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7 Weeks

This week I am beginning my three weeks of Christmas vacation. Following those three weeks I have scheduled 4 weeks of vacation time. All in all, that’s 7 straight weeks off.

Upon hearing about my schedule, many residents have sighed and said, “Oh, the life of a 4th year. Enjoy it while it lasts.”

It won’t be all fun and games, though. This first week I’ll be studying for Step 2 CS and taking the exam on Thursday. The following couple weeks I’ll be finishing up my interviews. But then I will have a few weeks off at the end. I’m still not sure what I’ll be doing. There has been some talk about the possibility of going to Korea. My sister is leaving for Korea in about 1 week. She’ll be teaching English there for 4 months. She would like me to come visit. Well, I’d like to go visit too.

But I’ve also considered other travel alternatives. The others are all cheaper than a trans-Pacific flight. One option would be a road trip. I considered just driving east and just going for a week without any planned agenda. I considered flying out to the east coast and just wandering around for a while. I also considered trying to talk my parents into letting me use a week of their time share somewhere — perhaps I’ll go to Hawaii again.

Obviously my mind is all over the place.

We’ll see, though.

Whatever I end up doing, you better believe I’ll be posting about it!

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Classes are starting soon… no!

I’m “back to school” next week after Labor Day. Right now I’m trying to enjoy my last few days of vacation and writing this entry while sitting poolside at a resort on the island of Kauai. Originally I was going to make this trip alone. I just wanted to relax before resuming lectures. But then my sister said she wanted to join me so for the last week its been the two of us.

Coincidentally, I’ve met two of my classmates here on the island. Although, one of them did ask me, “Where do I know you from?” Guess that’s a sign for me to start attending more class functions.

One day I was walking into the local FoodLand to get some bottled water. As I was walking towards the entrance I noticed a woman looking at me. I dismissed it, figuring she was looking at something behind me. She slowed down and as we met at the front door she pointed at my t-shirt and said she knew about Loma Linda (I was wearing my LLU School of Medicine t-shirt). We chatted briefly and she said she had relatives who had graduated from the medical school at Loma Linda.

Later on that day I was at the beach when a man asked me, “Can I ask you something?” Naturally, I said yes. He and his wife had noticed my shirt as well. They asked if I was a doctor. I said no. Apparently they only saw the front because the back of the shirt says “Class of 2011.”

It turns out that the gentleman has a PhD in psychology and he teaches “baby docs” (residents) about bedside manner (talking to patients and family, dealing with death, etc.). He and his wife asked me what I wanted to do and I replied that I was not sure yet.

His wife mentioned something about children. I wasn’t too sure. And I replied that I had enjoyed my two weeks on the pediatrics service and had really enjoyed my time with Child Psychiatry.

She told me that she saw me doing something with children. She said it might be in pediatrics, or maybe delivering babies, but she wasn’t sure. But definitely something with children.

I’m not quite sure what kind of look I had on my face. But she felt the need to qualify what she was telling me by saying that she is a Christian. I told her that I am too.

She continued by sayhing that I shouldn’t worry about money because the money would come. And to top it all of she said she saw me in some sort of medical mission work. Then, she prayed for me before we said our goodbyes.

So even when I’m on vacation, Loma Linda University still has away of doing things for me.