August to December

From here on out, it was mostly classes with little bits of fun added in. Things we have done since...

Professional Oath Ceremony

This was where we take an oath of professionalism. eg "I won't cheat, I will work hard, I will uphold....etc etc." The girl in the middle is Joe's sister Sue. She works for General Mills and is located in Boston. We all usually get together once a week or so for dinner. She graduated from UNC 2 years ahead of us.

Went to a Red Sox game (late August)

Accident in Kitchen

I cook about most of my meals which keeps costs pretty low but has some occupational hazards associated with it. Rushing while cutting a block of cheese with a tomato knife scored me a trip to the emergency room (A benefit of being on a medical campus is that it was only a 5 minute walk). Got to relax in the waiting room from 10pm - 3am. It was a nice introduction to Boston Medical center. Everything healed nicely and I have most of the feeling back now.

I came to NC briefly to see Grandma, PaPa and Dad around his birthday (10/10)

Intramural swim meet (10/21)

That's me in lane 4 getting beat by a half body length. I managed to stay on top of swimming until November. Since then the athletics have dwindled. I came in 2nd in the 100m and 200m freestyle. There were other swimmers but it was really a two person race and the guy I was racing was really fast. Pacing on him actually pulled me to a personal best in the 100m. 55sec. Slow by most standards but good for a rec swimmer so I was pleased. The pool at main campus is exceptional and the one in the South End (really close to me) is alright but it beats the 1hour (round trip) of bus/walking to get up to main campus.

Jaclyn Visited for her birthday(10/22)

Went to a Bruins game (mid October)

Halloween

We had a pretty good party with the dental students for halloween. I was a northwest airlines pilot and had a bottle of ambien and a sleeping blindfold with me.

Round Two Apartment Improvement.

We cleaned out kitchen pantry to make more room and built and installed a new counter (desperately needed more space and did not ask the landlord...may ask for forgiveness. If he brings it up we can also discuss the list of non code meeting items in our apartment). We also added some shelves in a closet. It was fun riding public transportation with a 4' x 6' x 3/4" piece of cabinetry grade plywood. You can see the knife block Dad gave me for Christmas last year..the suspect from the kitchen accident does not belong to that set :-)

Came Home for Thanksgiving

This was a whirlwind trip. I spent the night at a friend from college's brother's apartment which was walking distance from the airport so I could get there by 5am to fly standby for a better flight (poor planning earlier in the year when I booked). Made the flight, got to NC by 8:30 am and Jaclyn picked me up and we were in Beaufort by 12:00pm. At 10pm that night I got a call from Orbitz telling me my original flight still hadn't taken off...it was originally scheduled for 6pm. The weather was great and we had lunch outside on the porch.

Tree Lighting Ceremony and First Snow

Here is the new view out our living room window now that it is winter. This plus about 6" is what I walked through on my way to the bus stop to go to the airport to come home for Christmas. Boston's airport is awesome. We took off in a legitimate blizzard. Granted my flight was one of about 5 which were not cancelled, but the effort was amazing from the snow plows, de-icer etc etc. Our square also had a tree lighting party with a band, free food and some local politicians. We went to a neighbors "pre-tree lighting party." First a little background on Jeff. Jeff is our gay neighbor from the building next door and is one of the coolest people on the block. When it's

sunny and warm he frequently grills out and drinks a bottle of wine right there on the sidewalk wearing just a bathing suit taking breaks only to water his pansies (no joke). Joe and I figure it's the closest thing to what we do in the fall (grill out and drink beer) back home so we made friends with him. He's 51 and works at Harvard and is about the gayest person in the world...wide open. Took a bit to get used to but he's way better than the lame people who live above and below us and call the landlord and whine when we do anything fun (grill out...lady complains about smoke, have friends over...lady says we are having a party). We call her "the anti" or simply "she." The anti came from the fact that she is anti everything we do and "she" came from us saying "she needs to get laid" when she bangs on our ceiling when we play music above a whisper. She never talks to us directly which is why we hate her so much. It's like shes a 3rd grader and has to go tattle instead of approaching us like an adult. We would be more inclined to reach an agreement if she would just come talk to us. Any way, we went to Jeff's pre tree lighting party and once again Joe and I were the only straight people in sight. The food was good and there was a demonstration on how to fold a fitted sheet...now I know. The girls on the left is a UNC alum who is at the public health school at BU and the girl on the right lives in Jeff's building.

