my PCOM life: I mean, we chat online for, like, two hours every day so I guess you could say things are gettin' pretty serious. -Kip, "Napoleon Dynamite"

Finals week: the closer I get to taking an exam (or four), the more easily distracted I become by life projects (post-boards travel plans, apartment cleaning, finding new food blogs on Pinterest...).

Academic update: OMM final yesterday, Lifestages (pediatrics and geriatrics) final today, Emergency Medicine case conference tomorrow, Emergency Medicine final and OMM practical Thursday, Surgery final Friday morning, and on Friday afternoon, the beast that is the comprehensive exam, developed by our faculty to give us a gauge on how well we're prepared for boards at this point. I don't know about the rest of my classmates, but with a month to go, I'm nowhere NEAR prepared, so my results on this exam (which doesn't count towards our final grade, nor is it an official "barrier exam" like at some schools) will be interesting. I figure it'll either scare me into studying harder, or tell me, "You really shouldn't even try." Let's hope it's the former. Let's also hope there are no remediation exams in my future.

Extracurricular update: Nothing big since the Student Leadership Banquet. New boards are planning things here and there, but since the M2s have become hermits, it can be difficult to attract a large crowd. The Graduate Programs open house was last week, but I mis-timed when the food was going to be open to scavengers before being taken back up to the cafeteria, arrived late, and my hopes for fulfilling my stress-eating fix were dashed...until I discovered a local pizzeria that had a website where you could order AND pay (tip included!) online. And that is how my friends found me stuffing my face with a gyro and breadsticks in the school cafeteria at 10:30 on a Friday night.

The SGA website's been down for maintenance lately (I'm not a web designer, so I don't know the exact terminology for what's wrong), so I've had to find other ways to share club photos without granting the entire world access to awkward childhood photos scanned in for my grandmother. Here's the entire album, but if you want the winners list, here it is: