I wonder

so curious about where I'll end up spending my summer. Boston, LA, Colorado, Tennessee, New York... I just can't stop wondering. Too bad I won't know for another 2 months.

doctors.

Today I had my first PACE (Primary and Ambulatory Care Experience). I will spend time over the next 3 years with an assigned Family Practice doctor, and I went for the first time today. The first time the doctor handed me a chart and told me to go and interview the patient, I felt myself freaking out. I'm so used to shadowing in high school and college where you sit in the corner and watch with summaries and explanations before and after each patient. I was amazed at the difference a white coat makes (symbolically, not essentially). get to interact with patients and talk with them as an authority that they'll divulge private information--all the while knowing nothing.

All fall I practiced interviewing and physical skills. And did pretty well at it. But I should clarify that all my patients were fake, "standardized" patients that were given a script of information and that we were videotaped watching. but,walking into the first room of the first real patient, I felt inadequate and nervous. I'm SO used to not really knowing what I'm doing, that it's crazy to realize that I'm acquiring skills. I can hardly believe that I'm a year and a half away from having my life be at the hospital. I have so much left to learn. So much. I can't imagine ever being able to handle these conversations competently. While I still can't follow all the medication lists and interactions, I can follow disease and anatomy. And lab results are looking less and less foreign to me.

But oh, it's exciting and overwhelming all at once.

alma mater

Tonight I made the journey to my old high school. The place where I spent 6 years of my life. They were six good years, too. For some reason, it took me awhile to re-enter that part of my life. I think for awhile I was embarrassed of the person I was back then--of the bubble I lived in, or my naivety...and I don't know what else. But, time heals and I've come to terms with my journey, and gotten over myself.

Tonight, I pulled into a parking lot I've pulled in probably 2000 times. I went into a building that I spent the majority of my teens in. I felt the pressure to be grown up slip from my shoulders. It was strangely like coming home. I talked to a old friend who's known me since seventh grade and we were discussing what happens to us in college. We determined that we don't really "change." I'm the same person I was when I was 16 years old. At the core of my being, I'm still "Susan." But I've grown up. I've matured. I sat in the bleachers and couldn't help to think that I have no regrets.. When I first started college, I think I regretted who I was in junior high and high school. But in reality, I had to be there in order to be who I was in college. I had to be who I was in college in order to be who I was in India. And I was who I was in India in order to be who I am now. What's to regret in that?