Peace out Boston.

This is my last post as an improper Bostonian. On Thursday i'll be headed home to my family and friends. I wanted to take a moment to wax poetic about my time in Boston, so if you don't enjoy my sentimental rambling, don't read on.
(To the left is Rachele, holding the very appropriate Xmas present she gave me.)

I'll miss the sight of the Charles & the city between Kendall and Park Street, but I won't miss the smell. I'll miss the people in my program, but not the East Coast attitude. I'll miss my room in my apartment, but not the sound of the Saturday night raves our upstairs neighbors sometimes had. I'll miss the variety of activities, but not the cost of them. I won't miss living next to the ocean because I can't see, smell, or hear it. I'll miss my PCP and her staff (they were amazing), but not my repeated hopsital visits.

In all honesty, I'm so glad that I came here. I wouldn't trade this experience for anything in the world. In some cases, people have to move far away to realize that they are independent. In my already stubbornly independent case, it helped me realize how much I need the people I care about. I feel pretty brave for moving across the country all by myself, and I did pretty much everything I wanted to do while I was here. I'm excited about whatever I'll end up doing next. The best part about the future is that you never know what is going to happen :)

With that being said, I'm ready to GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE! Peace out Boston, I'm going home.

I'M DONE!

Guess where I no longer go to school? EMERSON!!!! Yea!!!! I'm done with the unprofessional nature of the entire organization, as well as some (definately not all) of the students. I had my last presentation tonight. I have to turn in my final group paper, and I had a wicked good group, so I think it's A worthy.

I might have a guy taking over my lease, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed, and more people coming in until he actually signs the paper and my name is off of the thing for good. I'm going to lose some money, but it's better than having to pay for an apartment I'm not living in.

Pat and I are getting along well, he's helping me out quite a bit. He's helped me clean the apartment and made me food on several occasions. What a good brother! I guess we are making up for lost time when I didn't see him for three months. Anyways, I hope we continue to enjoy each other for the next few days. He's been really patient with all my school work. This weekend I'll actually be able to show him around a little instead of making him swiffer the kitchen floor. :)

I'M DONE WITH EMERSON!!!!!!!!

Brother Bear

An update on my dear auntie: I have a line of amazing strong women in my family (we call it "being a Kokinda", my great grandmother's last name). Currently, Aunt Rita is stable. The internal bleeding stopped, and they were able to perform surgery to calm her insides down a bit. She is still on a respirator for now, but is doing much better than on Saturday night.

In other news, my parents have sent my brother here to "keep an eye on me" until I move. Translation = Make sure she eats, and doesn't have a nervous breakdown. He will be here a little shy of two weeks, so that should get interesting. He doesn't have anything better to do, because he's on break from school. He can wander around and look at all the old stuff around here, he likes that crap, and since this is Boston, there's a plethora of it. I'll keep ya'll updated on whether or not we kill each other in the next week or so. I can't wait to get out of here!

Hang in there Rita baby.

What a week, Murphy's law certainly has been doing a number on my life, and the lives of those around me. Last night, I found out that Aunt Rita had had a seizure, and was bleeding internally. They brought her into surgery but her blood pressure kept dropping. Mom was all upset because she couldn't be there, and she could't give Aunt Rita her bone marrow. I think most of us were up most of the night worried about her. I guess they stabilized her B.P. this morning, but I don't know what's going to happen. My mom is driving to the clinic as I type. I hope that she's ok. Like most of the women on my Mom's side, she is incredibly strong. It's so frustrating because she just can't get a break. I guess I have to have peace with the fact that she has some of the best doctors in the country doing everything they can for her. I wish I was at home with my family.

On Friday, I came down with a migraine (not surprising with the week I've had). I went to my PCP and she gave me meds, but they didn't help. They took me in an ambulance to the hospital. In between the time I arrived at my PCP and the time I got into the ambulance, about 8 inches of snow had accumulated and most of Boston had been under what could best be described as a white out. It took us 30 minutes to travel 3 blocks and the ambulance was sliding all over the road. It's the first time I had been more scared that I was going to die from being in the ambulance than my medical problem itself. To make a long story short, they shot me full of drugs that stoped my vomiting and headache, and I'm fine(ish) now.

This next week HAS to be better.

Moving on.

So I think pretty much all of you have received a weepy phone call from me about how unhappy I am here. Elaine and Jason are getting the brunt of it, and are handling it quite well (a sign of good friends). I've decided to leave the dreaded Boston. I've been sick physically and emotionally since I've got here, and I don't want to wait around and hope for it to get better. It's a waste of my time, money, and cell phone minutes :). I'm going home to reset myself, and attempt to take some control over my life. I thought that I had gotten over or through all of my "I have a disease" issues during senior year of college, but it turns out that I really haven't. I've been seriously depressed since I've been back here after Thanksgiving, which scares me, as I find it harder and harder to maintain my usual mix of joyful sarcasm. The best part is that I know what is wrong, so now I can start to fix it!

As for my graduate program, it's not what I hoped it to be. I was looking for something that would feed my passion for reaching out to others with similar disease issues. The program is not bad by any means, I just feel it's mediocre. I don't want to have a degree in "what's that?". I don't want to go into monstrous amounts of debt (almost $12,000 for next semester + living expenses) for something that I'm not feeling. It's not a good fit for me, and I'm glad I realized that early on.

Boston is a nice place to visit, but I don't want to live here. So now I'm working on tying up loose ends - getting someone to take over my lease for the apartment, getting my finances in order, etc. I just found out that I won't have to pay back my assistantship money from this quarter (well unless Tim f*s me over and says I didn't work). I'm going to talk to Tim (program director) today, and hope that he's not going to be too pissed at me.

When I get home I'll be looking for a job and applying to an MPH program at Ohio State that will start in September. Imagine, classes during the day, only a year and a qtr. to finish, cheaper living expenses! My goal for the rest of the time that I'm here is to enjoy my wonderful roommates, and try not to flip out too much (that's harder than it seems), and finish up my school work (also quite hard to do knowing I'm leaving!). Thanks to my lovely friends and family for all your support and time :). I'LL BE HOME SOON!!!!!!!!!!!

You touched my heart, literally.

Today I went to the Gross Anatomy lab. That's where they keep the cadavers. Our Intro to Medicine class scoped out some disected bodies to get a different perspective about what we really look like on the inside. Let me tell you, we look like chicken. I will not be eating poultry for awhile.

As excited as I thought I was, I found myself quite disturbed at first that my teacher would just jam his hand into Jane Doe's torso and pull out her intestines. Have we no respect for the dead? I wondered if this anonymous woman had donated her body to science, or she was just someone with no one, and when she died they just took her (can they do that?).

I didn't like seeing the faces of the people, that was quite unnerving. It all looked like it was a cleverly designed movie prop until you saw the face. The entire room smelled terrible. I hope I don't have dreams about it.

My prof clarified that these people had all donated their bodies to science, so that made it a little bit better. I held a human brain, heart, and lungs in my hands. The brain was smaller and heavier than I thought. The lungs were spongy, and the heart was lighter than i expected. I also touched a colon (for personal reasons, haha). I could wax poetic about how I held the center of life in my hands, but it was all kind of surreal. I'm glad I had the experience, I probably wouldn't do it again. I'm definately NOT donating my body to science. I suppose I could start a debate about would it really matter to me or not because I would be dead anyways, but I'll save that for another time.