WOW. I am a delinquent. But here's what has been going on in my life since the last time I posted. I will try to write more about each, but you always know how those promised go, so I'll also apologize in advance.

1) I finished taking finals - and I somehow managed to pass, even endocrinology (barely).

2) Summer break - a record breaking 6 weeks long.

3) I was in Leon, Nicaragua for one month, which was absolutely amazing, difficult, and life changing all at once. Nicaragua is an incredible gorgeous country. It's also hot and humid with a lot of bugs and no airconditioning. The people are wonderful, and I learned so much!

4) Summer quarter starts optimistically, before I get steam rolled and then it is not so happy. Six classes in six weeks - yeah, enough said.

5) Weddings! Alex's cousin got married, and we played all the music (me - violin, Alex - guitar) for the ceremony. Which was fun, but it also meant the whole weekend was consumed with family and rehearsal and wedding stuff. But it was a really nice wedding at a very hot but beautiful vineyard (104 degrees), and it was a ton of fun. I missed class on Monday.

6) The following week Alex's GSD friends Fauzia and Gustavo (Zamir) had a wedding in Atlanta. I missed class on Friday and Monday, and part of Tuesday. It was a Pakistani/Mexican/Muslim wedding. Fauzia looked so beautiful, and there were many traditions. It was an absolutely amazing experience.

7) That brings me to being very behind in class, since seeing as how I've only gone to school about three days per week for the last two weeks. And dermatology has me cowed. It was going well, until the fifth or sixth lecture when the lecturer went through a bunch of slides and just said the name of the disease - and each slide looked the same to me. I was so intimidated I haven't gone back to a derm lecture since, nor touched the subject. I've heard the other lectures have actually been very good. I know, I am a derm-coward. I should get on it, seeing as how we have finals in about 2 weeks.

Other things that have been interesting in my life? I've picked up rock climbing - thanks to my friend Agnieska. Which means the first couple weeks of school I was climbing 4 hours a week... which could also attribute to my being behind :)

The other interesting development that has never happened before this year is that the girl directly upstairs from me started having sex - really loud - and all the sound transmits through their floor - i.e. my ceiling. And it's hot with no air conditioning, so the windows are open. And they started at 6am, which woke me up. It's happened 3 times 3 weekends ago, but I've also been gone the last two weekends, so I don't know if it's a trend. I think her bed is not very stable and moves around a lot.

All in all, it's been a fun summer with the weddings, rock climbing and all, but yeah, this quarter is really stinky.

Speaking of stinky, we're also taking microbiology. There's a bacteria we learned about today that smells really bad. Wouldn't it be great to have scratch n' sniff bacteria? I think it should be a new educational tool.

I've also noticed a statistically significant increase in the number of people who ask the annoying question of "So... when is it your turn?" (especially at weddings).

Ha. Wouldn't you like to know?