And so it comes to an end

In roughly 24 hours I'll be graduating from medical school - a place that seemed so distant only a number of years ago. There have been highlights, and lowlights, but mainly highlights that are bulleted below;


Year One

• A new city, a new home, a new challenge
• Little Miss Pushkin - an awesome, life long friend, made in the 7th week of first semester
• Topping the first exam - yeah, I still got it
• Falling in love with a little city called Venice and other European adventures
• Russian boy - and all the wonderwalls he brought my way
• Anatomy lessons and anatomy lessons spent at the favourite coffee shop
• Myer Melbourne - the job begins
• What's the story, morning glory?
• Getting drunk and not going out
• Desperately missing the old city, the old home, the old challenge, old friends
• The year of Optus Free Time

Year Two

• Where it finally felt like I was studying medicine
• Falling in love with Guyton - best medicine book to date
• When the Italian coffee shop stole all my hard earned money
• More time at Myer - 14 hour shifts in boxing day
• Little Miss Challah - with her amazing house, her quick wit and warmth
• Becoming even closer to the best buddy
• British Boy - part the good
• Jack Johnson, Xavier Rudd, Donovan Frankenreiter, Ben Harper
• Sandy
  
• The year of group projects - some good, mostly bad
• Study sessions on my bed room floor
• Kicking booty in the osce - thanks to little Miss Pushkin's father
• The wedding, to end all weddings, not mine
  
• Incubus

Year Three

• British Boy - part the bad
• Evil surgeon in the evil hospital - who endlessly made me question why I was doing this, whether I wanted to do this and almost had me quit. Almost.
• The biggest mistake of my life - choosing to do something when every fibre of my being screamed at me to turn and run the other way. I finally did, and am so thankful.
• Realising that I was so much better than the slag and the doormat
• Being completely cluless at hospital, not realising how much I didn't know and losing motivation
• Returning to the home city for Little Miss Lawyer's milestone birthday and craving so badly to just stay there
• Walking around a circular paradise with my first, uncomplicated love and realising just how far I had strayed
• Searching, desperately searching, for me
• Meeting MIB in the last days, realising that the mistake needed to be ended

Year Four

• Realising how amazing medicine could actually be - spending 20 hours at hospital to watch a baby being born, going home and returning 4 hours later to do it all again and never resenting it
• Meeting a doctor who truly made me believe that I had potential and who could make a difference
• The MIB saga - good and the bad
• Worring over exams, electives and other things beginning with e
• Endless conversations about eternity
• Several trips to home city, with friends who truly are home
• Death cab, Elbow, Kings, Jason, Colin, Wallflowers - the endless soundtrack to my life
• The wedding to end all weddings x3
• Gossip Girl - best show ever.
  
• India - majestic India - feeling my roots like never before
• Finding my self and throwing out the rubbish at the same time

Year Five

• Going rural and loving it. Encounters with Little Miss Sunshine and World's best resident
• Finding a new love - working under pressure in the Emergency Room
• Adventures in the true Asia - funny times, good people, great hits
• The birthday to end all birthdays and the return of MIB
• A cold winter in Melbourne, the warm arms of MIB and saying a sorrow/sweet goodbye/maybe sometime later to MIB
• Jason Mraz - best concert ever. Falling in love. Meeting my co-wife.
  
• England, baby!
• The Cambridge adventures - memories to be treasured for life, photos that are to be destroyed ASAP
• The girls of Cambridge - and making friends with the most unlikely of people
  
• Yale Boy - and truly realising just how unfair life can be sometime. Having faith and hoping for a better ending whilst carrying out life in as pragmatic a way as possible. Being even more puzzled by the universe
  
• The cheeky one with whom I may have had too much fun with. Cherishing phone conversations re: eye make up removal, sorting out one's life and realising just how awesome one is. Awesome.
• The West Wing - best show ever.
  
• Honours, baby!

So many more adventures, so many more lessons not outlined here. But this young woman is not the same as the bright eyed, naive 17 year old student who entered medical school hoping it would be something like the show Scrubs.