many ends and a begining

Before the summer sun and ocean and bicycles all sweep me away, I wanted to tell you about graduation!  Hoy howdy.  The end of it all turned out to be a ridiculous whirlwind, and afterwards it was hard to really let the reality sink in!  So really, the story of graduation is a graded thing starting with the end of exams and classes, then the arrival of my family, then the hooding ceremony where we received our master's degree hoods (still not reeeaally sure what that all means), the celebrations, the death by board exam study week, and the end of the board exam itself.  I felt more relief walking out of that exam one week ago then I have in a long, long while.  It was like the whole experience was finally coming to an end.

The two girls pictured with me above were my rocks for the past two years.  They pulled me through, they broke down next to me (at separate times of course, really we kind of orchestrated our individual breakdowns brilliantly with no overlaps as you might expect three type A's to do), encouraged me, pushed me, believed in me, and dragged me at times to the very end.  Amazingly brilliant women who don't know how talented and incredible they are, and who will absolutely shine in their new careers with patients who will be so fortunate to be cared for by them.  I'd put my favorite people in their hands and rest soundly.

But I digress, and the story brings me to today.  At 8:12 I received an all shouty caps text message to WAKE UP, WAKE UP, BOARDS ARE POSTED, followed by two phone calls, at the end of which I finally popped my eyes open.  I scrambled to find my computer, and gripped JP's hand with everything in me while I waited for the national website to load as we all crashed it with our simultaneous logins.

I am so, so proud to let you know that I passed my boards, and am officially a Certified Physician Assistant.  I couldn't be more overwhelmed with excitement and disbelief and a million other emotions that are hard to define   There were many times in these past two years that I really didn't think I would make it, but I am here today and it feels absolutely amazing.

And I suppose this would be a great lead in to tell you that I will be starting my first position on July 7th in a small rural Family Medicine position just 20 minutes from Portland working primarily with Pediatrics and Geriatrics.  I am beyond excited, and a little bit terrified.  It's exactly what I was looking for, and with the competition out here it's almost unbelievable that I landed it.  I'm gonna try my hand at believing in myself, trusting that I am where I need to be, and knowing that I've got a lot of knowledge in this brain of mine.

In the words of my dad "my heart is so full it's leaking out my eyes".  

Thank you for all the love and support, cheers!

vacation: day 1

Day trip to Peaks Island with my lovely friend Liz to house hunt for my parents.  We biked and danced and even saw a bald eagle!  How's that for a fabulous welcome back to the real world!?

I may have cried

on my way to the exam this morning, while listening to Disney pandora when the Hercules song "I Can Go The Distance" came on.  I was like ohhhh Hercules, I CAN go the distance!  And then I'd like to say I turned the radio off and confidently strolled in to the exam center and beasted the hell out of that exam, but let's be real, I totally listened to the Little Mermaid after that because it's a cardinal sin to turn off the radio in the middle of a mermaid song, board exam or not.

On the bright side, even though the high tech palm scanner failed to recognize my palm literally Every. Single. Time. I exited AND entered the exam room, I actually feel ok.  Not ok enough to say IN YOUR FACE LIFE, LOOK AT ME NOW, but alright enough to tentatively say that a) I think I survived, b) I don't think I died, and c) I think I might have maaaaaybe scraped by.  But really who knows.  All I do knows is that I am seriously DONE.  Like DONE DONE. Like even if I failed, I still have a month in front of me to do whatever the hell I want to do.  And it feels better then I ever could have imagined it would.  I can't even describe it.

So, that's where I'm at.

studystudystudy

Ok.  Reaching (have already reached?) the breaking point.  Both in terms of no return, and also in terms of sanity and completely stuffed mental capacity.  I have oscillated so dramatically along the continuum that ranges from sedated creepy calm all the way to exploding volcano of emotional puddle on the ground, and thus know that whatever happens tomorrow morning at 8 am, at least it will be done.

Turns out, studying for board exams is really hard.  You bone up in one area, turn to the next and can feel things from the first area bouncing out the back of the pick up truck.  Between endless hours of reviewing, and cramming, and learning, and reviewing, and taking practice exams, lordy I just need to take this and be done with it already.  Then I can stop talking (thinking, worrying, crying?) about it.  And at least then I will know.  I mean, not for like two weeks, but at least THEN I will know.  At which point I can cross whatever bridge I need to and move on.  

And don't worry, it's not all been torture and slogging.

And also, mom, don't worry if it sounds like I am freaking out.  It will be okay.  And even if it's not okay, it will be okay.  Right?

the boy got older

This year JP's birthday fell smack dab in the middle of a really chaotic week in our lives.  For me it was my very last week as a graduate student, last exams and wrap up lecture on the real world and on the outrageous debt we have all accumulated.  My whole family came in from out of town for the weekend, and I really didn't want his birthday to get missed in the kerfuffle.

As has become tradition, every year for JP's birthday I make him a birthday sign.  This year I believe I outdid myself in sheer nerdery and ridiculousness.  In the hub bub of the crazy week it came together in pieces.  The mutant turtles were colored expertly by Julia and my self whilst at the bar celebrating passing our last exams of grad school.  Although our server was nice about it, he totally thought we were weird.  No matter though, cause these things needed to be colored!

Anyway, as the timing happened, almost my entire family rolled in to Portland on the morning of JP's birthday, so we all got to celebrate together!  I arranged a surprise gathering of sorts at one of our favorite bars in the Old Port right after work.  It turned out that the work day had been unexpectedly extremely stressful, and when JP looked up from his desk at 6:01 to commiserate with his favorite co-workers, he was a little bummed to see that they had already bolted from the building.  But, I picked him up and we walked over to find them all gathered on the deck with our other Portland friends, drinks in hand ready to celebrate him.  It was great and he was totally surprised! For some reason the only picture I have of the whole event is my brother Joe hopping on his bike before we rode down to grab a table.  So here it is, in all its anti climactic glory.

In any case, post bar celebration we all piled over to the house my parents rented for the weekend, and whipped up a delicious fresh lobster dinner!  I think this was the turning point of exhaustion in the week for me because additionally I didn't really get any pictures of this portion of the celebration either.  I did however manage to get a terrible picture of JP's birthday cake, which was dirt cake, his very favorite kind.  (And ahem, just so you know, I didn't even make it with the crappy gluten free "oreos" that I trialed, holy crap, four ((!)) years ago?!... I used the real thing.  Now that's love!)

Other then that we all just hung out, caught up, and helped my little brother with a twitter pun competition in coming up with our best monster puns before retiring for the evening.  Totally normal birthday.

the side of the earth

Oh my word I have completely fallen off the side of the earth lately, and I am still hanging out there even as I type this.  I've got the things! and the updates! and the everything-excitement-received-my-masters-degree all of that just brew brewing over here.  But for this exact moment my life right now looks like this: wake up, drink coffee, walk pups, go to campus and study for seven hours, come home, walk the pups, eat, study for another hour, sleep.  Repeat.

SOCLOSESOCLOSESOCLOSE it's almost painful.  Six days.  SIX fricken days left until I fall into a non-stress induced coma, regain my life, and simultaneously celebrate how very veeeeery far I've come in the past two years.  That's right, I am going to simultaneously celebrate and be in a coma.  I can do that because I will be done and therefore unstoppable.  Except for the coma part.  Peeps, I will be back.  Soon.  But for now, game face. Love you.

spray all the things