I'm getting MARRIED!

Every now and then it hits me, just like it did in the very beginning - we're seriously getting married. For real. We're doing this! FINALLY! Not that I really would've had it any other way. I mean, I still feel young anyway, and I'm so glad we went through being away from each other during college. It sucked, but it was great for our relationship - I think we learned a lot. Speaking of learning a lot, our marriage prep class has been AWESOME so far! It's bringing up some topics that we hadn't discussed yet (either because we hadn't thought of them or because we knew they'd be ugly so we avoided them!), which is really helping us to work through some things that may otherwise have become problems. We're learning the well-defined husband and wife roles that God lays out in the Bible, so we're starting out with realistic expectations - I know what's expected of me and what I should expect of him, and vice versa, and we're not just accountable to each other in fulfilling those roles, but to God too. We're just learning so much and uncovering new things - it's been great. We really like the Pastor who is teaching the course, too, so he may end up performing our ceremony for us. I think we'll feel very comfortable and close with him and his wife by the end of the class, and it'll be a much more personal choice for us than the Pastor that we were originally thinking of using (who is also a great guy, we just don't know him all that well). This class just has me so excited for the potential of our marriage. We're starting off from such a wonderful place together, and we're doing all that we can to prepare ourselves to actively work on making our marriage the best it can be for us and for our kids... I just think we have so much going for us and I'm so excited to start it all with him! There will be so many obstacles and stressors and disappointments and arguments, but I think we're off to a great start in preparing for them. It feels so good :)

This week I'm focusing on preparing for the big Hopkins interview on Thursday, and getting the house together for our engagement party on Saturday with our wedding party and close family. It should be a great opportunity for everyone to meet each other and hopefully to make the wedding activities SLIGHTLY less awkward ;) It's always strange to walk down the aisle with someone you just met the night before at the rehearsal! Ben and I are going through old pictures and mementos for a collage that we're putting together for the party, and it's so amazing how far we've come! We looked like babies! It was so sweet to look through notes I wrote him and little booklets and things that I made for him - to see all the times that I promised him that I'd love him forever, told him that I couldn't wait to spend my life with him, called him my "hubby"... and now it's all coming true! So to all you pessimists who laughed at us - THE JOKE'S ON YOU!!! HAha gotta love it :)

As for Hopkins... I guess I just want it to be over with. I'm stressed, but not really. I don't know. I feel at peace about it - kinda like whatever happens, happens. I met a kid at my University of Maryland interview (LOVED that place, by the way!) who had an interview at Hopkins, and he said it wasn't bad at all - very conversational, like most of them have been for me - so that's encouraging. I've just been doing my research on the school, writing out my responses to common questions so that I have something to get me started (besides "um"), and trying to relax about it. I'm so glad that I loved Maryland, because it takes some of the pressure off of this Hopkins interview. I was so afraid that I'd hate UMD and then be left with either getting into Hopkins or being forced to leave Baltimore - neither of which would be easy! At least now I know that there's a place other than Hopkins where I can get the whole package, including the closeness to family :) I'm just going into it with all the confidence I can muster, and with the attitude that this is my opportunity to see if Hopkins is for me or not. Maybe it isn't. Most of the people I work with are telling me "If you get into Hopkins, you go. You have to." But I'm a little concerned that the environment is going to be too intense and competitive, and I don't want any unnecessary additional stress in my life! I'll have the same degree no matter where I go, and Maryland is the better place to do my residency anyway (I'm interested in Emergency, which UMD excels at between its ER and Shock Trauma) so it's not like I need to go to Hopkins because I want to get into a Hopkins residency. I've actually heard some negative things about their Emergency program. But anyway, if I get in that's awesome, if I don't then it just means that it's not the place where God wants me to be, which means I'd be happier elsewhere. It'll all be fine :)

Today was the day...

