Oh my.  Since my midwest trip, much has been occurring in terms of thoughts and plans for the future.  In general, I have been tutoring a lot, getting marginally better at squash, and watched a sickening amount of Olympics (which I love!).  I justify my couch potato syndrome because the Olympics are only on every two years, and because they are worth it.  It’s settled.  Fortunately we had another blizzard which provided extra motivation to stay inside.  I always want to know what everyone’s favorite events are, but for me this year it was figure skating (I love you, Kim Yu-Na), snowboarding, and the cross country ski relays.  Delightful!  I did enjoy other things like speed skating, but I just cannot get over the bad taste in my mouth left by Apolo Ohno’s less-than-classy blaming of the Canadian judges (let alone his stupid facial hair).  That was actually a big theme in this Olympics- watching the character of the athletes in competition, and the character of their reactions to adverse events.  As much as Apolo failed to impress in the second regard, Evan Lysacek’s reaction to Plushenko’s less than classy comments was a nice display of maturity.

In my couch-potato-dom, I also watched Julie and Julia, and realized several things.  First and foremost, my brainpower is steadily declining.  Teaching other people things that I know is not stimulating enough to keep my own brain strong and swift.  I need to start learning new things again.  So, when I return from Portland, it is back to the French, the physiology, and the Spanish.  The movie made me miss French, and want to cook glorious French cuisine.  Therefore, I am going to hold a dinner party as well.  Bon Apetit!

We also had fun house-guests, Alex and Melissa, who after 8 days were able to locate a lovely house in Downtown Boulder, as well as at least one real job, and are now happy Boulder residents.  Yay!  Sarah (above seen watching the snow fall) has opened my eyes to some of the smaller but greater pleasures in life:  Morrissey (how did I go so long without knowing about them!), and putting cinnamon in with coffee grounds before brewing them. Yum! I am obsessed! Finally, I watched a fascinating TED presentation by Bill Gates about a new clean energy source- teraenergy (sp?).  It basically uses the waste from traditional nuclear energy as a source of energy itself- thus eliminating the toxic storage problem that so many cite as a reason to avoid using nuclear.  It is a really interesting video-  if you have 20 minutes, you should watch it!

I’m off to Portland on Friday for Med School Prom, Voodoo Donuts, Powell’s Books, a party, hiking at Mt. St. Helens, exploration, and of course, an interview.  Wish me luck!  Updates and photos next week!