Hello again and happy spring! As I sit here and write this, I am four hours away from leaving Ann Arbor and boarding a plane for California. I realized that I couldn't leave without a final blog post, so here it is!

The past few months have been some of the best of medical school. The day after my last blog post, myself (and every other M4 at UM!!) received an email at noon saying that I had matched. This gave me a huge sense of relief, and afterward, I felt a tolerable sense of nervousness leading into Friday's Match Day. It was the third Match Day I had attended in the past four years (after having attended that of my sister and then my original class) and this was definitely the most exciting and anxiety-provoking! The morning went by in a blur, and before I knew it, it was 11:59am and I was walking toward a smiling woman who held the envelope that would tell me where I would spend the next five years as an ENT resident.  I opened the envelope with my mother, fiancée, and his mother and was absolutely thrilled to read that I had matched at Stanford! It was amazing to share in this very happy moment with my family and to see all of the elated faces of my classmates as they learned where they would be doing their residency training.

April was my vacation block, and I spent it finishing up a research project, doing a lot of relaxing, and doing some final planning and preparations for our wedding. I had six wonderful weeks off and then, on May 16, my family and I drove to Hill Auditorium, where my class had our graduation ceremony. After five years of hard work at the University of Michigan, it was an amazing feeling and sense of accomplishment to be handed my diploma.

Just in case things weren't already exciting and hectic enough, the following weekend was our wedding in West Bloomfield, MI. This was, without a doubt, the best weekend of my life, and it was a surreal experience to have all of our family and friends from different stages of life (and different corners of the country) all in the same place at once. We got picture perfect weather, had (almost) no planning glitches, and—despite my fears—I didn't fall as I walked down the aisle, so all in all, it was a huge success.

This past weeks has been bittersweet, with growing excitement toward our move to California, but also the stress of packing up our house and the realization that I'm leaving behind a lot of amazing friends in Ann Arbor. This morning, I woke up sad knowing that it was my last time waking up in Ann Arbor, at least for the next few years. This town has been the most perfect home for the last five years, and I will miss it terribly. While I'm incredibly excited to get my residency training at Stanford, I also have a sense of loss at leaving the University of Michigan. I could not have asked for a better medical school experience, and it gives me great pride to say that I am a UM alum. I have countless positive memories from my time at the University of Michigan, and it was here that I met amazing and talented classmates, many of whom became great friends, several brilliant mentors with whom I hope to stay in touch, as well as my now-husband, who was an early M3 when I arrived on campus back in 2009. This place will always be extremely special to me.

On that note, I finish this blog and thank those who have read it from time to time! It has been a wonderful experience to chronicle my medical school years in Michigan. Farewell for now, Ann Arbor, and we hope to eventually be back in this amazing place.