i heart nature

there must have been millions of these yellow flowers, i felt a bit like dorothy in the poppy field.

erie's very own ginormous tree of life

and i of course can't let a perfectly good tree go unclimbed :)

action shot of ms abbie jumping from the rocks

fighting the current...

after board review this morning followed by what may have been the most frustrating opp exam i've ever taken linds decided that we needed a nature break and she was right. we went to asbury woods, the same woods that keith and i went to before but apparently we were in the wrong place before because this was soooo much more open and it had water! it was nice to get out and stretch my legs on a hike in the sunshine especially since we have our first set of mock boards tomorrow. this will include a fun filled 8 hours of straight testing, let the party begin.

blessed

I am so incredibly lucky and blessed to have such amazing parents. a lot of people would think that driving 6 1/2 hours across the state of pennsylvania to have lunch with their youngest daughter is crazy. and to some extent it is, but it's also really really cool :) i had a psych practical in the morning so mom and dad timed it pretty well so that they'd get to the wonderful city of erie right after i finished. we went to a place for lunch that reminds me of a restaurant that we used to frequent annually in wildwood called 'The Captain's Table' before heading down to presque isle.

we drove around the island and got out of the car around the eastern most tip to take a a 'quick' walk by the water. This turned into a long hike to a light house that seemed deceptively closer than it actually was.

and of course a trip to preqsue isle isn't complete without getting ice cream from sarah's so we stopped on the way back before they headed south to complete their weekend tour of pa by visiting with kristen and craig in pittsburgh.

the visit was much too short but eons better than having to wait another month and a half to see them and provided enough of a push to help keep me motivated to study.

coming down the homestretch

school is like a giant roll of toilet paper. in the beginning i couldn't imagine ever getting through the whole thousand 'sheets' and it seemed like it was never going to end. looking at the whole bit seemed extremely overwhelming so i've learned to take it one day at a time with my blinders on, not looking too far ahead into the future and leaving my successes, frustrations and failures in the past. but like they say with toilet paper, the closer you get to the end, the faster it goes. at this point in the year i keep vacillating between the sheer panic of boards and my excitement to finally get out of my windowless lecture hall and the chair that i'm sure is going to leave a permanent imprint on my behind.

I had my last 'systems' exam this morning and while psych was interesting, i'm not sorry to see it go. i also got some amazing news this morning in between the time my exam ended and my board review class started. after hours of research, phone navigation (i've decided that automated phone services are perhaps the worst invention ever ) emails, voicemails, being told that they only accept 4th years, i have to have such and such rotations completed before i even apply and jump through 17 rings of fire i FINALLY got an elective. an elective that i want and am ECSTATIC about. I'll be at community volunteers in medicine which is a nonprofit primary care facility in west chester next august :) soooo stoked about this!

mom and dad are coming to visit tomorrow yay! so at least while i'm studying for yet another exam ( one day i'm going to count how many tests they've put us through...) i have something awesome to look forward to, especially since i haven't seen them since winter break!

one little piggy went to the market...

apparently they drew the line when it came to practicing suturing on each other. don't worry because it was okay to blindly jab at each other with needles when it came to phlebotomy, but not so much as to when it came to learning to actually throw stitches. for this i am grateful :)


this was actually really neat. we learned several different stitches which are each good for different things depending on the friability of the tissue, situation of the trauma, if if its in an area that needs to be aesthetically pleasing etc. if it's a laceration where you need to control the tension of each stitch-- the interrupted stitches are the most common for trauma and something like a running stitch is more common in plastics which will leave a nicer scar, but you also have to consider that the person was healthy enough to undergo elective surgery to begin with and didn't just come into the er after their car lost a battle with a tree...

we also learned how to properly 'gown' meaning the procedure that surgeons and anyone present in the operating room must go through in order to become and remain sterile. i'm suppperrr glad we did this, it entails quite a bit of detail and i'm pretty sure i would have looked like an idiot otherwise, ok i still look like an idiot but at least i'm an 'informed' moron. there's one part of the sequence when your arms are in the sleeves of the gown and you have to put on your gloves without taking your hands out--kinda felt like a little kid with mittens on who was a teensy bit retarded trying to tie her shoes, not gonna lie.

p.s. above is my actual pigs foot :)

refreshed

keith came up this weekend and boy was it good to see him and relax a bit. he got in real late friday night since he had to work late which meant we got to sleep in on saturday :) the weather was in the 40s and overcast with some drizzle but we decided to adventure out in a park close by, asbury woods, to hike a few of the trails. it was definitely chilly but we had a great time. it hasn't quite hit full spring here yet one of my favorite things about spring is the bright kelly green that everything turns.




saturday night we went to a local byob, which was actually the restaurant i went to for easter brunch. the food was delicious and relatively cheap plus we got free dessert since our entrees took a little long coming out! we spent the rest of the night hanging out with linds & ryan. it's really refreshing just to be able to hang out, talk, drink, and play a few games and watch a movie. i would definitely recommend seeing the blind side if you haven't :)



we both got some work done this morning, ran some errands, made chicken fajitas for dinner to finish out the weekend. keith is currently driving home in the sunshine which decided to make it's first appearance of the weekend and i'm going to immerse myself in microbiology for the rest of the night.

see him? this robin was about the only animal we saw the whole time!

