Snow day!

Yes, I'm posting on my blog at 11:30pm on a Friday night. Yes, I'm not even sure if anyone reads this. However, I have an excellent excuse to be staying in (besides the fact that people are anxiously awaiting my next post).... it's snowing! The way this "winter" (65F last week!) was going I was worried that it would never get here! And now it's snowing and I can blame my laziness on the weather. Horray!

I spent the night catching up on emails. The below post was edited shamelessly from an email I wrote to a good friend a few minutes ago. :)

I've been dating a guy from our med school for 6 months now. I really hesitated to date him because I was so concerned that I would hurt another guy after Jarek and because dating colleagues can't be a good idea. That said, it really has been going well. I think that I treated it the complete opposite way that I treated my past relationship and took things very light-heartedly. Def no wed planning a few months in! I haven't talked about him in my blog because I didn't want to jinx things and because I didn't want to admit to myself how well things were going. That said, despite all my efforts to keep things light-hearted, we've become a really great couple. Being an only child, I always thought that being with someone 24/7 (studying, cooking, same friends, etc) would be way too tough and that I would end up hating the other person. I guess I had to grow into it a bit or I just had to find someone that I wouldn't kill after a few days. He balances me really well- I'm always laughing and joking around. It feels great. :)

I've also never dated anyone with similar interests to me. I was worried that I would get really competitive or really intimidated but I haven't. Despite being together all day in school and living together at home, we have still managed to get along. We help each other with our work sometimes and really complement each other. I've finally learned how to have a better balance in my life- live and enjoy life, THEN study. :) I'm so jealous that guys have always been so much more low-key about studying and how much easier it seems to come to them! David is super smart and things come to him very easily. I was jealous for awhile and maybe even a little intimidated, but I got over it and now that we have moved on to biochem (my domain) things have evened out, at least in my mind. :)

One of my favorite things to do is cook with David. He worked as a chef for a few years during college and before returning to school. I've always been a decent cook and definitely very creative, but he has techniques that I never learned. Together we make *amazing* meals. I look forward to cooking all the time! It's such a treat to come home after studying to talk and cook. I guess it's my creative outlet. Lame. :)

Although I feel like I've never been happier, I realized that I may be ignoring/forgetting times of struggle and difficulty. One of the things that I have been struggling with is having an emotional outlet while in school. I didn't realize how lucky I was to live with so many of my close friends while at college. We spent so much time together during meals, study breaks, late night snacks, trips to the gym, watching the newest America's Next Top Model, and we always analyzed every little detail about our lives. It's really hard NOT to talk about your feelings when you are at an all-women's college! At school, everyone pretends that they don't do as much work as they do. Although everyone is really helpful and its a conducive environment to learning, even more than at Smith, it's still a competitive environment. I have tons of friends here and go out a lot but I don't feel like I can ever really open up to any of them and talk the way that I did to my friends at Smith. I feel like we all have to hide our insecurities from each other.

I guess I didn't realize how much I missed that part of my life and being able to do that until this week. I'm taking an elective course called "The Healer's Art" where we talk about things that don't quite get into the curriculum, like grieving, etc. One of our exercises was to visualize what part of us has been pushed back since starting school and draw a picture that represents it. Most people talked about things like keeping up with friends or hobbies like environmental activism. When I was asked to share, I ended up crying in front of a small group! I was so embarrassed and yet relieved at the same point. Although my first instinct was to run away, hide, and never come back, I think it was good for me to acknowledge that I'm not perfect and that I am human. I have to find a good way to have healthy releases without feeling guilty about having emotion. I feel another New Years Resolution coming on! :)