friday: i left early from work and went home to do some leaving preparations (practically all of which had been done by amanda). we took off for buffalo relatively early, for me anyway, and met up with her parents at the super8 by suny buffalo’s north campus. we headed out to el canelos for dinner. susan and josh (her and amanda’s cousin) arrived a bit later at the restaurant.
josh is moving from texas to cincinatti and will be living with amanda’s parents. while he moved a while ago, he has been travelling about (philly, nyc, etc.) visiting relatives, but after this trip he will finally settle down in ohio.
dinner was good. we basically just headed back to the motel and called it a night. it’s a bit funny to be staying in a motel in one’s former town (only a month at that). the super8 was a bit grimy. it looked like most of the rooms were occupied by buffalo students; i had read that suny buffalo put some students up the neighboring motels when they ran outof space for an incoming class. it seemed a bit noisy, but that may have been because our room was right beside the front door.
apparently, i tormented susan with my snoring (i torment amanda all the time so she is used to it). i had forgotten my “breathe right” strips at home. oops.
saturday: there were not morning activities for family day for the fourth years. amanda got up early to meet with her research partners. i kinda slept in. we eventually got back together and headed out to south campus for our free boxed lunch. fourth year’s family day was kinda minimal. we basically had a presentation on the residency application process with a long question and answer period. i found it a bit dull, but then i have been more directly living the process; i imagine the other people found it more interesting.
some in the audience appeared unduly interested in 80+ hour weeks residents may work. i think that any medical student realizes exactly what the deal is when they enter, so they should not be shocked when they end up working alot. besides, most/all of them worked that much during the third and fourth years anyway. of course, i do think that the overworking of residents is totally bogus and part of the heirarchical medical guild monopoly in health care, but the participants are aware of what they might be getting into (i am sure some residencies are more enlightened than others).
we also attended the yearly awards ceremony. amanda got her third consecutive deans letter of commendation and made it into aoa! she’s the bomb. the ceremony was relatively painless as compared to previous years; i think they made a concerted effort to move things along as fast as possible.
afterwards, we took of to niagara falls so josh could see this modern wonder of the world. the weather was shockingly nice for the beginning of november; it was probably over 70 degress, but very windy. parking was $10! which was also shocking. the weather was nice enough to go on the maid-of-the-mist, but all of the maids were drydocked for the season.
i did not bring our passports since i did not expect to be in canada. the canadian border guy was surlier than normal, but let us in anyway even though we only had our driver’s licenses… technically, you need the license plus proof of citizenship (i.e. birth certificate), but usually they did not care too much about it.
we had dinner at toro. there were many people in custume walking about elmwood. i had not known buffalonians were that into dressing up for halloween, but perhaps the weather normally precludes such outside wandering.
lainie arrived later. amanda, her mom, lainie, and i headed back to lainie’s palce afterwards so that amanda’s mom could hem some interview pants up for both of them. actually, lainie was just going to a job fair in nyc next week (now this week). lainie showed us her residency interview suit, and it was dramatic how much weight she had lost since then.
sunday: we got up and had bfast at the ihop. amanda parents then took off for ohio, while the rest of us dropped the corolla off at the airport. amanda would be going back to philly (for her step 2 clinical skills exam and first residency interview) with susan and josh and will fly back to buffalo tuesday evening.
we took 89 all the way down back to ithaca to give josh a more scenic route. we were getting parched and josh needed to use the restroom, but trip nazi amanda did not want to stop whereas my attitude was “why suffer?” eventually, josh and i prevailed and we stopped at the amish craft village on 89 that i have passed many times but have never stopped at.
they dropped me off at the house in brooktondale, said hello to piglet, and headed off to philly. piglet was happy to see us, but clearly had been bad and urinated in inappropriate places.
i cleaned up the more obvious piglet messes and then went to pyramid mall to pick up some candy in case any trick-or-treaters showed up. there were many trick-or-treaters at the mall as the stores were handing out candy and whatnot as well. the weather was pretty nasty, so perhaps the mall was an attractive option.
piglet went crazy after i left and knocked over a bunch of plants and urinated all over the front door and front curtain. perhaps she was angry i did not stay long after abandoning her over the weekend. i did a bunch of cleaning, got some exercise, and did a bit of reading. it was a low-key evening.
monday: work. amanda is taking her clinical skills exam ($1000) even as i write this entry. it is from 3pm-11pm. she has an interview at jefferson univeristy tomorrow. i do not think it is one of her top choices, but it was recommended by the family medicine department head, and, who knows, it could be the cat’s ass. in a manner of speaking.