big girl decisions

This past Wednesday, I awoke with the thought that I should have been preparing to board a plane to Hawaii. You see my childhood best friend April, who I don't see nearly enough and love spending time with, had a work conference there and had invited me to come along. We would stay at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, and I would read by the pool while she was in her meetings. I was so excited about the promise of a Hawaiian vacation, and the only thing that was standing between me and paradise was a mere $600 plane ticket. But then reality set in...April would spend most of her days and nights working, and the travel time to Hawaii is quite extensive. Not to mention that I would have to take three days off of work during the first full week of classes. And there was the small notion of the cost of the plane ticket.

Over the past months, I have needed to purchase a new sofa and love seat, a new set of mattresses, and today, a new vacuum cleaner. I really love the new furniture, which I picked out

the new sofa and love seat

by myself, and am thrilled to no longer have the back pain that I think was associated with sleeping on mattresses that had been in my grandmother's guest room for probably 30 years before I inherited them. But those purchases have left my bank account less than plush, which, with the other contributing factors, led me to decide that the Hawaiian vacation was probably not the best decision. Aloha, white sand and blue lagoons.

As much as I would have loved time in Hawaii though, there were plenty of blessings this week in Columbia.

• A surprise visit Wednesday night from my dear friend Jill, who lives in Winston-Salem with her husband, an internal medicine resident. Jill understands the effect of residency on relationships better than anyone else, and it is always beneficial to just be able to vent for undisclosed periods of time about the horrendous schedule and lack of sleep that sometimes makes residents not so pleasant honestly chat with her about our guys.
• Lovely time at the pool with Rebecca, Terra and Leslie and the cutest almost 6 m.o. baby girl I know. Holding that sweet baby was a huge highlight of the weekend!
• Mom and Dad's Sunday visit to Columbia. We enjoyed Five Guys, and they helped me pick up the aforementioned vacuum cleaner. Dad even put it together for me and explained all of it's features. I couldn't ask for better parents!

I'm a little less tan than I would have been but perfectly content and a bit better off financially. Here's to growing up!

so proud

I have just wrapped up an incredibly busy week of Orientation at the Law School. Gave my "This is Your Class" speech, which went smoothly, and all of our new students seemed to survive their first day of class. But on Friday, the law school community completed it's first ever Day of Service. This was the idea of one of our students, who saw it through to completion with just a little help from the administration. My group helped the Palmetto Health Foundation distribute fliers for a breast cancer walk coming up in October, but groups of students, faculty and staff spread out all over the city to spend the afternoon making a difference. Below is the link for the full blog:

Law Service Day

I am so proud of the students who came together to make Service Day such a success, and it's weeks like this last one that make me happy to do what I do!

a day in the life

So there have been weekdays this summer where I have been less than entertained at work, as is the case sometimes in University life. The weekdays would become placeholders between weekends, and I would look forward to lunches out to break up the work day. Today however, was a clear indication that a new school year was right around the corner, and all I can think about is the fact that it's only Tuesday. Seriously?

6:53 am- am awakened by phone call from Richard who is on his way to work- was supposed to be up at 6:30

7:20 am- meet sweet prayer group girls at the Panera for coffee- great way to start the day

8:30 am- meeting at work to finalize plans for Orientation, taking place exactly one week from day. Am thankful that we are organized, but still have about 22 items on check-list to complete.

10:15 am- get to work on that check-list

12:30 pm- decide it's time for lunch, pick up Firehouse Beef and Cheddar Brisket sub (seriously, who eats those?! what was I thinking?)

1:15 pm- meet CU roommate Susan at Marble Slab to catch-up over ice cream, which would have been completely reasonable if I had not just eaten Firehouse- at least it was a kids size!

2:00 pm- leave Marble Slab glad to have seen old friend and resolved to not let as much time pass between our next visit! Pick up birthday present from Retail Therapy (yummy Tyler candle, now 20% off!- picked up a couple extra :)), pick up hummus and veggies for appetizer to be served later

2:30 pm- return home to cut up veggies, get caught in thunder storm

3:00 pm- finally make it back to work, send out about 13 various emails, think about Cinderella Project work yet put it off to tomorrow

5:00 pm- try to get through a few admissions files for This is Your Class speech- am only on "B"

5:30 pm- another meeting with student group and associate dean

6:37 pm- leave law school finally with 23 minutes to pick up appetizer and take to birthday party

7:15 pm- birthday gathering at Goings' house- Happy Birthday, Lauren!

10:45 pm- write truly unexciting post because I feel guilty about not updating blog in a week!

Wonder how those of you with husbands and children do it all as well as you do! Some days I feel like I can barely keep up, but I sure prefer being busy to being bored!

Multiculturalism Realized

This past weekend, I returned to DC to visit Richard and attend Mar's wedding- Mar is also a third-year general surgery resident. There are only four in his class at Walter Reed, so he has gotten fairly close to the other three. Mar and Eric's wedding was at St. Matthew's Cathedral, where JFK and Chief Justice William Rehnquist's funerals were held (Rehnquist's was quite controversial, as it was a Protestant ceremony), and where mass is celebrated each year before the start of the Supreme Court term to request guidance from the Holy Spirit for the legal profession. It was absolutely beautiful, and the wedding ceremony incorporated elements of Mar's Filipino background, such as a cord ceremony and veil ceremony.

St. Matthew's Cathedral

The ceremony was followed by a cocktail hour and reception at the Mayflower hotel, and during the cocktail hour, Richard and I's friends and recently engaged couple Shankar and Merica shared the details of their upcoming wedding, which will be reflective of their Hindu beliefs and culture. In that brief amount of time, Richard and I learned about the differences between Indian sub-sects and Nepali traditions, and the ceremonies that Shankar and Merica will participate in prior to their wedding. And then at the reception, I was seated next to a gentleman from Romania who organizes Romanian happy hours in DC with a email list of 1200. He shared the Romanian tradition of "stealing" the bride with us. Apparently this was taken a bit too far at a wedding where the bride was Romanian and the groom was not- the groom began to legitimately fear that the bride was kidnapped! As I listened him talk about Romanians at his parties rocking out to techno music, I realized how much my horizons had been broadened through all of our new friends in DC.

3 of 4 Walter Reed General Surgery Third-Years

When Richard was considering residency programs, I was all about having him in Augusta at Eisenhower. Augusta is only an hour away from Columbia- even closer than Charleston!-and Richard could still go to Clemson games and South Carolina weddings. God had other plans though, and Richard could not refuse a spot at Walter Reed. While maintaining a long-distance relationship is often extremely difficult, we have been blessed beyond belief with new friends that come from a completely different background than we have. And as we learn from them, I hope they will take a little bit from us too. We certainly had a time showing them the shag!

After the wedding, Richard and I went to see Paul McCartney at Fed Ex Field, where the Redskins play. I was initially opposed to this, as I shamefully enough do not know a ton of his music nor the Beatles. But for a man that is 67 years young, Sir Paul did put on a show. It lagged at points (or maybe that was just when I didn't know what he was playing), but seeing him play "Live and Let Die," "Let It Be," "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," and "Yesterday" was worth the price of admission. Traffic was awful afterwards, so Richard and I bought Krispy Kreme doughnuts and bottled water from a basketball team selling them as a fundraiser (who were hopefully legit) and ate the doughnuts sitting on the Jeep tailgate. Bliss. :)

Live and Let Die set