The Best of Fiestas

Tomorrow morning - Tuesday, November 29th - I'll take the final exam for what has been one of the more difficult classes I've ever taken: Developmental Biology. For the past two and half days, I've been studying constantly, memorizing the names, origins, functions, and interrelationships of over 100 genes with names like Lmx-1 and Sonic hedgehog (seriously). I'm mentally drained, and yet...I'm glowing:). From Tuesday night through Saturday morning of this past week, Lisa and I hiked, relaxed in cafes, dined, watched movies, celebrated Thanksgiving and her 25th birthday, and smooched all over Monterrey, MX! It was an amazing way to spend my Thanksgiving break...I only wished I could've stayed longer! I got lots of great pictures from the trip, but can only fit a few here. I can pass along others to anyone who's interested. Thanks to Lisa for sharing for wonderful days of her life in Monterrey with me!

Fall Refresher

Many thanks to Lauren Dunn, Peter Bromka, Jonathan Lieberman, Dr. and Mrs. Lieberman, Jeannie Limpert, Jason Kemp, Jason Norris, Thackston Lundy, and Elizabeth Manekin for having made this past weekend in D.C. so exciting, so tasty, and so peaceful. The Liebermans treated Jeannie and me to dinner Saturday night, after which I met up with a few of the aforementioned for some evening conversation. Lauren and Peter accompanied me on a refreshing Sunday-morning hike through Rock Creek Park in NW D.C., unwittingly setting themselves up for the above photo. Thanks again to all for a great weekend.

After a week that featured the most densely packed series of lectures I've encountered so far (surely to be trumped by next month), I was thrilled to accept offers of company and fun from friends and family (Lisa's) in the D.C. area. Last Thursday I joined former-UNC roommate Rolf Graning, Holly (his wife), and Toby and Rebecca Lees (mutual friends who are expecting...congrats!) for an evening of pizza and laughter in Bethesda, MD. Two days later I returned to D.C. in the early morning for an all-day study session (though we did fit in lunch at the Ritz-Carlton:)) with Jonathan Lieberman, a good friend who attends law school at George Washington and keeps me laughing with an acerbic wit. That night I had the honor of joining Lisa's dad, Bill Dunn, along with Lauren and Michael (Lisa's sister and brother), for the 25th anniversary celebration of Dr. Dunn's graduating class from Georgetown Medical School. The event was far nicer than anything I'm used to doing around Baltimore, meaning that Lauren, Mike, and I had an absolute blast partying amongst those who'd actually earned the right to be there:). Thanks a ton to Dr. Dunn for having welcomed me along! I'd thought the ensuing week would be a letdown by comparison to such a weekend, but the Coylewrights intervened to prevent that from happening. Jeremy, or "Daddy Coylewright," is a classmate of mine at Johns Hopkins and husband to Megan "Momma" Coylewright, a first year resident at Hopkins. They are the parents of Izaia and Indigo. a 6-y.o. girl and 2-y.o. boy, respectively. The Coylewrights invited me to dinner tonight out of the blue...thanks to them for a wonderful hour-and-a-half reprieve from studying!

Family Medicine and Chocolate

Unable to decide whether to be a grown-up or a kid this halloween, I decided to do both. The last weekend in October found me in THE Hershey, PA for a family medicine conference...and for what I imagined to be the mecca of trick-or-treating. The conference was a refreshingly enjoyable first taste of the doctor life: in general, I found the family practitioners I met to be intelligent, devoted, passionate, and balanced in their approaches to life. Case in point: between sessions on international opportunities in medicine and the challenges of rural practice, I attended a thorough workshop on how to work less and spend more time having fun with family and friends:). Hershey certainly had more to offer than plenary sessions...I skipped out for several hours Saturday afternoon to gallivant through the hills surrounding town and revel in the colorful crisp-ness of fall. Later that evening, a Hopkins classmate and friend, Teresa, accompanied me on a Halloween journey for the ages - a foray deep within the walls of the Hershey plant, where happiness is always within one's grasp, as long as he's 12 or younger. I was prohibited from joining the trick-or-treat circuit that was netting the little buggers giant bags of free Hershey candy (fresh from the conveyor belts!). There actually wasn't all that much to do; most of the place turned out to be a giant merchandise operation. Nonetheless, we did get one free candy bar each and a couple of "worker" hats. The factory was a little disappointing, but the weekend was exactly what I'd hoped for.