Fay be damned, I wanted to get home!

I did it. I finally made it back home. No more driving. No more sleeping on couches. I never thought I would so happy to be back.

I did run into a little snag in getting home today. You may have heard of a little squall known as Tropical Storm Fay. I drove through it today. It was awesome. And by awesome, I mean terrible. Apparently I was driving straight through a region with tornadoes that you couldn't see because the rain was so heavy. Normally, I wouldn't drive when I can only see about 10 feet ahead of me but I was really desperate to get home. In the end, I'm safe and happy in my warm apartment.

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So here are the stats for my trip:

Number of states I've slept in: 10

Number of states I've driven through: 11

Speeding tickets: ZERO!! (yeah, that's right, five thousand miles and no tickets!)

Clinics visited: 5

Amount spent in gas: Unknown (I don't want to know, I might hurt someone)

Miles driven (this trip): 2278

Miles put on my car this summer: 5045

Total miles traveled: 7693

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So that's it, the summer is officially over. Now I have one day until I start my extra Oncology rotation. Time to get back to real life.

Life lessons and heartbreak

Has it been almost 20 days since my last post already? I have just finished my externship in D.C. and a short visit to a clinic in Fairfax (possible job opportunity???). The externship was okay, not anything exceptionally exciting. I think it was the rest of my time back in my college town that was the most eye opening.

Have you ever gone back to visit your childhood home or alma mater or previous job to find that everything has changed? I don't think that's actually an accurate assessment. I think everything usually stays the same and it's you who has changed. That is most definitely what happened to me. I stayed with my best friend, Amanda, in College Park, MD (home of the great UMD Terrapins) and realized that I have changed so much in the past three years. I've matured, as scary as that is to think.

So back to my original thought. If I didn't get a lot out of my externship what did I get out of my time in Marland and D.C.? Well, a lot . . . I think.

1. Internships and years on the job don't make you a great veterinarian.

Okay, so that's a bold statement. But there was something I noticed about the vets in D.C. (most of whom had done internships): none of them were particularly great at communicating with their clients. I saw so many of them confuse the owners and lose opportunities to help out the patients because of a lack of communication skills. I knew that if they had just allowed me to talk I could have explained things and convinced the owner (without being too pushy) that Fluffy's broken tooth is painful, Sparky can lose some weight, or their are other options to declawing for Fifi. Then I saw the vets in Fairfax, most of whom did not do internships, who were great vets and had some amazing skills with their clients. It reassured me that I can do just fine without doing an internship. I just have to have faith in my great people skills and my own knowledge.

2. All but one will break your heart.

This is another bold, somewhat cryptic statement. What I mean to say is that all the men you date in your life will break your heart until you find the one that doesn't, the one you are supposed to be with. My heart was broken twice over the past three weeks. Once by a man who I thought was going to be the right one for me, but then decided he would rather stay with his girlfriend who he admits doesn't make him happy and who he is not attracted to. He told me he was too scared to break up with her right now. So really, he would rather be with someone who makes him unhappy than be with me. That's a real confidence booster.

Then there was Mitch. I have had a thing for this guy since my freshman year of college. For the past 7 years I have pined away for him, thinking I saw something in him that no one else did. I was just waiting until he finally manned up, matured a little bit and realized that I was everything he was looking for. We've been friends for years and I knew he was going to realize all this when I saw him again. He pursued me while I was in town, called me, begged me to come over to watch movies and cuddle. He showed every sign of being interested. Then, all of a sudden, he started avoiding me. When I finally talked to him he acted as if nothing happened and just shrugged his shoulders. I should preface this by saying this happened once before in college. I thought he had grown up a bit since then. He hadn't. Mitch broke my heart into a thousand little pieces and then just walked away like it was no big deal.

My friend Mary tells me I'm building karmic points with the universe. I've had so much heartbreak in my past that the universe owes me big time and it will eventually deliver an amazing person to love.

3. True friends are hard to come by but will always be there for you.

That's what Mary and Amanda showed me while I was in town. I hadn't seen Amanda in 2 years, Mary I hadn't seen in 3. I have talked to them a little bit while I've been in school but not too much. It didn't matter. It was as if no time had passed. They are both desperately trying to get me to move back to the metro area. I think I might seriously look into it. My family isn't there but at least I know I will have some good friends nearby that I could count on.

So that's it, my diatribe for the moment. Life lessons learned while on the road. I will be getting back to school this weekend after stopping at my parent's to pick up my cats (one of whom is now "fat as a house" now according to my mother . . . great). Back to school, back to the grind, and time to get ready for boards, a job search, and graduation. Scary.