More Winter Gala pics and Mustache March

Here we are inside the Polk County convention center, enjoying the Gala. The live band is behind us.
This is Mike Bowers, my roomate, and his girlfriend Nancy Molleda sharing a table with Mak and I.

Mak and I at the Newmans(the YSA advisors and Makenna's gracious hosts) before we went to dinner. The Newmans were like proud parents snapping several pictures of us and then reminding us to "return with honor" as we went out the door.

And this is for Mustache March! I'm Poncho Villa! Watchout, you don't mess with a guy this hard core! ;)

And finally, I can't leave ya'll without a smile...see, facial hair doesn't make you a bad person! :)

Winter Gala and Makenna

I had a fantastically awesome visitor come visit me a few weeks ago and she accompanied me to the Winter Gala, which is my medical school's version of prom. Makenna was in town from Thursday Feb. 19th to Monday Feb. 23th. She was very understanding with my school schedule and allowed me to study Thursday and Friday afternoon and Saturday morning...but ofcourse she was there with me studying her own homework so it worked out nicely. I gotta say it's much easier to focus on your studies during the afternoon when you know there is a beautiful date waiting to go out with you that night rather than looking forward to an entire night of studying! After the studying on thursday we watched high school musical 3 and found myself in the last graduation scene(yes I had nothing to do last summer so I was an extra with Emily in HSM 3...LOL). On friday we were surprised with dinner by my roomate and good friend Mike Bowers and his girlfriend Nancy Molleda. They made us a delicious Taco salad, topped with doritos and catalina dressing, a must try and a nice flavor if you never have. Afterwards we went bowling and the smallest person there, Makenna, blew us all out the water with her score. Its too bad we didn't make a wager of couple against couple for a drink or something. :) My favorite part of the evening was afterwards just chatting w/ Kenna because she is quickly becoming one of my best friends. And then saturday was the crowning event, the Gala. We went out to eat and Ryans Grill, a very nice place with dim lights and a fun atmosphere. I had a delicious baseball cut butter and worchestershire sirloin steak. Makenna discovered she didn't like capers which was kinda funny for us to see her reaction! The Gala itself was held in the downtown county convention center and we walked through all the skywalks to get there from the parking garage. The school does not charge for the event and they go all out providing an all you can eat chocolate fondue fountain, ecclairs, desserts, exotic fruits, cheese, punch and numerous other scrumptious goodies, a live band and dancing. There is a funny trend with the dancing because for the first hour, only the mormons will be out on the dance floor(almost 10-15% of my school is LDS), then after the alcohol starts taking effect the rest of the attendees will join in. I guess us Mormons don't need any help to have a good time! ;) We had a fantastic time and I was excited to have a girl with me who I cared about and enjoyed being with! Thanks so much Mak for coming out and spending the weekend. The Newmans(who she stayed with) miss her too! I better get going, I'm heading to a friends house for a waffle dinner, but i'll post more pictures when I get a chance.

Milwaukee with Brad

This is a followup to my previous post about the update for the last month and a half, but thought it deserved its own post. For Martin Luther King Jr. day, I was blessed with the opportunity to vist Bradley up in Milwaukee. He had a friend who worked for midwest airlines and hooked me up with some buddy passes to fly up there for the weekend. We had a great time! I hadn't had fun filled weekend outside of Utah for a long time! We explored a science museum together that sat on the shore of lake michigan and were like little boys fascinated with the sweet exhibits about engines, the evolution of recording music and flight. My favorite was the flight simulator, and I...I guess Brad and I weren't meant to be pilot's judging by our landing. ;) The other highlights of the trip were tobogganing with Brad's singles ward, hanging out with some pretty cool kids, and checking out the harley davidson factory where the engines for the motorcycles are made. Oddly enough, the factory announced it would be shutting down the day after we toured it...another casualty of the recession. I'm glad we got to go see a truly unique factory that produced a product that was one of the most recognized american symbols of 20th century. Don't Brad and I look like naturals on those harleys!?

Update for the last month in a half

Geez! Time certainly flies when it becomes scarce. It doesn't seem like i've had enough as of late. Anyway, the end of January and February were great for me. Spring semesters have always been more enjoyable to me(although I miss college football) because I feel like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It is especially true this year. Officially, I only have 3 more months of traditional classroom work and then i'll be transitioning into the clinical years. There is a nasty little obstacle at the end of this tunnel though that is blocking most of the light, and that is the national boards. Its a lovely little test that will last 8 hours and the content will cover everything we have learned in the last two years. The testers especially love the little obscure or random facts questions that were not emphasized in our classes but are now some how important for a national board exam!? And guess what, I get to take two of them. Both the DO boards and the MD boards. Yippee! Two 8 hour exams at the end of June, within 3 days of each other. Doesn't my summer sound like so much fun! ;) Oh, but I digress from the real reason for the post. I guess my little rant stems from sitting in class for 6 hours yesterday(a saturday) for a biochemistry board review. But January and February were good months. About three weeks ago I learned I will be moving to Columbus, Ohio for my third and fourth years. I've been assigned to the Doctors hospital and I'm sure i'll be working with several students from the Ohio State University.

Don't worry, I have no intentions on becoming a fan! I'll be moving there in July.