Today feels really good...

...but not as good as a year from now will feel! Or even 2 years from now.... now THAT will feel good!

Today I finished my last final of my first semester of PA school! Hallelujah! It has definitely been a rough week. To be honest though, not much different than finals were at BYU. I mean some are harder than others, some take more studying than others, and regardless of what grade I "need" to get on the test to get "what I need" in the class, I always stress out. I woke up really early this morning to study more for my 10am final and developed a splitting headache. It got better after a while but not before I went back to bed for 45 minutes. So much for the last-minute cramming! Anyway, the test went ok, I did great in my classes, and for a week and a half I am a FREE woman! (Minus the fact that I told Burke I'd be all his, after all the neglect he's dealt with in the last week or two!)

In retrospect, it was a good semester. I learned LOTS and loved it. I am very excited but nervous about getting into more clinical skills classes. One of my favorite things I did this semester was a couple of weeks ago when the medical school put on a community health fair at a local high school. The PA program manned booths for kids: balloon animals, an obstacle course, a nutrition station, a safety station (why you should ride a bike helmet) etc. I jumped in with the group teaching about why you shouldn't smoke. We had some plastinated lungs from the gross anatomy lab for demonstration: two normal lungs, a black lung from a smoker, and a lung from someone with lung cancer.

Normal healthy lungs

Smoker lung in the guy's hand

It was a most effective visual aid! These kids could hold the heavy, black, rubbery smoker lung in their hand and recognize that this is a big problem. I LOVED teaching young children, high schoolers, and even adults (some who were even prior and current smokers) how important it is to take care of our lungs. I hope we were able to encourage resolve to "never, ever smoke" in many and resolve to try again to quit in others. I really want to make sure I continually get involved in community outreach, education, and prevention. Preventive medicine is KEY.

All of these folks signed a pledge that they would never smoke.

Our (almost) Free Friday Date

Burke and I had a real nice date night last night, and it was almost free!!

Almost, because I bought a "livingsocial" coupon for a Mexican restaurant. So we paid $12 a few weeks ago and had a $25 coupon to spend on dinner. So, it felt free....until we paid tax and tip anyway. Ha.

The hockey game, however, was free because a guy in our ward had some extra tickets and offered them to us yesterday. So in this case, we actually did go for free. (Thanks, Dave!)

So the Mexican restaurant we went to turned out to be FANTASTIC. Great food. With a big dance floor. And salsa lessons on Wednesday nights. ;) But it was awesome.

And the game? So we all stand up for the national anthem and the lady behind us says excitedly, "Oh, I hope it's the Mormon Tabernacle Choir!" What? And sure enough, MoTab pops up on the screen singing the national anthem. It was beautiful and I loved it, but really? How did she call that? Do they use that recording often or something? Very surprising. (I realized later that they must be using it to advertise for the concert that the Choir will be doing in June at that very arena.)

Eh, so the Norfolk Admirals are not so great. They lost 6 to 3. "MoTab Fan" behind us screamed the whole game long, "Charge the net! You've got to shoot it, for pete's sake! Quit being such idiots!" and several other lovely phrases. It was actually pretty funny, albeit annoying, but at least she wasn't cussing. Hockey fans are in general a little harsher than most other fans I've seen. Everything was negative the whole game long. (Of course, we were losing.) Not to mention the violence. At least this game had quite a bit less fighting than the other hockey game we've been to.

(By the way, I hope our kids don't ask to play hockey.)

So, it's not my favorite sport, but I had a great time going and hanging out with my best friend. And it was free. :)

Thanks for the great date, babe!