I'll always remember today. September 22nd 2008 will forever be the day that the greatest medical school in all the land said "we kinda like you". That's right folks, I got an interview invitation from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine today. HOLY SHIT. I'm freakin out a little!!! Are they serious? I'm just waiting for the "oops, sorry, our bad" e-mail telling me it was all a mistake! I can't believe this. I found out 2 and a half hours ago and my heart is still thumping! This is outrageous. Incredible. Amazing. Unbelievable. Whew! They're giving me a chance to go to freaking HOPKINS. I think I need to process this information some more.

In other news, I went to Gettysburg this past weekend for Alumni/Homecoming weekend (also known as the first official post-graduation opportunity to go back to school and meet up with your old friends at the bar...). I met up with Janelle and Leanne and went out and had a blast - went to our favorite bar and went out for our favorite pizza afterward, tried to sleep through the wierd conversations in the next room, the strange noises coming from the drunk asses in the hallway, and random people showing up in our faces in the middle of the night. Ahhh, I miss college :) Went to breakfast the next morning, but had to head home before the actual Homecoming stuff started, because we had to get to Ray and Shannon's wedding!

Ray is one of Ben's groomsmen who he works with at the proving grounds. It was so cool to be at a wedding now that we're engaged :) It was at Cloisters Castle in Lutherville - SO beautiful. And if you remember Saturday, it was PERFECT weather for an outdoor wedding. We had a lot of fun, and kept track of good ideas we liked (Ben thinks we need to release doves at our wedding now). But yeah, as soon as "Canon in D" started playing, I was no more good. I felt bad, but all I could think about was the fact that that's going to be ME next! It made it all a little more real, watching it happening in front of me. Crazy. Shannon was gorgeous - her gown was amazing and suited her so perfectly! She really did a great job - she made a lot of things herself and did most of her own planning. It's funny to go to a wedding with a more concrete idea of how much things cost - it gives you such an appreciation for all the hard work and money people pour into these things, and you appreciate a lot of little details that you might not notice otherwise. So anyway, yeah, it was tons of fun :)

Ben is about to get home, and I'm about to break the big Hopkins news to him, so I'm going to quit writing for now :) He's going to flip - he wants me to stay in Baltimore SO badly (as do I), and he knows this is my top choice for making that happen. I can't wait to tell him!

And then medical school took over

YAY Myrtle Beach!!!

Vacation was GREAT! We seriously did NOTHING all week - it was awesome. Got up around 10 or 10:30 every day (of our own will, not by the force of an alarm clock), ate a leisurely breakfast and enjoyed a cup of coffee, slathered on sunscreen (didn't take long for us to need the tough stuff - we were on SPF 70 by day 3!), and walked across the street to the beach. Enjoyed some combination of reading Glamour and/or wedding magazines, swimming, strolling, baking, or just sitting and people-watching until at least 4:30 every day, with a break for lunch sometime where we'd run up to our room, pack sandwiches and run back down to eat them on the beach. Actually, there was very little "running" involved. I tried running on the beach in the morning of our first day, which left me with strange blisters on my "index" toes (I don't know how else to describe them - the ones next to your big toes I guess) and aching calf muscles. In the interest of letting my blisters heal (they hurt like a bitch, believe it or not!) I let the next few days go by without running, and before I knew it I was chowing on pizza and Maggie Moo's and chocolate fondue (Yes, Melting Pot!) for a week with no exercise. Ew. Oh well - it's back to South Beach after the family picnic tomorrow (where I'll do my best, but I know I'll have little control over what's available to eat). Anyway, back to my daily va-cay itinerary (which I know you're all WAY into right now), around 4:30 when Ben's mom had reached the brink of heat exhaustion without the umbrella (the umbrella guy took it back at 4 every day) we'd head back upstairs, take our showers, make dinner or head out to eat, and then hit Barefoot Landing (aka the land of junk stores that you can't resist going into) for some evening shopping. We were always in bed around 11, since I'm just old and need lots of sleep, and Ben literally spent the ENTIRE day, EVERY day, in the water fighting a losing battle against the waves with his trusty body board. He did have to take a brief break at lunchtime to eat and stand there indignantly while I re-slathered him with sunscreen. Yeah, I'm the sunscreen natzi. Despite the fact that I lay in tanning beds from time to time, I refuse to stand idly by while my groom-to-be slowly amasses the genetic mutations necessary for a future date with metastatic melanoma. So anyway, we had a lovely vacation :)

My sexy husband on the beach (he'll kill me if he finds out I put this up!)

