Our life for the next four years

On Thursday, I walked on stage in front of all of my classmates and their families and friends and opened my envelope, which read "Congratulations, you have matched to The University of Minnesota in internal medicine/pediatrics."  Well not exactly like that, it was more of a list, but you get the point.


I was so thrilled and I think Marc was even more excited!  I will be so sad to leave so many good friends, but now they will have a real winter to visit along with some awesome shopping!  The city itself is beautiful (above-picture taken from http://classic.cnbc.com/id/29350033?slide=2) and filled with so much to do in all seasons. Now begins the crazy rush to find a place to live and pack, move (including moving our nearly 14 year old cat Max), and unpack and get settled and actually practice medicine as a doctor....lots of responsibility is headed our way!

Minneapolis/St. Paul has a population (including the suburban area) that is larger than the entire state of Arkansas, so we will be in for quite a change, but Marc and I both have been wanting to get back to a bigger city.  His former home was Chicago and in college I lived within 20 minutes of Charlotte and we both really missed all the opportunities and activities that those larger cities offered, but we will shortly be back in the hustle and bustle of a large city.

With my rock, Meredith, throughout med school.  She made my life during medical school so much fun and really got me through school and the rest of my life during med school too!

Opening my envelope on stage!

I am sure we will have many updates as we progress through this move, but we are excited and I can't wait to get back to Minneapolis for a visit knowing that is where we will make our home for the next four years!

Matched

Just a quick update to say that I "matched."  We found out yesterday IF we matched and find out Thursday WHERE we match.  This will be a crazy and potentially life-altering (meaning a BIG move is possible) week!  Stay tuned to find out where I will be for the next 4+ years....

If you want to read a bit about the process here's a link:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/match-day-medical-students-learn-their-fate/

Hopefully I will have good news to share Thursday (or soon after, come on celebration is in order!)

Trip to Kauai

Since I had the month of February off, Marc and I decided that a trip just for fun (not for interviewing!) was badly needed.  With all of the miles I racked up going on 17 interviews I had crossed the threshold for a free ticket to Hawaii, and Marc, with his many, many miles from his travel in his old job, also had enough (just on Delta, he was mainly a United and American flyer).  Because of our MULTIPLE unfortunate experiences on Delta (aka Doesn't Ever Leave the Airport, courtesy of someone else's facebook status), we decided to dump all of our miles and go to Hawaii to get rid of them. Last minute we found 2 "low mileage" (50,000 miles each) tickets and also were able to use points along with a discount for the points to get a hotel in Kauai.  We had a crazy route to get there, but we made it and wow was it beautiful!  I had been too Kauai, although just for the day, back in 1996 during a trip to Honolulu and Maui, but it was a different experience this time and I have to say, we actually ran out of time to do all the things we wanted to do on the small island, which really surprised me.

We spent one night in Honolulu solely because we came in late and couldn't get a flight to Lihue in Kauai. We spent much of the first day just driving around, going to Pearl Harbor and finding the bail bonds office for Dog The Bounty Hunter--surprisingly one of my favorite shows!

American flag flying high over the USS Arizona Memorial

The list of people who were killed on the USS Arizona on December 7th.

Part of the ship

The USS Arizona leaks oil daily and it can still be seen on the water's surface since the day it sunk.  It makes me wonder how long oil will be in the Gulf of Mexico...

A high view of the Memorial

People exiting the memorial.

...and on a much lighter note, the offices of Dog The Bounty Hunter!  They weren't there since it was Sunday, but maybe on our next trip we can find them!

Stay tuned for more about our trip...