I started off the day with the second of two pre-med panels I was invited to speak on. This was followed by a whole slew of errands and a quick run before getting ready to head to the airport. It never ceases to amaze me how much of a time drain simple tasks like returning emails or doing laundry can be. Why is it that three hours can totally fly by when I'm doing something mindless like cleaning my apartment, but the seconds drag on like I'm living in a Dali painting when I'm stuck in the library with nothing but my Robbins to keep me company?

Anyway, I was really excited to come back to Oregon for a few days; I've always been very close to my family, but the further along I get in my medical education, the less time it seems I have to spend with them. Even through college, I never felt that I had completely left home.

In some ways, I thought of it more as an extended summer camp--somewhere I was living temporarily, but always with the knowledge that I would return when it was over. The fact that we had to change dorms every year necessitated a lot of moving in and out, contributing to the lack of permanence.

So I suppose that medical school was really the first time that my notion of "home" began to shift away from the house I had grown up in, to the life I lead now, in my own apartment, away from my family. Not that the transition is complete--I think my parents' house will always be "home" to me, no matter how old I am--but the idea that I may settle down in California, rather than returning to Oregon to live, is starting to become more and more pervasive in my head.

Honestly, it makes me a little sad. I've always been a proud Oregonian, and I'm not sure how I feel about relinquishing that heritage and stepping over to the dark side of California citizenship. ;-) Thankfully, those are decisions that don't really need to be made right now.

Dinner: food = good; Sharks losing = very, very bad

Before dropping me off at the airport, Mark and I had dinner at the Sonoma Chicken Coop in downtown San Jose, right in the middle of Sharks territory. I hadn't really watched much hockey before I started dating Mark. My hometown of Portland has just the one sports team (which I, along with the city as a collective whole, am embarrassed to even admit any sort of loyalty to...that would be the NBA's worst team in 2005-06, the Trailblazers), so the default sport of allegiance for Oregonians tends to be basketball.

However, I have to say, hockey has really grown on me, and there's nothing like being in a town that has a professional sports team in the playoff runnings...which just makes it all the more unfortunate for the city of San Jose, because I, apparently, have some sort of curse upon me, such that any sports team I root for immediately becomes doomed to failure.

Fondue! We take solace in the chocolatey goodness.

First it was the Blazers. Then it was the Sacramento Kings. Last year my boys, the Pistons, lost the championship to San Antonio (but I'm still holding out for a Detroit win this year, y'all). And this is not limited to the NBA. College ball? Do I really need to talk about Stanford's tragic NCAA tourney exits? So, now I'm deathly afraid that the curse has fixed its evil stare of doom on the Sharks--especially having watched them blow a 3-1 lead over the Oilers during the course of an otherwise lovely dinner.

 

I can study in a car, I can study in a...bar? (Questionable) I can study in a train, I can study...in a plane!!

The flight home was uneventful--nothing like being trapped in a cramped airplane seat for two hours to make you focus on biochemistry! I'm pretty sure the woman in the seat across from me thought I was some sort of freak when I asked her if she could take a picture of me "studying in the plane". I told her it was for a project, but the "okay, whatever you say, crazy lady" look she gave me suggests she wasn't buying it. Aren't you glad I'm willing to sacrifice what little shred of dignity I possess in the name of, um, documentarianism (that is totally not even a word)?

Tomorrow: perhaps an attempt at a more substantial post...I blame today's stream-of-consciousness ramblings (not that my writings aren't normally disorganized) on my giddiness at being home.