While I was away, though, I got THREE more interviews! I can't tell you how psyched I am :) I checked my e-mail in the hotel lobby twice during the week, and I got invitations from Drexel and Maryland. I wasn't super thrilled about Drexel - another school that's farther away than I'd like to end up - but I had to fight to contain my excitement about Maryland (there was some dude sitting at the computer next to me). I'm so excited to get an interview near home! I've done A LOT of thinking about this whole thing ever since we got engaged, and I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I really want to stay as close to home as possible. It's going to be tough enough to start our newlywed lives as I start medical school, with all the demands it will place on my time and my energy, and the whole thing really doesn't need to be aggravated by uprooting us from what's familiar, and from our families. I can't make big name medical schools more important than my marriage - I made that choice when I said yes. That being said, the third interview offer I got is the biggest deal so far... I returned home to a letter from none other than the 11th ranked school in the country and the best school I've heard from so far, Columbia! I don't mean to be braggy, I'm just really excited because it gives me more hope for the big one (yeah, Hopkins). It's another one in NYC, so it's not so much that I'm excited because I want to go there - I'm just thrilled to hear from them because I feel like it's one step closer to Hopkins. It introduces an interesting question though - one that I've been worried about ever since I started this whole process. What happens if I get into Columbia and Maryland, but not Hopkins? Not that rankings are all that important, but to give you some idea (since not all of you are really familiar with what med schools are better than others - I know I had no clue til I started this process, except for the obvious ones), Columbia is ranked 11th, and MD is ranked 43rd. I only hear great things about Maryland, but knowing that makes it tough. Even UVA is ranked 23rd - it's up there but also far away. It's tough with Maryland because I feel confident about the possibility of getting in there, particularly since I'm in-state (we get priority), but it's not one of the best schools I applied to. I'll be doing A LOT of praying about all this. I just need to focus on trying to listen to God's voice in all this - Ben and I will be happiest where God wants us to be, not necessarily where Ben or I think that we'll be happiest. I hope that I can convince Ben of that though, no matter what our situation ends up being. It will definitely be our first major challenge as a married couple if we have to move away - just coming to the place where we can both genuinely trust that God has our best interest in mind and that this is where He wants us to be.

I'm getting scared as the reality gets closer... actually traveling to New York City to interview. It's not just an imaginary scenario anymore like it was when I was filling out applications. I just have to remember that it's only by the grace of God that I've gotten this far - nothing that I've accomplished could've happened without His hand pushing me and guiding me and giving me the strength to make it through - and He didn't get me this far just to abandon me. And He didn't drop this engagement in our laps just to watch us fail, either. That's one thing I remember very clearly from that night when we decided we were getting married - the pure clarity I felt about it, and how obvious it felt that it was God's perfect plan come to life, right there in Ben's kitchen. I can't describe it other than describing the sequence of events, but I know how it felt, and I know how certain I am that we're doing God's will in all this. Having that to fall back on keeps me sane.

So, in the midst of all of the engagement excitement, I've been pulled back down into the real world as the medical school dream inches closer to reality. Now it's time to focus on making the two work together. On that note, we're starting our Preparation for Marriage class at my mom's church in Gaithersburg tomorrow :) Perfect timing! Followed by a not-so-short jaunt out past Hancock to Berkeley Springs (somewhere in Western MD or WV) for Ben's family picnic. I hope it's not too hot! In any case, I should get on to bed. Not that I've unpacked anything. Don't you hate unpacking? Ew. Goodnight!

