One Hundred and Fifty-eight,

Influence exists, there's no doubt about it. Up until now, however, its power over me has not been that powerful. My merits and personal traits have carried the day even in the face of influence at times. Going through medical school though, it's going to be tougher to fight influence. And I successfully made that fight tougher for myself by accidentally hitting "Reply All" to an innocent email. I'm clumsy, as my friends know. Apparently that conveys to mouse-clicking too at times.

I'm nervous, but I'll live. And whatever can't kill you, only makes you stronger. I heard that somewhere once.

One Hundred and Fifty-seven, [insert robotic squee! of joy]

I want Lasseter as my kids' personal storyteller every night.

One Hundred and Fifty-six, Wrapup Minus One

My Checklist:
Second Year Completed (& Passed) - Check!
Step 1 of the Board Exams Taken - Check!
Two and a Half Weeks of Vacation Completed - Check!
Step 1 of the Board Exams Passed - Waiting on Results...
Starting Third Year - In One Day
Started Research on my New Computer - Check!

There is the past 3 months of my life in six small bullets on a checklist. I am alive and well despite the wear and tear. Lot of life events going on with other people that I've attempted keeping track of and utterly failed in the past few months. I will be working to amend that as well as preparing for the third year. My first rotation? Ob/Gyn!

One Hundred and Fifty-five, Long Commutes

There are people for whom an hour commute is perfectly normal. I am not one of those people. Today I drove from home home to my school town for a day meeting and then headed back home home. Doing that on a daily basis would make me very introspective and likely to get into a wreck. Roommate commuted for an hour at one point and so a 45 minute or 30 minute commute is no biggie for him. Even those would be pushing it for me since time to be introspective is not necessarily what I care to have at the moment. As it stands, I don't have to drive on my own for a bit, thankfully, and so I'll enjoy the rest of this brief break I have before I start up my OB/GYN rotation in a couple weeks!

One Hundred and Fifty-four, Mind Stew

The past few weeks have been quite a rough road for me and others around the country. The part I keep trying to wrap my head around is that Life and Time don't stop. Every now and then you get into this point where you're having fun and enjoying yourself but it's hard to stay right in that position without something throwing a monkey wrench into your fun. I did spend some of my days off playing Warcraft like an addict and it felt great compared to the grind of the questions and study materials. But inevitably, I'd notice the time was 2 or 3 AM or my lids would automatically droop and I'd know that when I woke up, it would all be gone again traded in exchange for another set of grueling study hours. The Engineer just bought himself a house and is in the process of moving over there. He's had many points where he had decisions to make and time would force his hand when he would have rather had the chance to make carefully reviewed, forward-looking plans. Many of my friends are looking to the next few months and wondering how their life will look and where it will be. And for them it's probably the scariest. But that's what the rest of us are for and willing to help them cope with. Their minds are all in a jumble wondering what progress they're making on their goals and if they're going down the right road or just a screwed up one. Sometimes they can't even sleep well at night because of the cacophony of thoughts with them.

I still wish my mind would quiet.

One Hundred and Fifty-three, Aftermath

It went by quickly. Two kindly old ladies put us all in our cubicles in a timely manner and kept a vigilant watch over us. It actually felt straightforward. Granted some of the questions were outright unknowns where I knew I didn't have the knowledge stored away in a manner that I could access no matter how hard I tried. And other times they asked me what was the first amino acid used to create any new protein.

Six weeks. Six weeks of freedom. Four weeks of my first rotation. It will be grand!

One Hundred and Fifty-two, The Fateful Day

It's here.

One Hundred and Fifty-one, False Panic Attack

What's messed up is waking up thinking the exam is tomorrow and feeling a major panic attack coming on for the day to help focus studying...

Then realizing that the exam isn't tomorrow, it's in two days, and your body settling down right away back to its ho-hum ways.

[le sigh]