**** (4-star) weekend

Not 5, just because of an incident that occurred w/NJ Transit over the weekend ... ask me for details if you really want to know.

Sorry ... I've been pretty bad at updating recently. A representative from the "Wellness Center" came to speak to us on Friday, and he said that the happiest/most successful med students were the ones who maintained multiple roles while they were in school, i.e. they didn't give up on their non-med student roles -- this included simple things like responding to e-mails promptly and, I suspect, blog-updating.

Lots of happenings over the last 2 weeks, but I'll just share one since I have to get back to studying. Last Sunday was the NY Marathon. I'd been invited to attend the celebration dinner for this doc who ran the marathon & from whom I'd received a scholarship last month. The dinner was at Carmine's, a fabulous Italian restaurant in the theater district, and most of the guests were friends/family of the doc, a very Jersey crowd. I had flashbacks of the Sopranos, w/the big hair, tight clothing, makeup & nasal voices.

An older couple sat down next to me. Over the course of my conversation w/the wife, I found out that the husband had been treated by the doc and was a leukemia survivor. Later on, I heard her mention that they lived in the same town where I grew up. After peppering her w/questions about where exactly they lived and what their name was again, I realized that they were our former next-door neighbors. Their sons were older than us, and I remember when they built a skate-boarding ramp in their backyard. We used to watch them do tricks Tony-Hawk style while we ate our breakfast on Saturday mornings. It was truly, truly incredible. We couldn't get over the set of circumstances that had brought us together again.