Savoring a Golden Weekend

I finally got to be a tourist in San Francisco. I made a revisit to the wharf on Friday, camera in hand to visually capture the tourist pictures I have meaning to take since moving to San Francisco. One of those sights is Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39. Aside from the hoards of tourists and overpriced nature, the wharf makes for a great photo and half-day trip--complete with ships, pirates, seafood and a cannery.There is something about three-day weekends that is so mysterious. You know you have three days, but somehow you lead yourself to believe you have an extended vacation. Your "to do" list grows and you really start thinking that time can be spread out so much farther than it really can be.

As our post-exam three-day weekend slips away, I feel like this was a golden weekend. I was able to fit so many things into seventy-two hours.

My list of accomplishments for this weekend include the following: running to the ocean, walking along the beach, strolling Filmore and Haight street with a close friend, swimming and lifting weights at Mission Bay, cooking real good food, enjoying the company of friends at a Wine and Cheese get together, having dinner with classmates, completing loads of laundry, recreating my tan lines (the lines that existed before I moved to San Francisco) after spending hours in the sun, cleaning my apartment, running in Golden Gate Park, photographing the wharf at Pier 39, being reunited with a high school friend and devouring mint chocolate ice cream at Ghiradelli Square.

After listing all the things I did this weekend, I noticed a theme--I attempted to maximize my exposure to three things: the sun, the city and friends. Basically, anything but school after such a long week of studying GI disorders and realizing that a year from now, I'll be confined in the library preparing for the BOARDS.

What a weekend to live and enjoy the sun, sights and sounds of San Francisco in early springtime.

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The hours for oneself become numbered as the academic rigor steps up a notch, the extracurricular commitments expand and as we get closer to transitioning to the wards. For now, I am enjoying these moments and making the most of the time we have.

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Four hours of lecture welcome us back to the second half of Metabolism and Nutrition at 8 AM tomorrow. We begin our second half, which focuses on endocrinology and more biochemistry. I flipped open to page 582- Introduction to the Hypothalamo-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis and my first thought was- is "Hypothalamo-Pituitary-Adrenal" really one word?

Ok, so I am a little distracted. But at least I am making the effort (and it is all in vain).
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I think I'm better off enjoying these last few hours even if it means playing catch up for the rest of the block. Such is medical school life (always running up a hill that becomes more and more slanted until it becomes as steep as one of the famous San Francisco hills; you feel like you're walking up, all your effort is going to moving forward, but you somehow end up moving backwards--why is that? But in the end, you somehow get to the top and never really figure out how you got there.

Speaking of hills, I know my next photograph- San Francisco's curviest and most visited hill- Lombard Street! (Stay tuned for the photographs after our final, or possibly sooner). And come to think of it- Lombard Street may even be the perfect iconic metaphor to represent medical school.