Exams

Home for the Holidays

Jaclyn's Visit (Early August)

Classes didn't really pick up until august so Jaclyn had planned a visit before she started school in mid August. My class started July 27th? so I was already in the groove. We had a blast and the best part was a Duck Tour. They have these old WWII amphibious transport vehicles which drive you through Boston and then into the river. The tour guides are dressed crazy but they are really good at what they do. Our tour was mostly older people and the guide immediately adapted his style from a kid oriented to adult oriented motif and still managed to keep it hilarious. I was skeptical, but the guy dressed as a superhero somehow pulled it off.

Driving down the Charles river. Tour guide in full character.

The tour was pretty windy and kind of blew my hair and shirt all over the place but Jaclyn somehow kept it together.

The Apartment (Mid July)

I arrived in Boston around 10pm and my roommate Joe helped me bring everything in. I met Joe through a mutual friend Alex. Alex was a good friend of mine on the waterski team for 3 years and also in Joe's fraternity. After hauling everything up we decided to wander our neighborhood to look for a good place to grab a beer. The south end in Boston is recently a historically gay neighborhood so you can imagine that finding the only bar open at midnight on a Sunday night might be "interesting". We stepped into "Stella" to grab a beer and just walking up something felt different. It didn't take long to figure out that we were out of place. The bar was glossy white, the glasses tall and thin and everything else was ultra...well, "stylish." I think in the end, it was better we showed up together. It gave people the wrong idea but prevented the more awkward alternative of being hit on. One beer, then jetted out of there for a good nights sleep.

The state of things....

In the morning I came to the conclusion that the apartment was an absolute shit hole. Not like I remembered from the visit. I would have opted for nicer language but there is no way around it. The building is 150 years old, and it has lots of character but that is no excuse for the condition it was left in by the previous tenants. All landlord legal obligations to provide safe and sanitary living coditions aside, I decided to suck it up and spend three days making the place livable (I've been letting the toilet run here and there to passively get back at him since hey pays for water). You can see the dust in the corner in the picture. That was pretty much the same story for the whole floor of the room. Kitchen: disgusting, living room: disgusting, bathroom...you get the idea. Joe and I busted it and now the place looks pretty nice. It's a phenomenal location, good price and now that we put some sweat labor into it, quite comfortable. It's a 5 minutes (leisurely) walk to class (door to seat) and the view has lots of space and green for being in the city.

Unpacking two days after I moved in. Post: vacuuming, mopping, hand-scrubbing.

My command center...runs in the family I guess

Words can not describe...

View out our window overlooking the "square." Side note, this park is always locked which is a real shame. The only time I've been able to go in it was during the tree lighting ceremony for the neighborhood.

The Trip Up (Mid July)

I broke up my drive into three legs since the minimum rental for 900+ miles was four days. I was nervous about the labor of the drive but the idea of 4yrs living on only what I could pack into bags on airplanes and/or buy once I got up there was way scarier. So, a budget rental and a lot of gas later, I was in Boston with all my stuff.

Day 1

I drove to Chapel hill to meet up with Jaclyn and a few of my good friends. We grilled out, enjoyed a warm summer evening and said brief goodbyes.

Day 2

I stopped just outside of D.C. and had dinner and stayed with my high school friend Billy Arrington.

Day 3

All the way up to Boston. My previous idea of tolls involved throwing quarters into baskets attached to stations in the road. Boy was I wrong. $9 to drive through delaware?! What the hell, I was only in that tiny stated for 30 minutes. It got worse from there. In all I think the tolls were close to $40. My truck performed like a champion and averaged 13+ mpg the whole way. I had anticipated 10mpg so that's 30% less gas money...which I begrudgingly paid in tolls.