Bi-Annual Update

Once every six months counts as consistent, right?

This year has been pretty packed already. I've spent a lot of time with a great guy who has adventured a lot with me. We've had a lot of firsts together.

My first time east coast skiing... Biffed it a little bit on the ice, but we had a blast!

Visited the Basketball Hall of Fame. (Who knew basketball was invented in Massachusetts?)

My first Red Sox game!

Visited a lighthouse on Cape Cod:

We also visited a pirate museum nearby... Mark documented me and Cassidy being good pirates.

Hiked a little section of the Appalachian Trail:

We wrote random notes for other people to find, just those before us did.

There are also little huts along the way for through-hikers.

We had lots of other adventures too.. NY, DC... and just generally played!

He'll probably be in a few more pictures because we're training for a marathon in September. Woo hoo! Those of you who have trained for any kind of race should send me music advice, goo advice, and any other advice you can think of that will help me survive 26 miles. I'm actually pretty proud of myself so far. I never really loved running long distances, so every long run we do is my longest one ever. Last Saturday's run was 12 miles! My favorite part is that I can now consistently run the whole mid-week 6 mile runs (slowly, mind you)-- and 6 miles used to count as the long run. It's pretty cool.

The other big news I have is that I published my first article in a medical journal! (I had a ton of team support in writing it.) It was just released last Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine. I don't know where that puts me in the long run, because I don't plan to stay in research, but it's cool anyway.

Who knew so much could happen in seven months!

Unanchored

"This year, the Emerson Program selections committee was faced with the unenviable task of selecting semi-finalists from a large pool of outstanding applicants for the 17^th class of Emerson National Hunger Fellows. In fact, this year we received a record number of applications..."

You know a letter that starts like that can't be good. I didn't get the fellowship. Well really, I didn't even get an interview. I was sort of bracing myself anyway, because the phone interviews start next Wednesday-- so I felt like they would have told me already if I had needed to schedule one.

I feel a little unanchored because I'm not quite sure how I feel about it yet. I didn't have much time to process it the first time because I was just skimming emails on my way out the door. I'm still deciding if the lack of strong reaction is because it hasn't hit me yet or if, on some level, I'm relieved. Maybe a little of both.

On the upside, I guess this helps me narrow my focus a (very) little bit for post-graduation plans. On to the next thing, I suppose.

You know, I like to have one hand on the next thing before I let go of what I've got, but sometimes that doesn't work. I went rock climbing tonight, and the top of my last climb was hard-- there were a lot of tiny rocks, kind of far apart (at least for my arms). I was so close though! Finally I decided that I just needed to kind of jump up to the last handhold-- and it worked.

So I guess it's time to get ready to jump... Not sure to where yet. :)

Wandering around Washington (D.C. that is)

This weekend was fantastic. Friday, there was a Valentine's Day dance in Connecticut, and I met some new people as well as saw a few people I haven't seen recently. THEN, I went to Washington D.C. Saturday night since I didn't have school Monday or Tuesday! What better place to spend President's Day than in the nation's capitol, right?

Tara (in the blue) lives in D.C. and is one of Ashley's (middle) old childhood friends. Ashley (whom I've mentioned before and is my best friend in my MPH program) went to D.C. on Friday, so I just met up with them Saturday night.

We walked a lot and got to see a lot of cool things-- buildings, museums, and the Mall. (Which has nothing to do with shopping, fellow westerners-- or maybe I was the only clueless one coming out here.)


Ashley and I walked by the White House. The wire fencing is not very picturesque, but what can you do? And the sidewalk on one side was closed off-- according to "locals," this supposedly means that President Obama is in the White House.


I loved the view of the city, and I'll post more fun (though amateur!) pics later. But the best thing about the trip was that D.C. made a good first impression. I really liked the feel of it, and I liked the metro system much better than the one in New York. D.C. just seemed much more tranquil, even though it was still rushed and packed.

I guess that bodes well for my fellowship in 2010, right? (Praying hard that I get accepted!...)

P.S. At one point, I thought maybe I should get a position with the FDA so I could change it from the inside. This is a silly idea, because the FDA runs according to federal policy (duh)-- no underling on the inside is doing any reform! Any doubt I might have still had was removed by talking to a lady wearing an FDA badge on the metro. She said most of their openings right now are really for chemists and inspectors. I'm glad someone holds these jobs, because maybe our food is a little safer, but that's not going to help me revamp agricultural subsidies any time soon.