So, last night I proved to myself that I can, indeed, remain awake into the wee hours of the morning… around 2:30am to be exact. AJ and I (and Jill, Maren, Andrea, and Tori) gathered at Matthew and Richard’s last night for an E-bay Christmas party – complete with a "white elephant" exchange of gifts procured off of E-bay, including such gems as a documentary about Mullets and the People Who Wear Them, a baby-blue flower covered VW Bus telephone, and a remote-control dancing doll.

We all snacked, watched the mullet movie, and played Trivial Pursuit – The 90’s Edition well into the night, and when AJ and I finally got home (~1am) we finished watching "Raising Helen", took in a bit of Saturday Night Live (with host Luke Wilson) and finally drifted off around 2:30am. So, yes, I can stay up late… and yes, I enjoy staying up late – but let me sleep in til at least 11 the next day! 🙂

I’ve spent the past four weeks in my Neurology rotation at Cardinal Glennon. I’m kind of sad that it’s over because it’s the end of my time at Cardinal Glennon. The rest of my third year will be spent primarily with adults, and at other hospitals. But then fourth year arrives and I can do as much Peds as I want. Neuro was fun, and quite interesting… and I’m still definitely interested in exploring a career in Peds Neuro. But I’m also interested in General Peds – so I guess I’ll just focus on getting into a residency and then figure out where to go from there.

I had my Neuro Shelf exam on Friday. Why is it called a Shelf exam anyway? I still have yet to find a good answer for that. The only suggestion I have heard is that the exams used to be kept on a shelf, so that’s what they called them. That sounds kind of silly, but I guess it could be true. I even tried to Google this to find the answer, but no real luck. Oh well. Anyway, the exam went well, I think. I finished quite early again, so I guess the bane of the time-sucking Shelf exam started and ended with surgery. And really, I still finished that one in time, just much closer to the end-point than usual, which made me anxious. But Neuro was much better. I still have no clue as to how I did, but judging from my past 2 shelf scores, I probably at least passed it.

Jill and Maren and I had a nice "vent about the rotation" session at the gathering last night. I got to hear how horrible the Family Medicine Shelf is and how the recommended texts don’t preare you at all, and they got to hear about how great Peds Neuro is and how much fun they’re going to have. It doesn’t sound much like a fair exchange to me… but at least I have a little bit better of an idea of what to expect as far as the exam is concerned. I’ve been on Google all morning trying to find advice for the Family Medicine rotation/Shelf exam and pretty much coming up empty. Although it does seem that if I study from the Internal Medicine guides, I’ll be in okay shape. I guess I’ll just do my best and let the cards fall where they may.

Today AJ and I are going to head out to Barnes and Noble (One with a Starbucks! That’s a rarity in these parts!) and browse and study and basically set up shop for a few hours in a new location. He’s been putting in a lot of study hours lately since his next round of law school finals is coming up. I really feel for him – the whole semester scrunched down into a single exam – and then to have to do it five times over within two weeks. Sometimes I think I have a more demanding schedule than him (school-wise anyway), but when he gets into finals time, his takes the cake. At least we get a mini-vacation, since we’re heading back to Seattle for Thanksgiving next week. I’m looking forward to that, and maybe I’ll get a chance to reflect on my one day of family medicine I will have had by that point. We’ll see…. until next time….

When was the last time you took a spur-of-the-moment road trip? Me, it was last weekend when I found out that my sister would be playing in her last college soccer game ever and it would take place only (ONLY) a five and a half hour drive from good ol’ St. Louie. Of course, I didn’t find out about the game until about 30 hours before it would happen, but that didn’t stop me!

Heather goes to St John’s University (Queens NY Campus) and plays on their soccer team. Since we, her family, all live so far away we hardly ever get the chance to see her play. Her team got into the Big East Championship Tournament this year and their first game (and decidely their last) was played at Notre Dame University (in South Bend, IN). On her way there (at a layover in Chicago) she text messaged me to dicuss the “Little Miss” and “Mr Men” series of children’s books (see the series here: http://members.tripod.com/~DaveML/mrmus1.html) since she has a friend that apparently looks just like one of the “Mr Men” men – though we never got around to figuring out which one.. perhaps Mr Brave, or maybe Mr Nonsense? Anyway, we got around to discussing her trip, and how this is her last game ever, and how it’s too bad I was still so far away from South Bend, IN so I couldn’t go see her play. Which got me thinking, is 5 1/2 hours really so far? When I haven’t seen her play in years, and haven’t seen her in general in months..? I didn’t think so, and neither did AJ – so at 4am the next morning we were cursing the alarm that started us on our way.

The mini chocolate covered donuts (definitely not doughnuts) helped ease the early morning grouchies, and a grogeous sunrise helped us along as well. But the discovery that I had led us off the wrong exit almost ruined the trip, until we figured out how to get back on track (with only an extra 20 minutes tacked onto the drive). It could have been a disasterous mistake, adding an extra 1-2 hours (and thus causing us to miss the game entirely) if I hadn’t noticed it in time. To this day I still wonder why I thought I was smarter than the Mapquest map..? “Oh, that’s funny,” I thought to myself, “Why would Mapquest put the wrong map in with these directions? I guess I’ll just go my own way.” Silly, silly girl.

A couple of hours into the drive, McDonald’s beckoned, and we responded with the purchase of breakfast value meals, complete with Monopoly playing pieces. We got Park Place. We were convinced it was our day to win millions and decided to eat at McDonald’s for the rest of our meals that day. We ended up not winning. Who would’ve guessed?

We arrived in South Bend about 1 hour before game time and showed our IDs and signed the gate list to get our free tickets. We found some good bleacher seats in the middle of the field and watched the warm-ups. Heather ran over to give me her warm coat (Thank you Heather!!) and a disposable camera.. and a hug. Then she was off to play.

The game was.. well… I had a great time cheering and shouting and encouraging the Red Storm to play their hearts out. But overall it didn’t seem to help a whole lot. The psychological threat of playing against (drumroll) NORTRE DAME was a little too much for St. John’s to overcome and they lost, which was not unexpected, but they lost big, which maybe wasn’t unexpected either, but it surprised me (and Heather too, I think). Heather had a good game though, and played hard to the end. She played the entire game – and AJ took about 300 pictures. So those plus the 5 I got with her disposable camera now give her proof that she played soccer in college.

After the game I gave Heather a birthday care package of fun things for the plane (magazines, crossword puzzles, snacks) and we got to chat for a few minutes. She showed me some flowers that her friend Justin (the one who looks like a “Mr Men” man) had sent her for “good luck in the game” and “congratulations on your soccer comeback and career”. The card, however, said something more along the lines of “Congratulations on your new career. Please come back.” It seems that the florist taking his order was a bit lacking on his grasp of the English language – but that made for an entertaining conversation piece. 🙂

After picking up some McDonald’s dinner for Heather (still no winning game iece) and chatting for a few more minutes it was time for her to head to the airport with her team, and for us to head off on our 5 1/2 hour trip back home. It was so worth it and I had such a great time. It’s one of those road trips that I will remember for a long time – and now that I’ve got it all recorded here I can remember it for even longer.