Match Maker, Match Maker...

A short explanation for those of you who are unfamiliar with "The Match." Basically, it is a system that places med school graduates into residencies based on the ranking they give programs, combined with the ranking that programs give them. As a side note, because I know this is a confusing point for many people, intern year is actually the first year of residency, and fellowship comes after residency. Brent's Internal Medicine residency will be three years long, and his plan right now is to also do a three year fellowship in Cardiology (and maybe an additional one year fellowship after that! ahh!). Moving right along...

Steps of Applying to Residency:

1) Brent applied to residencies around the country for his specialty, Internal Medicine.

2) He received interview invitations at some of these programs and either accepted or declined them.

3) Brent interviewed at 6 programs in person: Wake Forest (here), Georgetown (DC), OHSU (Portland), University of Washington (Seattle), CU (Denver), and University of Utah.

4) We ranked the programs according to a plethora of deciding factors including, but not limited to: program strength/reputation (important for fellowship), awesomeness of the city, expensiveness of the city (closely related to the previous factor), proximity to family, proximity to airport, salary (including state taxes, sales tax, etc), likelihood of friends wanting to visit us, etc, etc.

5) Programs ranked Brent according to how cool and/or dorky they think he was.

6) We wait (this is happening right NOW)

7) Black Monday - dun dun DUN!! On Monday, March 14th, which also happens to be Brent's birthday (!), everyone applying to residency finds out whether they matched or not. If a student didn't match, the school will try to place them somewhere in the country that has an open spot...not a good situation in which to find oneself.

8) Match Day!! On Thursday, March 17th, which also happens to be St. Patrick's Day (!), every med student in the country (with some exceptions) finds out where they will be attending residency! We will go up to the hospital where everyone will open their envelopes at once and life's most important question will be answered, finally!

Got it?

I know, it's kind of dumb and complicated, but after watching several friends graduate from law or business school and have a ridiculously hard time finding jobs, I'm starting to think that we got lucky! All of our options are great, we really don't have any "fallback" options or "throw-aways," so I'm not so much nervous about the match, just excited to see what the fates have in store for us!

Now for some pictures, because I just can't do an "all text" post, it's against my nature.

We went to hanging rock (for like the 23rd time) last week because it was a beautiful, sunny day and we just couldn't help it. I even gave the camera to Brent for a while so there is proof of me being there!

It was a little bit windy...can you tell??

You may have already seen this last one on facebook, but just in case you missed it, I'm reposting it. Brent almost died laughing when I showed it to him, so I didn't want any of you to miss the opportunity ;)

Well, I'm off to do some more waiting* - tell the Match Maker to make us a good one!

* waiting = trying to find a temporary (probably) job until graduation - not going well so far! I'll keep you updated ;)

Behind the Scenes...

As Brent so rightly pointed out in the comments section of my last post, I must give credit where credit is due! Brent masterfully scaled the scaffolding he set up on the stairs in my parent's house to hang those lovely, aforementioned prints.

See?

My Greatest (and only) Installment!

While I was home over the summer I did a photography project about my family that I never posted about! Oops. I ended up mounting some of my class prints for my mom and hanging them upstairs, and I added a new print to the collection over Christmas break, so I thought I'd better catch up and blog about it.

Here is my "gallery":

The idea is that it will be added to over the years, like I added to it at Christmas (the one in the pool is new). The prints are spray mounted on 1/4 inch thick gator board, which I then hand cut with beveled edges and mounted out from the wall another 1/2 inch or so for that "floated" look. Bet you didn't know I had so many mounting and cutting skills!

Here are the images from the wall so you can see them properly, and some more from the project that didn't make the wall:

A Saturday in January

Now this is how Saturdays in January should be spent!

Miss me?

Mighty Zeus and his favorite wife Hera

I need to start blogging more because I have sooo many fun pictures to show you! I know halloween was a while ago but I just have to share because it pretty much consumed our lives for about 2 months prior to the big day. Lindsay and Regan came over to our house during the last week of September and looked a little surprised to see about 50% of our halloween decorations already out, ok maybe they were less surprised and more just thought we were kind of crazy.

Anyway, we had a blast driving around to all the great antique malls nearby and snatching up old stuff that we thought might be halloweenish. For instance, behold the coffee table (that Brent remembered to snap a picture of after the party was over!):

See that book in the foreground that looks like it's seen better days? It probably has, since it's actually a Bible that was published in 1863!! We found it at an "Antique Fair" in Salisbury a couple of weeks before the party, along with several of our costume accessories, found in the "junk jewelry" section. The triple threat candle stick holder is an antique mall find, as are the other single candle holders and the old glass bottles.

Brent masterminded the hanging of spiderwebs from our chandelier to various corners of the room and eventually they kind of took over our house, and I ran into random webs and got tangled in them every single day. And it was kind of annoying when I wanted to like, open a window, or take a book off the shelf, but I couldn't for 6 weeks because they were completely covered in webs. But it was SOO WORTH IT!! haha. Jk. But they did look pretty awesome with all the spooky lights on, no?

This was for sure the coolest part of our decorations! Ok, that's hard to say because they were all so amazing, but come on! Brent carved that pumpkin into a punch bowl! With a tiny saw!! He did get the idea from Martha, but you know she didn't actually do the carving on hers. And Brent was a total naysayer when I said that we should put the pumpkin in our fabulous antique wet bar globe thingy, but look, it worked! And the dry ice just takes it to another level entirely.

Unfortunately, this is the only photo I have of the "making" of our costumes, but sufficeth to say that there was a lot of glitter involved.

Oh yeah, one more great addition to our decor came from Brent's mom Ellen who found us this huuuge glass jar that we could turn upside down and use for presenting creepy specimens...or glitter skulls (see the tiny skull stack in the background??).

Ok, moving on from decorations, that is quite enough! We had some really good food at this party! Did I mention there was a party? We had all of our "young couple" friends over for dinner and games and it was sooo fun. Teri and Lindsay both brought chili (how did I not get pictures of that?) and lots of others brought treats and snacks - everything was to die for! Including this cheesecake that Brent made, mostly because the crust is made out of crushed thin mints, which you pack into the pan, then pour melted chocolate over...

Alright, I know you just want to see the costumes, so here you go! I don't think we got everyone, but we did our best...

The amazing hippie Tiffany getting me all goddessed up!

And getting Rob and Teri's ears all pointy with super glue!

The trekkies!

Liz Lemon and Kenneth!

Plug and Socket!

A Pimp and his Cowgirl!

Witch, Tinkerbell, Cowboy and Tigger!

Baby Boxer minus his coaches!

70s? Hippies or in Andrew's case Creepy guy who won our best costume contest
and hence, our glitter skull trophy!
Tiffany just happened to win our Halloween trivia game and won that sweet afro
so she could match Andrew!

Other costumes we got pictures of during the games...

Yep, it was a good time! And I wish all of you could have been there...except that it was so crowded in our tiny apartment that I could hardly squeeze from one end to the other, but perhaps we will have a bigger venue next year...speaking of which...

Brent is currently applying to residency! He has heard back from about half of the schools now and has scheduled some interviews, which is very exciting. Hopefully we will be heading for a town near you in the near future!

Happy Halloweeeeeeeen...