Alright, I have managed to keep working out, but I haven't studied in four days.  I've been having too much fun!  I still haven't caught up on sleep but you only live once, right?

 Here's my nerdy photo of the day.  They have four different colors of squirrels in E Lansing.  

 This is on the wall in the study room that I use for working out.  

 This is the fabulous patio where I like to chill.  I am sitting on it right now and just had a charming conversation with a Chinese girl.  She told me that the Chinese government limit people's usage of fb (limits productivity I'd guess) and they monitor what movies are shown there.  She said Ted would be too scandalous for instance.  She said that you can get software from computer geek friends to jump over the government firewalls and explore the "outside" internet.  Wow, life sure can be different outside the good, old USA.  She gave me her name, email, and number and said she show me around if I ever come to China.  I would be all over that if plane tickets were free!

 This is Katie, a fourth year Michigan student that I met on Saturday.  She is soo nice and super interesting.  We have quite a bit in common.  She want to do a neuro internship and residency and, like me, doesn't know where she is going to end up for sure.  She happens to be a violinist (which I am totally jealous of) and    played in the national symphony in europe when she was in undergrad and is a fablous line dancer.  We went line dancing here at the Whiskey Barrel on Saturday.  Totally fun!  I had no idea that there are so many different line dances.  And I thought that I was from the country.  

 Kirk, whom I also met on Saturday, is an equine-only vet west of E Lansing.  He has his own solo clinic with a huge clientele and he's only 28--not a bad achievement.  And he's a lot of fun like Katie and better at line dancing than I am.  Unfortunately he has a thing for blond women b/c he looked at Katie and I and said two brunettes are as good as one blond.  Thanks Kirk.  

 On Sunday, I went up to Saginaw to visit my friend Cassidy LeClaire.  We went to this huge, beautiful garden.  When we were about to leave it started raining, but the rain was really pretty and who doesn't like running in the rain?

Amish cockscomb

 A labyrinth!

 We went to Meijer to get some pita bread to go with the hummus that we made and saw this guy driving his scooter down the road.  

 I went out to dinner with Katie last night and she took me to this super cute restaurant in Lansing that used to be a train station.  

 The train

 The capitol bldg in Lansing

 Katie took me to really classy bar in downtown Lansing to get martinis.  

Some of the best conversations happen over a couple of good drinks.  Katie actually gave me a whole new perspective on life last night!  She told me that she is going to have a career that is going to be part of what makes her happy and she won't let anyone hold her back, even if she loves them.  I really respect her for that and think she is truly independent.  It can be sad, but at our age it can be best to let people go to follow our dreams.  New places bring new people that are just as wonderful as the people you left behind.  Sometimes certain relationships or plans aren't meant to last and better plans take their place.  

Speaking of better plans taking the place of old plans, I just finished reading Genesis (finally!) and absolutely love the story of Joseph.  The man was sold into slavery be his brothers when he was seventeen and he ended up in jail for several years only to end up in charge of all of Egypt and feeding the whole world during a seven year long drought.  Clearly God has a knack for changing his people's hurt into prosperity.  

Hi all, if you're wondering what I'm up to in MI, I'm either eating, sleeping, working out, or studying pathology.  Michigan State appears to have a good program.  They all go over biopsies together every day and have a high biopsy case load.  The school is huge and has acres and acres of campus and research farms like ISU.   MI has more woods than IA and it is rather pretty up here.  

My last day in CO.

 Goodbye Rockies.  I will miss Matt and Branden a lot.  After 820 more slides, my class ended with a practice gross path boards test.  Now I know why they say that they don't have to make the tests tricky for you to fail.  You get 1.25 min per question to look at a slide, write a morphologic dx, the causative organism,  and sometimes the pathogenesis.  I know that I will be able pass that test eventually but I have a lot of studying to do.  The amount of information that the 3rd year residents have put in their brains is amazing.  

 Got to go to see my family on the way to Michigan.  

This is my first photo from MI.  There may not be mountains here but people are super friendly here.  I'm sitting in  a student lounge on campus and the girl sitting next to me is talking in French or something.  Another girl walked up to me earlier and asked if I wanted free ice cream.  And tons of people say hi when they walk by you in the hall even though they've never seen you before in their life.  

My externship has started off well with an alpaca necropsy.  It was a suri, a valuable type that has hair as fine  as mine.  I try really hard to ignore how cute some of the animals that end up on the necropsy floor are.  I'm going to be writing more reports here than at CSU and will have the same great mix of gross pathology and histopath.  

