[I wrote this first part while at the Minneapolis airport on Friday morning]

This has a been a hard week to focus. With Block 1 successful behind me, and only three days of classes between me and FALL BREAK, the last thing I wanted to do was sit in class and listen to hours of immunology lectures (which, consequently, were not as interesting as one might think. Until we began to talk about vaccines, and how there is absolutely no proven causation between getting vaccinated and developing autism. There is, however, proven causation between not getting vaccinated and dying from highly preventable diseases).

This weekend was fun (and LONg – three days, thanks to Yom Kippur). Saturday, Angela, Caitlin, her boyfriend Aaron, and their friend Josh, all went into San Fran to Chinatown and got real Chinese food and walked around Chinatown and Union Square. So that was fun. Sunday I went to church, did some studying, and hung out with my roommates…Monday was more of the same, then Tuesday-Thursday we had Immunology classes in Fundamentals, learned how to do structural exams in OMM, and got to practice looking in eyes, ears, noses, throats, listening to the heart rate, and checking blood pressure and pulse, thanks to our recently-arrived medical equipment in doctoring! So that’s been really fun (minus people who don’t clean their ears enough….ewwww) to really be able to practice and know what we’re looking at, like REAL doctors!

Today the excitement was FLYING TO DC TO SEE MEGAN! (I’m currently sitting in the Minneapolis airport getting ready to board my flight). I got a ride from my friends Josh and Mike (in exchange for In’N’Out…Mike’s from Colorado so he had only had it ONCE and Josh is from Washington and HAD NEVER HAD IN’N’OUT…so sad!) and only had to wait two hours for my midnight flight to Mineapolis.

My friend Josh from Washington who had NEVER BEEN TO IN'N'OUT

I always take these redeyes and I forget until I’m at the airport/on the flight exactly how miserable they are… Three hours is not enough time to fall asleep, let alone get good sleep! I fell asleep before we took off and was sleeping when the pilot (who specifically said he was gonna stay off the PA to let us sleep!) comes BOOMING over the PA telling the flight attendants to prepare for take-off. I mean I know he has to tell them, but he jolted me out of the little, (relatively) peaceful sleep I was getting. So I try to go back to sleep and then 15 or so minutes later the stewardess comes on to tell us about every possible drink selection, what food we can buy, or how we can donate money to help them raise money for breast cancer. And then proceeded to TURN THE LIGHTS ON. I wanted to be like HAVE YOU NEVER WORKED A REDEYE BEFORE?!? DON’T COME ON THE PA, ESPECIALLY TO TELL US ABOUT THE COFFEE AND OTHER NONSENSE THAT NO ONE IS INTERESTED IN, AND DEFINTELY DO NOT TURN ALL THE LIGHTS ON TO SERVE THE DRINKS. I was so unamused. But now I’m in Minneapolis, so its ok.

Ok, back to today. I landed safely in DC, Megy picked me up, and we started the ten-hour drive to LOUISVILLE, Kentucky. About an hour into the drive, traffic STOPPED and we were parked on the highway thanks to an overturned tractor-trailer. But we used the time for me to try out my medical equipment and take Megy's blood pressure, make friends with a tucker, and take a little nap.

After traffic started moving again we stopped at Chick-fil-A where they have a costume contest for Halloween...and one of the catagories was BEST BIBLE CHARACTER! I could've won for the 10 years in a row I that I was Queen Esther or Pharaoh's daughter... Finally, around 11pm, we arrived at Margaret's ADORABLE house in Louisville... And woke up early the next morning for the Highlands 5K race!

Such beasts! So we ran the race, then showered and went to a local farm (acutally in Southern Indiana) where we got to go apple and pumpkin picking, and wine tasting! It was such a fun day!!!

Margaret and her adorable daughter Marie...we had so much fun with them and Margaret's husband Paul!

It was SUCH a fun and relaxing weekend. After hanging out at the farm, we went out to dinner at this really neat restaurant/bar/art museum/hotel in downtown Louisville. Sunday morning we went to mass at this beautiful church in downtown Louisville, then Megan and I hung out in downtown Louisville and went book shopping, then we all went to dinner with Margarets parents in the Louisville suburbs...

I have lots more pictures to post but thats all for now; time for bed on the east coast!!! Love you all <3