Transitions

It's currently Spring Break, in which I am spending in a study room of UCF School of Medicine as Errol studies for his exam tomorrow. It's crazy to think that after this week is over, we will be well into March, and less than 2 months away from being the oldest class residing in UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy.

Organizations have a large role in student pharmacist lives. This is the time of year of election season, and officer transition. It's the time when first year students step up and strive to become elected, second year students begin to realize that that they need some leadership to get residencies, and third years start mentally preparing to interact daily with patients.

With two Elect positions (2-year commitments), I started this year wondering how I could possibly take over in my third year. Thanks to great mentorship, I feel confident that next year I will be able to take over and maintain the legacy.

That's all for now... onto trying to survive second year!

A Year In Review

Nearly one year ago, Errol and I embarked on a big step in our relationship: moving in together. We knew it would be temporary, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't imagine the day when we would have to finally have to be apart. 

On July 23, 2011, a Chrysler Sebring, a Nissan Sentra S-ER, and a Lexus RX300 traveled from Gainesville, FL to Chapel Hill, NC. My family came to help move us in and get settled. Each of our cars was filled to the rim, with none of us having visual from the rearview mirrors. It was the first (and only, I hope) time where I had to make that drive all by myself. 

The apartment was a small, one bed/one bath apartment on the second floor. The first month wiped out my savings, where I had to buy things for the living room, bedroom, and apartment. We didn't split costs because I would be keeping all of it once Errol moved. Slowly but surely we purchased items off Craigslist to make the apartment a home. 

School started for me, and it became very difficult for me to find a balance with high-volume coursework, meeting new people, being as involved as possible in school opportunities, and of course, being a girlfriend. At the same time I was starting school, Errol was working on medical school applications, job applications, and dealing with overall stress and loneliness of being with a busy girlfriend.

Errol began working at CVS, at the same store as me, as a full-time pharmacy technician. There, he began to have something to fill his time, and a place to make friends. Luckily, the other technicians are generally around our same age.

The year went on, and the days remained the same. I studied, went to meetings, volunteered in the community. He worked, worked, and worked. Our scheduled rarely matched and most days I would be up at 7AM and not see him until 9PM or later. But we tried our hardest to do things together, like cook special meals, eat at nice restaurants, and explore other places.

Errol quit CVS at the end of May, and I finished my introductory hospital rotation then too. That left all of June for Errol to say goodbye to North Carolina, and to everyone else.

The final week of June was jam-packed with moving. Moved from our old place to my new place, then Errol down to Orlando. I was able to put that into one sentence, but I can’t think of anything that will really capture the magnitude of labor that occurred there. And we made the most of every free moment, checking one thing after another off of our bucket lists.  

 Now the countdown begins for July 20 when we will be reunited once more. 

Saying goodbye at the airport

Blogilates Weekly Challenge

Since I moved to Chapel Hill, I have been a pretty avid follower of Blogilates. I admit I haven't been keeping up with her workouts lately, but when I do, they are GREAT for those cold days I don't want to go to the gym.

At the beginning of the new year, she started a weekly challenge that I thought I would try to keep up with. I mean, just one task a week? Sounds doable! (She's a little cheesy, but you have to hand it to for committing!)

Last week's was "Clean Up and Tone Up!":

So what I did was cleaned up the lonely corner in our apartment that still had 3 boxes filled with crap we were just too lazy to unpack. Since it had been 4 months, I figured I didn't need them and threw most of them away.

When I cleaned that space, it was amazing how much better the apartment looked, and my mood improved too!

This week's challenge is "Wake Up. Drink Up":

I didn't see this video within 10 minutes of getting up, but I did see it within an hour. Will do it right when I wake up in the morning before school for the rest of this week!

Do you accept the challenge?

Starbuck's on a Sunday

Today, Errol and I are working Sunday together at CVS. On weekend days, there are only 2 technicians and a pharmacist (or in today's case, 1 technician, 1 intern, and 1 pharmacist... sometimes I forget I'm an intern. But because hours were cut at the start of the new year and intern hours had to be used from the store instead of corporate, I start 2 hours later than Errol.

So I took the time to go to Starbuck's to be extremely productive! And it worked. I've done my homework, even done assigned reading, and am on a roll for a very good day.

Yesterday was also a very good day. Spent some money to get a couple of things for the apartment, and I think it's finally able to have guests. Sounds awful I know, but we still had a couple of boxes in a corner that hadn't been put away. We bought a microwave card to place just outside of the kitchen. Now we have more counter space in our TINY kitchen, which is now the new home of my Keurig and Kitchen Aid stand mixer, which had be sadly placed on top of water cooler in the dining room.

We bought an ice scraper for our cars, which I don't think we'll need but Errol insisted on purchasing.

And we went on a nice walk on one of the many beautiful trails in Chapel Hill.

AND we made a pizza topped with mozzarella, artichoke hearts, tomato slices, and salami. YUM.

I love this new version of me, the one who [so far] hasn't procrastinated, is exercising/being active on a regular basis, and NOT BEING LAZY.

We will see how long this lasts, but I'm feeling good!