator to a tram to go to another part of the terminal, then up an escalator... you get the picture. Anyway, I think that i have returned from this trip a more world smart and confident person.

The most important thing that happened during this trip is that after answering the question "why surgery"? about a dozen times, I am absolutely sure that surgery is what i want to do. Most people close to me know that it was a rough decision for me to make but I answered this question over and over with conviction and honestly for why I think surgery is the best career for me. Just a warning though, if anyone outside of an interviewer asks me though they are likely to get hit :)

Chris and I went over the program i have been to so far and made a rough ranking list which we will fit the remaining programs into as i finish the process. Please wish us luck in making wise decisions.

First stop on the interview trail

So, where to begin? This has been a very enjoyable but very crazy week in Portland. I flew in on Friday and we have been running ever since. My wonderful aunt and uncle have taken me all over Portland, showing me cute shops downtown, specialty stores, delicious restaurants, and we even took a trip to the coast today. The weather has been fantastic, not too cold, very little misting, and i even saw the sun today.

Hidden in all of our fun was a very chill interview at Oregon Health and Science Center. The people there were very nice, very happy, and not intimidating in the least. Overall, i thought that it went very well.

It has been very nice to be with family and have someone to show me around. My cousins are quite entertaining and have not stopped talking since i got here. We (well i did at least) had a great time decorating the house for Christmas which was nice because i probably won't have a chance to do that at my house this year. From the many unique animals to the very rambunctious children, it has been an eventful week.

This morning I received an exciting but complicating call. I finally heard from Brown University but instead of asking me to come on Dec 8th like i had hoped, they invited me to come on Dec. 5. This is causing me to have to change all of my travel plans for the next week from flights to transportation, to hotels. Hopefully it is as wonderful as i imagine and well worth the trouble.