Two weeks and counting

I officially have two weeks before the official start of classes, and those two weeks are going to be relatively jam-packed with all kinds of stuff.  Next week: meeting with a friend to get coffee/hang out/borrow a book, meet with my fellow "homeroom" coordinators to shop for decorations and decorate the room, meet with my fellow peds club officers to arrange meetings for first semester.  And that's just the official stuff.  I'm also still hoping to finish up our guest bedroom--we tackled the yard last week, though I'm pretty much giving up on getting the bathroom ceiling painted.  Maybe I can pay a friend to do it for me.  Then, the week after that is orientation, wherein I will have to be a mentor at lunch each day (though granted, the rest of the week will be pretty un-full).  

I find it more than just a little frightening that I buckled down and bought the Mother of All Review Books yesterday (aka First Aid for the USMLE Step 1).  You see, I not only have to survive the upcoming school year, with its promises of a pathology class supposedly so daunting that it will make us all want to stab ourselves in the eye (along with all of our other classes)--at the end of the year, I get to spend a month or two studying like a madwoman for The Boards.  In the US, you have to take 3 tests (or "steps") to become a fully licensed physician.  Step 1 is taken at the end of the first two years of medical school and covers pretty much everything you learned in those two years--anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pathology, microbiology, pharmacology, etc.  Passing Step 1 is important, because not only do you have to pass to become a doctor at all, but your score is a very important piece of information that residency programs consider when you start applying in your 4th year of school.  Difficult programs--like orthopedics, plastic surgery, radiology, and dermatology--look long and hard at how well you did on Step 1 when they consider whether or not they should interview you, and thus, doing well is extremely important and the test becomes even more stressful.  

Since I'm interested in pediatrics (or some other form of general medicine), I don't have to stress *too* much about my step 1 score, but it's still one of those things that looms large over your second year of med school, and thus, I went ahead and bought a review book to supplement my studying throughout the year, in hopes that using it to direct my studies will help me get a better handle on where to start come May, when things kick into overdrive.  

But enough about medicine...it's a gorgeous day and I'm heading outside!