New in the old

It is really hitting me hard that things are about to change quite dramatically for me and for most of my friends here in the next few months. Rank lists are finalized on Wednesday (February 21). From there, it's waiting until Match Day (March 15) to find out where we are all going. I have been very emotional lately, realizing that I will soon be leaving Rochester (Graduation is 3 months from TODAY!) and all the amazing people I have gotten to know during my time here. Although I am excited to have the opportunity to start on a new journey and "start over" in a new city, I know I will miss it and everyone who has been part of this chapter of my life-- which has held for me both some of the best and also some of the most difficult of times. Interestingly, despite having lived here for almost four years, I also continue to discover and learn new things about the city and Mayo. Perhaps knowing that I will be soon leaving has helped "open my eyes."

Yesterday, I met Rachel for coffee at Dunn Bros. This coffee place is less than a mile from where I lived first year and although I haven't lived up in "Northwest" for quite some time now, I had never been there in all my years here! It was very cozy. I tried a flavored "steamer," which consists of steamed milk and cream, with optional (yes, please) coffee and flavored syrup (I had mint- mmm). Although I consider myself quite a connoisseur of hot drinks-- with water, herbal tea, caffeinated tea, chai, coffee, cider, hot chocolate (less of a fave) all being things I commonly imbibe, this was a new one. It won't be the last time I have it either!

I'm also learning about poster preparation at Mayo. The abstract that I submitted to the American Transplant Congress in San Francisco (May 5-9th) got accepted, so I will have to put together a poster both for that presentation and for the Research Symposium we do as fourth years during our didactic block. This is a very new process to me. Kristi and I found out today that there does exist a powerpoint template online so that one can sort of arrange things as desired before having media support services proof and print it. The alternative was to send them a word document with the different poster sections and have them try to create a poster for you, which requires more time in terms of review and revisions. In any case, I will be learning a lot of new things as I try to put this thing together in the next week or so.

Later yesterday, Lesley and David again generously loaned me their car (recall that mine dies on highways) to go up to the cities to meet Amy, Jacky, Derek (the Fargo Arness clan) and Derek's friend Jens at the Mall of America. They had spent the long weekend out at the Kalahari water park at the Wisconsin Dells and stopped overnight in the cities before driving back to the polar North Dakota (if I think it's been cold here, it's been way worse up there). It was wonderful to catch up with them--last time I saw them was Thanksgiving. And I was introduced to yet another new thing for me-- they took me to the store Teavana and tried this wacky bubble tea stuff where they have tapioca expanded bead-thingies in the bottom of the drink. It's Jacky's favorite, although the store said they were discontinuing it (bummer!). I'd never heard of the stuff and it's really weird to suck up these fluffy beads, but quite interesting and tasty (see pic below).

Oh, the stuff you learn the more you live! Anyway, we shopped a bit and ate at the Rainforest Cafe (Jens had never been-- I'd been once, at Tysons in VA) before I had to drive back to good ol' (but with new stuff!) Roch. Here are a couple of pics from the evening.

A sneaky eel in the tank next to our table

Me and Jacky

Although med school is getting quite old, another new rotation, Dermatology, started today. I hope I learn some new things about all the different steroid creams that are out there :)