yay :)

i feel like a little kid (ok more like a big kid) on christmas morning.
I've been literally salivating over a new lens for my camera for MONTHS and i finally found a really good deal, broke down, bought it and it arrived in the mail today :) <--- BIG SMILE
it's a canon EF 50mm f1.4 which basically means that i can now take pictures with fantastic 'bokeh' (sounds like hebrew to me and didn't know what it meant either, but apparently that's the word real photographer's use when they mean that they're going to blur out the background of a picture and have a very small field of focus)




while i was doing laundry over at lindsey's she was kind enough to let me borrow her dog, take pictures of her stuff and even spill coffee beans all over the table to try it out. let me tell you it's AWESOME--see for yourself below. i can't even imagine how much better they'll look when i actually know what i'm doing with it! ever since i've had this camera i've tried to keep the thing on manual and have succeeded in doing so for probably about 90% of the time, may not sound like a big deal but it can take me about eleventy-two different tries to get a picture that looks mostly right to me after i've messed around and adjusted the shutter speed, ISO, aperture and manually focused the damned thing without using a flash. oh well, at least i'm learning and having a good time doing it. maybe i should get a book on it...




keith's coming up tonight for the weekend, and as excited as i am about this lens i'm even more ecstatic about seeing him <3

living for the someday's

someday i'll...
stress less
have a life ( maybe even a social life too!)
won't have to sit on my butt and study for an asinine amount of hours
won't have any more tests (the written kind i mean)
be able to enjoy a full weekend without feeling guilty about not studying
veg on the couch and watch hours of mindless tv
spend more time with my boyfriend than people spend committed to the national guard (if you're thinking of joining i hear it's only one weekend per month and 2 weeks a year)
just hang out
do nothing
take a million pictures
read because i want to
cook
spend time with my family
spend time with my friends
go on ridiculous vacations (up for obx anyone?)
run a half marathon
run a full marathon
have season tickets to psu football not in the nosebleeds
sleep more :)
cut off all my hair (i'm working on being brave enough to do this)
have a paycheck $$ (annnd than see it all go to my loan payments...)
get a newer car
take a cross country road trip
have pets, real ones, like dogs and cats and not lame fish and plants
have a house by the water with a wrap around porch complete with rocking chairs (hey, i figure dream big or don't bother)
get married (uh, not anytime soon)
have kids ( in a reeaaallll long while)
...finally be a doctor

just a few of the things i daydream about that i'm somewhat patiently waiting and hoping for :)

Dear Mother Nature, It's April 9th. Just thought I'd let you know. Love Melissa

Let me tell you, there's nothing like a 46 page, 4 hour exam that will make you feel like you should be riding on the short bus in the game of life. And in celebration of such a fantastic way to start the weekend erie thought it'd throw us a little snow shower. (please note the sarcasm)

I'm feeling like a long run and a bit of retail therapy are in order. Or maybe i'll just run across the street to go visit linds and her dog abbie. Misery loves company and there's little else in the world like being greeted by a dog who's ecstatic to see you :) abbie's actually taken to making a break for my house when linds or ryan take her out to pee if i haven't been over to visit in a while. that dog cracks me up. i miss the spike and sullie welcoming committee at home too.

p.s. funny story, so my mom calls me yesterday to let me know that pnc sent a letter saying that there had been some suspicious activity on my account. worried, i looked up the date they had in question and it turns out there was, i'd made a deposit. way to go pnc.

mr. spike in his favorite spot under the deck

'what did you say? you want to play?!'

miss abbie sittin pretty for her picture

just one of those weeks

whelp, the regular weather of dreary erie has returned, except instead of snow we've got rain and humidity. don't get me wrong, i'm not complaining about this, i just got a bit delusionally spoiled with the gorgeous sunshine we've been having for days.

it's just been one of those blah off weeks where i'm not really sure which is my up from my left, or what day of the week it is (i took my trash out on tuesday thinking it was wednesday) than all day yesterday felt like thursday...i tend to get out of wack a bit whenever we have an exam that's not on a monday. school has trained me well in thinking that monday night generally starts my 'weekend'.

really not too much going on here at this point, just back to the normal mundane daily grind of class, eat, run, study repeat. i've got all kinds of tests coming up that run the gamut of a national shelf test tomorrow to my first psych exam, and opp final practical as well as the ever present pressure of my boards looming over my head. and while i find it easy to get entirely caught up in all of this, i try step back from it all and take a second to be appreciative of how truly blessed and lucky i am :)

my happy place is the outer banks n.c :)

What a wonderful weekend

Hope everyone had a great Easter!
Here's my weekend in pictures, i got to be a member of the 'real world' for a good bit of it. the amazing weather held out here and we had a bonfire at drew and sarah's house on friday night complete with a keg annnnndddd the best most awesome yard game of ALL time, it's called Stump. For those of you who have not been fortunate enough to play this game it entails the following: a tree stump, nails, hammer, a full cup of beer and some quick cat-like reflexes :) the object of the game is to hold your beer, flip the hammer up into the air, catch it in the hand that is not holding your beer and in one fluid motion try to hammer you're opponents nail into the tree stump. extra swings for throwing the hammer under your leg (2) or behind your back and over your shoulder (3). you might be thinking that this just sounds like a trip to the er but believe me when i tell you it's an awesome time, so awesome that no one remembered to take pictures of it, but below are a few from the night

me and john


lindsey busting out her best dance move in my cool sunglasses


a rousing game of king's cup


amusing ourselves with the flood light and our shadows on the side of the house dancing to music. oh the joy of the simple things in life :)


croquette. in the dark.


lind's brilliant way to keep track of abbie in the dark = glowsticks


Saturday afternoon kristen and craig came up to celebrate easter


all my loot from my easter basket :) it rocked! thanks mom and dad <3


kristen brought me cala lillies



Easter Brunch with the gang on Sunday morning at the Summerhouse cafe