578 slides yesterday and 596 more today.  

I watched a movie call the Mission yesterday with Matt.  It was really good.  You could tell it was made in the '80s though!  We did lit of the hours together too, which is pretty much one of my favorite things to do.  Matt's a great guy and he seems to have life pretty well figured out.  I bet he might become a priest someday.    

 I went to church yesterday and the priest gave another fantastic homily.  It was about faith again and he had a couple good points.  The first was about the second reading...St. Paul talking about how he asked God three times to take away a certain affliction that he didn't like to accept about himself.  God told Paul that "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."  In other words, have faith that your weaknesses or hardships can be overcome with the grace of God.  Accept them as a burden that will eventually be transformed into goodness by the power of God.  The priest then talked about cradle Catholics (like me) and how we should never stop growing in our knowledge or deepening our faith.  It's like in science, the more you know; the more you realize how much you don't know and the more questions you have about your religion and how God wants you to live.  

Speaking of science...my brain hurts.  Today, I saw 435 slides of every aliment of wild animals known to man kind.  Did you know that penguins are highly susceptible to malaria?  Well now you do.  And did you know snakes have a splenopancreas?  Ya, and apparently people frown upon surgeons that take it out thinking its a tumor.  

Anyhow, enough being nerdy.  Here's some photos from the mountains!  Branden took me to Estes Park and the edge of Rocky Mtn National Park yesterday.  We drove through this really deep canyon of the way there that had enormous cliffs and some little waterfalls.  

We stopped to take a few pics at the Stanley Hotel.  The Shining was written and filmed there...creepy!  It was really pretty though!  

It's a beautiful day out!  

 Old town--blocks upon blocks of little restaurants and shops galore.  Branden told me that Fort Collins has the highest number of restaurants per capita than any other city in CO.  Most of the restaurants have patios with dogs tied outside them.  

 Matt and Branden worked together at an event center last night and they brought me along to hang out with them.  A hispanic girl (in the blue dress below) was having her Quincenera party and it was great!  Hispanics here and in New Mexico have a tradition of throwing huge parties for girls when they turn 15.  They are like wedding receptions only they can get huge in New Mexico--Matt told me that he heard of one having 5K people.  They had a live band last that played Spanish music and everyone was great dancers.  Lots of stilettos, mini skirts, and cowboy hats.  Some of the guys would wear really long, pointed boots (rather amusing) and some would wear shiny rosaries.  They played a few mainstream songs and I managed to drag Branden onto the dance floor once.  I was glad that I'm not blond b/c I already didn't fit in, being taller and paler than any girl there.  I had a great time though!  Probably ate a few too many biscochitos (New Mexican cinnamon shortbread cookies).  

 

Went to a park with my friend Matt and shot this pic. I've been just the right amount of busy lately because I've had enough time to read my bible and work out...which makes me happy! I've been able to go to daily mass too. The 4th of July was weird here because there's a burn ban so I didn't get to see fireworks this year--I just went to a park with my friends Mark and Betsy. Yesterday, I met with the prion prof here and he said that working in that area doesn't make your PhD take any longer than normal.  And they get plenty of NIH money because prion protein misfolding is similar to that in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.  Matt invited me to dinner at his friend Benita's place yesterday too. She was an incredible cook! She taught me how to make this awesome spinach and chicken dish and it was like watching a live cooking show. Benita's super nice. I thought it was funny that she is very Catholic but all her roommates are lesbians. Her bf and friend from Hong Kong came for dinner too. Her Chinese friend was really cool. One interesting thing she said was that she lived in Virginia for a couple of years but didn't fit. She said people there weren't outwardly prejudice against her for being asian but she could feel the difference between people there and here. I would believe it. And she wants to be a vet too so we talked about dogs and such. I went to a park with Brenden today and had a lot of laughs. He's from here so he knows a lot about the town. And it actually rained a lot today! I must have brought t storms with me from IA. Maybe it will help with the fires in the mountains.

 Hmm..what should I draw?

This is what I've come up with so far.  It's a good start.  Eventually I'll paint it.  Melissa--I will prolly give it to you if you like it cuz your currently my closest horse-loving friend and I love you!

 Sand drawing Betsy made.  

 Ahh! Puffy cat!

 Cutest house ever.  

 Matt and the puffy cat.  

 Funky apartments.  $3K/month rent--ya I think I'll just settle for a picture.  

 Horsetooth park right outside of Fort Collins.  

 Brenden and me.

 Pretty!