En route to Perú, I finally have a few moments to catch you up on the past month, which passed in a flash! M1 year is over, and we are officially on summer break. It´s hard to believe how quickly it all passed. I´m headed to South America for a few weeks of vacation followed by research with a group of classmates in Quito, Ecuador.

The past month was full of fun happenings, including Second Look Weekend, the spring Biorhythms show, memorial day weekend in D.C. (unfortunately I did not get to ride with Rolling Thunder), the end-of-the-year bar crawl, and the creation of our class tumblr. In terms of classes, we finished Infectious Diseases (best sequence of the year) and sped through Embryology and Human Growth and Development. The last two sequences were a great chance to revisit a lot of what we learned this year, but I found it challenging to concentrate and take full advantage with minor burnout and the looming vacation.

One thing I´m looking forward to this summer, in revisiting a region that I´ve been to at least ten times in the past, is seeing how (if at all) a year of medical school has changed my perspective. Aside from the lump of medical knowledge, I´m curious to see how else I have changed, if perhaps the past year has made me more comfortable with uncertainty or ambiguity. Time will tell. I am also excited to see what (if any) changes the region has experienced in the past year under the current presidencies.

I have to share something completely unrelated but pretty amazing -- I just witnessed a marriage proposal at 30K feet over the Pacific! For real. The airplane erupted in applause after the bride-to-be accepted.

My next post will be on how to pack for everything you need for summer break in a carry on bag.

Cheers,

Jose