Flood Mud, The Tram, 37' Cultivator

Spent the last week at the farm, where Gunther spent his time deliberately running through the muck left over from the snow-melt floods (he stinks). Travie and I logged a lot of hours on the Xbox. I suck at Halo. I mean, really. Bad.

My all-time favorite breakfast place, Glo's (Seattle), has been usurped by Petite Provence (SE PDX). Sorry, Glo, but it's no contest. The baked goods are works of art. I wanted to buy an assortment of the gorgeous artisan breads, shellack them and hang them on my kitchen wall. Amazing. The Eggs Provencal tasted like a forkful of summer. Dan said, "You can get good breakfast anywhere. This is the only breakfast place that challenges my palate." Oh, does it ever.

This brings me to the reason for my trip South: my 11th hour interview at OHSU. This is the last week of interviews, with final verdicts rendered by May 15. Considering that I'm committed to leave Seattle for Western U about May 25, we're cuttin' it a little close. Actually, after March 1st passed, I never expected to get a call from OHSU--or anyone else.

To reiterate, I'm perfectly content to go to Western U, and changing that plan would not be simple. It would involve the breaking of contracts and nonrefundable thousands. Moreover, OHSU's admissions presentation did not compel me to believe that their program is actually better. I almost felt that the interview day was treated as an afterthought: "Oh, we have prospective students coming today? Jeez, we better put something together." There was no lecture about curriculum, financial aid or stats about board exam pass rates or 1st choice residency matches. After breaking down the residency match list, it bears significant resemblance to Western's. Then they fed us pizza--I swear schools must take pleasure in feeding us stuff that would easily smear our shirts. Oh, and it was FULL of garlic. Very tasty, but very nerve-wracking, since I still had an interview to go to, and no Eclipse gum to be found anywhere. The boxes didn't have a company name on them, either, like Hot Lips. They just said, "pizza". I called it TV Pizza.

All that being said, it was easy to be seduced by the environment. I mean, it's massive. Mouth-hangingly massive. And beautiful. Everything is shiny and new. It's busy, like Grand Central Station-busy, and that gives everything an air of importance. It was unseasonably beautiful and warm that day, so the views were outstanding, making for a lovely Tram ride--what Dr. Wolff refers to as "our Space Needle", though I wasn't able to buy a $60 steak on the Tram.

It was a long day, with lots of down time. At 8a, admissions spent about 15 minutes talking to us, then turned us loose. I didn't have an interview until 10a, which I enjoyed, and lasted at least an hour. Then pizza at 12p with some students (which turned out to only be 1 student). Afterwards we had our tour, and I had 2 hours to kill until my 3:30p interview. All warm and fed, I damn near fell asleep in the waiting room at the Sleep Disorder Clinic. The only thing that kept me awake was Muse on my ipod and the (irrational?) fear of drooling all over myself before the interview.

The bottom line is this: echoing the words of Dr. Grimm, D.O., "Relax. You don't have a problem. This is a problem people wish they had. If you like OHSU, go there. If you don't, go to Western. It's simple. Either way, you're going to get a good education and be successful." Dr. Wolff agreed. He also referred to the new "Health & Healing" building as the "clinic of wealth and stealing". Then we went to dinner at my favorite Caribbean/Fusion place in SW PDX, Salvadore Molly's. I enjoyed the pulled Kahlua pork tacos.

IF they send me an offer, I will give it due diligence and consider it as fairly as I did all of the other offers that came my way. But I will tell you, they did not compel me. You know what does compel me? That everyone rides their bike all the time. That. Would be awesome.

Otherwise, I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to the farm, taking in the space and the quiet while I still can. It may have been my last trip before moving to CA. There is still a small part of me that likes farming, I realized, as I found myself marveling at the new 37' cultivator--at least there's something I can do if I flunk out of medical college. It does the same amount of work as the old cultivator almost 3x faster. That's Nebraska sized!