Weekly Update: Graduated! The "holidays" continue...

• Current Scholastic Vacation Pursuits
• Convocation was on Friday this past week- so I've officially been hooded and diploma'ed! Saroja, MD. Feels pretty good. Or at least it did once my feet stopped hurting from the NINE HOUR ceremony. Good grief!
• Instead of making a speech, our valedictorian made a film by doing a series of interviews with various students from our class. I made it in to 2 of the spots! Apparently, the video will be posted on YouTube, so I'll put it up here on the blog once it becomes available. 
• Aside from that, the entire weekend has been spent packing up the apartment in preparation for the move tomorrow. I have way more stuff that I probably should. Most of it is books, which for the life of me, I just can't seem to give away.
• Happily, we did manage to make a few social occasions this weekend. The first was a BBQ at Scarlet's parents' place. Words can't really capture how lovely it was to share that evening with my surrogate parents, Scarlet, and Constellation. The next day, Scarlet and Constellation were heading off to Portugal to begin a 5 week tour of Europe. Saying goodbye at the end of the evening was one of those surreal moments that we always knew would happen but never wanted to acknowledge. It'll be a few months until I see Scarlet again but distance doesn't matter to friends- and I have a very good track record with long distance relationships! Ha! That didn't stop me from bawling most of the 2 hour drive home from the BBQ, having just said goodbye to one of my closest and dearest friends.
• The next morning, we took Mom out for a birthday brunch at the Pillar and Post in Niagara on the Lake. It was really quite lovely and we were all delighted to eat real food rather than yet another meal of crackers and jam (since that's all that's left in apartment)! They practically had to roll us out the door after brunch, we were sooo full.
• Mom left last night and Penguin and I have been plowing through the rest of the packing. The Green Machine came down from Steel City to help and, true to her name, made a serious dent in the workload. Fortunately, I didn't have to tender another tearful goodbye to her since she'll be in The North Land for my hometown goodbye party. A few others close friends dropped by as well, though, and it was hard to watch them all leave at the end of the night. Le grande sniff.

• Recipe I've Been Drooling Over
• Check out this Roasted Crepe Cake by The Three Cheeses. YUM!

• Favourite Thing on Etsy this Week
• I love love love these edible cupcake toppers! Such a brilliant idea!

• What I'm Reading Right Now
• After the move, I'm going to start biting into my summer reading. I've got a list of books I want to devour. Most notably:
• Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant by Adler Ferrani
• Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters! by JD Salinger
• The Waterproof Bible by Andrew Kaufman
• Do you have any suggestions for summer reading for me?

• TED Talk I Watched This Week
• Lying in bed yesterday morning waiting for the others to awaken, I watched this great talk about chronic pain by Elliot Krane.

• Song of the Week
• Interpol and Modest Mouse are my primary packing-up-the-apartment artists; here's Interpol's Pace is the Trick:

• Thing I'm Most Grateful for This Week
• Everyone who supported, helped, carried, fed, and pulled me through medical school. I couldn't have done it without you. Thank you.
• The love and help of my family and friends in getting the apartment packed up. 

• Thing I'm Most Looking Forward to This Week
•  Getting the move done so I can concentrate 100% on our trip through Algonquin! 10 days to go!

• Bunny Photo of the Week
• Jazz had her follow up appointment post-surgery at the vet's on Saturday. The news wasn't good. Her acquired malocclusion, while trimmed back, is likely to regrow and will need surgery again in about 6 months. And probably every 6 months thereafter. That would make her vet bills $2600 a year! In addition, she'll need to stay on antibiotics for life to deal with her chronic bilateral otitis media and nasalacrimal duct infections.
• The vet said that the "prognosis was poor" even if these interventions are carried out.
• Needless to say, this news was rather devastating. Despite her ailments, Jazz remains a spritely happy bunny who is eating well, running around, causing mischief, and generally seems unaffected by her symptoms.
• I'm going to go ahead and take both her and Hoyle with me to Winnipeg and get a second opinion from their new vet there. Fingers crossed for better news in the future.
• Here's the buns in their box at the vet's waiting for the doctor to come in...