Will's Countdown

 

Will has kept me informed of how many days until BYU football starts again since over 100 days away.  We are now finally down to 4 days!  The first game of college football this year is BYU vs. Washington State.  We'll miss being in Provo for games, but we have some friends joining us Thursday night for the game & this year Will's got a bigger TV to watch the games on. 

Check out this video to help get you in the mood for Cougar Football! 

http://youtu.be/RF64CbTd3GA

R2W2

I'm now two weeks into my Pediatric rotation and I am head over heels in love with it.  I cannot think of anything I'd rather do that work with children and their families day in and day out to make sure everyone is healthy and well cared for.  Who else gets to hop on one foot, draw pictures, look in ears all day long?  I love going through the developmental milestones with kids and their parents and seeing how excited everyone is! 

This weekend I had a quick visit with my mom as she made a quick stopover in Portland to keep me company while Will is in Utah visiting family.  I picked her up at the airport and we visited some of our favorite places - Ikea, the Elephant Deli and Powells.  It was great to have her come to church with me today as I taught a lesson about sacrifice in Sunday School.  What a blessing to have the convenience of modern transportation so we can pop in on family for a quick visit.  Will has been making the most of his visit home to Utah, seeing family & friends, but I'm looking forward to his return tomorrow. 

An Update from Will

During Sara's school year she would spend nearly every waking moment at home inside our little office. I got a taste of what that is like during the month of July as I studied for the GRE. I have a great view of our little red BBQ, I can open the window and sometimes hear the horn of The Spirit of Portland as it makes its way down the mighty Willamette River but best of all I can bring in our oscillating tower fan and pretend that I'm on a far-off beach, enjoying a gentle breeze.

I took my first GRE practice test Monday, July 9th and got a 152 on both the Verbal and the Quantitative portions. Now, this threw me off a little bit because I was expecting the scoring to be on a scale of 200-800 like the old GRE and boy, did I have work to do. I thought that I had somehow scored below the lowest possible score.  I quickly learned that when they revised it last year they changed the scaling system to 130-170.

Since Sara was in Roseberg every weekday all that I could do was study. And study. And study.... It's amazing how fast a month goes by. Before I knew it August 11th had snuck up on me and it was time to take my test.

I went in, turned all my pockets inside out, had a metal detector wand make sure that I wasn't bringing in illegal thumb tacks that I might use to coerce another test taker into telling me if Column A or Column B was bigger, if they were the exact same or if I could not tell with the given information. Since those were confiscated I had to rely on the fact that I had been studying for the past month to get me a score that I might be proud of.

It's kind of an odd thing, looking at a button the screen that says "continue" knowing that after I press it I will find out if the past month's studying was worth it. I pressed it, and found out that it was.

Verbal: 162
Quantitative: 164

I haven't gotten the official scores yet (those should come in the next week or so) so I don't know percentiles or the grades of my essays but I'm feeling pretty good.

Now it's onto grad school applications! (Right after I get over this cold that Sara brought home from her first week in pediatrics)  

R1W5

Dermatology is over. I learned tons, saw a total of 501 patients during my five weeks, and can now do a skin check or cancer screening with confidence. My suturing skills improved with practice and I now feel like I know what to do when someone puts needledrivers in my hand.

Now I'm ready to start the process all over again with pediatrics. The second year in PA school is truly a lesson in humility as you become an idiot all over again every 5 weeks as our rotations change. But I am really looking forward to peds. I'll be living in Salem and rooming with 4 of my classmates. It's going to be strange to have roommates again, but at least I know them all.

Will is keeping busy studying for the GRE. Yesterday he tookhis last practice test before the real thing next Saturday. He's going to do great!

 

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