How I Got a Life : The Best Weekend Ever

I was telling my resident last Friday that I abhor the weekends because they are so boring compared to my week in the Psych ward. JM, the PA student, looked over at me with this expression that screamed, "dude, you need to get a life." So this weekend I tried; with a great deal of help from my friends. On Saturday, I took a city bus to Lighthouse point with two girls from med school. We just sat and roasted ourselves on the beach for a few hours looking out to sea. Note that I no longer look pasty white as I will come winter. Also note my recent purchase of a Colorado-cowgirl hat. I think it makes me look rugged ... or at least, thats the look I'm going for. It certainly triggers much commentary from random strangers ... most people assume I'm a recent immigrant from Texas. After the beach, Tarka and I bummed around town for several hours -- we acquired matching Swiss Army knives [better not to ask why I bought mine], sat on the steps of the Music school laughing at the parade of Indian families that drove by looking desparately lost [must have been some function or another going on nearby], and then we ended the day with an attempt to break into the Physics building. We managed to get into the Molecular Bio building. ... and from there, we took the underground tunnel into Cell bio and then Astronomy ... but no Physics. We stopped when we discovered a door with a Radioactive warning label. We decided then that we had had enough adventure for the day and turned back.

I spent most of Sunday buried in Paul Coelho's new novel "the Zahir." Zahir, in Arabic, means visible, present, incapable of going unnoticed. According to the Encyclopedia of the Fantastic [Faubourg Saint-Peres], "it means someone or something which, once we have come into contact with them or it, gradually occupies our every thought, until we can think of nothing else. This can be considered a state of holiness or of madness."

I was mulling over this thought when Maggie called, and when Maggie calls, that means there is always good mischief to be done. This time we went out to the Rice pot [a new Thai restaurant on State street -- perhaps the best Thai food I've discovered in New Haven!] followed by a movie -- the Pirates of the Caribbean sequal. It was simply delightful to spend the entire weekend bumming around with my gals. Oh man, who knew that Medical School could be so ridiculously enjoyable!