It’s a wrap!

I know I haven’t blogged enough. People are curious about med school but the reality is that for mature students like me it’s mostly a lot of work without much drama.  For the final two weeks of school I drove to campus at 5:50 am each day and looked longingly out the window of my car at the people running or riding their bikes with their workout partners in the northern morning light. I drove home at 6:00 pm each night after 12 hours in a private study room to study some more and again looked longingly at the evening crew of runners and cyclists. I live in a study bubble, I thought. My existence was confined to my bed, my car and my little study room. My poor family.   As we entered the ten-day exam stretch I had to ask…Why do I invite this kind of stress into my life? And then I found myself smiling. It’s because I love it. There is something in all of us that loves to find our limits. It’s why we breathe. It’s possible that my most memorable moment of the year was at a fundraising dinner here in Prince George where Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield spoke about the human exploration of space. “We walked on the moon not because it was easy,” he said, “but because it was just barely possible.”

The good news is…I made it through exams (not to be compared to walking on the moon). They do this great thing in medical school called “exam review” where you get to sign out your exam booklets and a multiple choice answer key in a tightly controlled lecture hall after the 10 day exam period (without your bubble-answer sheet, of course). As long as you marked your answers on the question sheets as you went along, you can calculate your unofficial grades and head into the summer with the knowledge that all is good. It was all good.

So…first year is done! Thanks for coming along with me, guys. I love knowing that there are people enjoying the challenge and cheering us on as a family, people experiencing the journey through us, and people who are asking themselves what might be possible as their own next challenge. I know there is a little of all of this, because you send me messages that tell me so. J I can’t tell you how much it means to know you’re engaged with us. Have a great summer!