1 Year Out

This week marks 1 week out from PA school. To reflect a bit, as I've been feeling a bit run down lately, I was going to recap the whole career progression, as I've found that career stress, sending, and social life are all intimately intertwined.

A year ago I graduate from CU's 3 year PA program psyched on going into orthopedics and sports medicine, I'd done nearly all of my elective rotations in ortho and enjoyed them all. But meanwhile, building throughout PA school were 2 opposing/conflicting tides, one was this thought that I wanted to go on to become an MD, i.e. do residency and specialize, and two that I'm an intellectual dork and something like internal medicine or emergency medicine would provide the intellectual stimulus and variety more than ortho. But, being as life is that you start one thing and it's best to see things through on occasion, I finished PA school planning to go into ortho.

I had 3 job offers within a month of passing my boards and almost moved to Cali. The summer was a bit of a mess, no job, no money, I was injured, had called off my S. Africa gradation trip so I started work in August at an ortho group outside Boulder. The group seemed a good fit in the interview but as it turned out there was no availablity of mentoring for me, a new grad, and I was left boarded and frustarated and undertrained working way too many hours, climbing like poop and wishing I was in residency getting the training I really wanted and making use of my time.

I left that job, sent a boulder problem, and then started a job in Community Health. Communty health is under-served work; no insurance, poor health, at least 50% spanish speaking, family medicine/urgent care. This was not my focus in PA school but I figured it could provide a strong basis for any other job and it may help pay off my loans and get me to where ever I want to be next without the burden of debt. As it turns out I'm working tones of hour at this job too, still climbing like poo but I am intellectually stimulated.

I've made arrangement to go to S. Africa to do my graduation present a year late. I'm psyched for this but just hope I can find the time and energy to train for this.

I laughed at myself yesterday as I stepped onto the scale in my room. 172lbs before the run 169 after the morning jog. 1 year ago I was at almost the exact same weight, shooting for the exact same goal, 165 and crushing v10's, and on my way to Rocklands.

As for the MD question, time will tell. I have research questions I'd like to pursue and I like the idea of being a sports medicine doctor but going back to repeat the same courses for 3 years is a tough pill to swallow. Taking the MCATs again (I took and crushed them 8/2000 and for various reasons never fully when down that path) is an even tougher pill to swallow.

So, if you see me staring off lost in muddled introspection that may be my inner discourse, quality of life questions, PA with less comitment or MD with bigger loans and bigger hurdles.

Weathered Defiance

Al Lew giving a go on Koyaanisqatsi (v11) near Castle Rock in Boulder Canyon. I've checked this problem out and seems do-able but a more pervasive issue has blocked my radiation

The intention and belief,

I am light

fragmented light

in instances coming together

between the trees
Lauren Wilson (http://laurenhillwilson.blogspot.com/) getting her first taste of the Cowboy sandstone of Joes Valley. Someone help me defend my "cute" GTI. "My ride, my ride, our relationship is classified" --Andre Nicotina... maybe she has a point.

We skirted around the sun's fiery intent using the new guide book http://www.joesvalleyguidebook.com/ which helped keep the psych up cause temps were hot and I'd blown my tip out on the first warm up of the trip and had to get out the glue and tape, we needed new material, the old project were not going to fall, not this trip, not in these conditions, not shackled with an ailing adrenal gland.

Big moves in Joe's. Lauren learns that big move bouldering in the Spot can pay off, next season.

So feeling weathered and raw and short a stove we went to the local saloon and met with the locals. Two guys told us about the recent mining history in the area. Turns out that the mine in Huntington Canyon had a collapse in 2007 that killed some of these guys' friends and registered on the richter scale many miles away (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crandall_Canyon_Mine). According to these guys, this mine supplies energy to Nevada, Utah, and SoCal. If you've had your ear to the floor, you may have hear of bouldering development happening in Huntington.

They also say that the mine/refinery that we pass as we turn off for Joe's, the one on the right as you turn left for Joe's, in one of the worst around, i.e. it's mostly run by illegal immigrants that dont speak english and in the case that the whole place is going to blow up, which is a risk you swallow when you work in these sorts of places, you cant even communicate the urgency your co-worker. That and the safety checks and part updates, all of which these guys we're chatting with know in great detail, all are poorly kept. They say that a good majority of the towns population works in the these two mines or the one near new Joe's. Most of the immigrants that work the smaller refinery do not live in Castledale or Orangeville, they live in a town out east into away from town where there's only one cop and a lot of trailer homes.

The mine out near New Joe's collapsed a couple years back and killed another friend of the guy I'm chatting with. He says these lands make you hard. Says that the guy from Aspen who cut his arm off and is now the star of a movie came to the local high school, the one in Castledale, the closest high school to where the man lost his arm (he was hiking in the San Rafael Swell which can be accessed by a dirt road not far from the pizza shop in Castledale), and was booed off stage 'cause the public in middle-of-nowhere Utah thought this guy was a fool for getting lost, not a hero of any sort.

The wind picked up that night and it got cold and damp. Something big wobbled through camp that night and brushed our tents and left with less bluster than the canyon's vast dark howl.