UVA Interview!

Yesterday was my UVA interview :) It went very well. It was a very relaxed, laid-back day. There were 6 of us there to interview, and we had a group orientation and a talk from the director of the admissions committee about the school, then lunch with 2 fourth-year students, a tour of the medical center and the school, and then two half-hour interviews. I got lots of good info and it gave me a better idea of the sorts of details that I should be looking for when I'm checking out schools. The interviews themselves were very conversational - I didn't feel intimidated or anything - and I think I delivered my answers well, without a lot of "um"s and "uh"s :) I liked a lot of things about it, though coming from little bitty Gettysburg, I have to say I was a little overwhelmed by the size of UVA. It really is a small city, with its own bank branches and churches and delis and police force, etc. SO big. I'm sure that I'd get used to it though, like anything else. There were several perks that got me excited about the school, but I kept having to remind myself of how far away I was from home! It was good to find out, though, that there are several defense contractors and several Northrop Grummans in the area, so if I absolutely HAD to go there, at least we know that Ben wouldn't have too much trouble finding a job. There are certainly drawbacks, like the parking situation, the cost ($42,650 a year, just in tuition and fees!), the distance from home (about 3 hours), the traveling to other hospitals for clinical clerkships (Fairfax, Roanoke, and others)... but it seemed like a very laid-back, pleasant place to go to medical school, with lots of camaraderie among the students and the faculty, lots of regard for the quality of life of the students (they're not out to drive their students to the end of their pitiful ropes, it seems), and they're building a new medical school building too. Anyway, there's a lot to think about, and I don't plan on ending up there unless everything else I visit totally sucks, but at least now I have some idea of what to expect on other interviews and what to look for in other schools - something to compare to.

Next up is Mount Sinai, but that's not til October 16th, so I won't worry about that one for a while. My boss finally submitted his letter of recommendation last week, so all of the schools that were waiting around for his letter can start evaluating my application now that it's complete. I'm hoping to start hearing from other schools soon, hopefully within the next few weeks. I got all of my other materials submitted in freaking mid-JULY, so my application SHOULD have been at the top of everyone's stack, but I'm sure that the lateness of this letter set me back a bit. Which is irritating, since med school admissions are rolling, so the earlier you interview the better chance you have of being accepted. In any case, I won't get interviews everywhere (at least I hope not - I can't afford to travel to all of them!) - it's so competitive. For example, I found out yesterday that UVA gets about 4300 applications per year, interviews about 500, and admits about 250 to fill a class of 142. YIKES. I'm just dying to hear from Hopkins, Maryland and Georgetown. I need to know that I have a chance at at least ONE of them! I just got an e-mail from G-town saying my application is now being reviewed, so let's all pray for a quick response on that one! One of my friends here in the lab applied there and already got an interview and we have fairly comparable applications, so I have hope!

No big news on the wedding front. We booked our string trio for the ceremony - got a pretty good deal so I'm excited about that :) And I've decided to be a bridezilla and have my bridesmaids dye their shoes to match their dresses (evil, isn't it?). I just can't bring myself to be satisfied with any other color combo. I've tried! I guess I should send an e-mail about that before you all read it second-hand on my blog!

Ben and I are leaving for VA-CAY on Saturday! WAHOO! We're going to Myrtle Beach with Darlene and Rich - did I mention that already? Anyway, we'll get back into the wedding planning mode when we get back. I plan on setting up our tastings and our cake design meeting and stuff in the next few weeks. The FUN stuff :) And our STDs have arrived, so we'll be sending those out relatively soon. They don't really need to go out til December - that would be 6 months - but I'll probably send them in mid-October. If I can hold myself back that long. I just want the world to know! Speaking of which, our engagement announcement ran in the Carroll County Times last Sunday :) So cute!

Alright, back to work.