Exams

As I sit in the wee morning hours in a freezing gym with about 100 high school students taking their science mid-term I think to myself that I should have been a doctor. I have a high tolerance for blood and gore and I have a LOT of opinions about the practice of medice, but as most things in life there are certain limitations.

To become a practicing physician at a hospital at this point would mean a dedication of about 12 years between having to take every science class under the sun to be considered as a possible applicant, moving to Guatemala for med school since it is the only place that will likely let me in, having to do course work, med school, residencies...I think for me that shipped has passed. Though, I recently did discuss it with Eliot and though he is enthusiastic and supportive of pretty much any another graduate degree (adding of course to the one that I already have that is oh so useful) and even some day a PHD, the med school option is off because we want to have babies soon. Sadly this is a concession I am willing to accept. Plus I think at the end of the day I would like to be a psychiatrist if I go that route and you add in another gabillion years for that specialty. Eh, and the thing is that I don't feel so bad about it. Not going to med school ended up being an okay choice, well in truth I never consider it much when I was younger. I was too...impetous or fickle maybe a better term.

I admire people that knew what they wanted to do at 18 and were able just to do it. I just did something because I was too lazy to do anything else and figured it would work itself out. It sort of did I suppose, and though I like teaching and Berkeley was a good find. Don't get me wrong. I like religion. It's still interesting to me but I would be just as happy baking cupcakes downtown and chatting with the local clientele. I know that I am good with teenagers perhaps because of my personal adolescent angst but that really means I could be an assortment of things when I grow up like a bus driver, rec center worker or manager of the GAP. I figure I will find many things to do through the years so I don't get too bored. For now I watch my students struggle over the complexity of honors chemistry and honors physics. They will probably grow up to be doctors.

Holiday Fun

This is our First Christmas Tree. It truly was a labor of love. We selected it and it took forever to get it to stand up straight. We had to go and get a new tree stand. Once we got it straight than we took a nap and finished the trimming the next day. It was fun to get all our stuff out and put our Christmas cheer together. We tried to listen to Christmas music but it was really bad and decided that Sunday football adds the same element of holiday fun as the Brighthouse music channels.

Oh the baking I have done. I found a great recipe for Pumpkin cheesecake and since I was going to three different celebrations I wanted to be sure to bring something to share. I love Thanksgiving and it is my very favorite of holidays because you get to eat and hangout with people you love. So I made my first cheesecake and took it over to the Rohrs dinner before they headed to NYC to check out the Macy's day parade. I had never used non flavored gelatin and I had some technical difficulties. The gelatin clumped up and after trying it two different ways, I ended using it, assuming it was the correct consistency. Well the pie looked great but the chunks of gelatin were still very much in there. It felt like pieces of glue that were in your mouths. Luckily, they are all super awesome and told me how great the cheesecake was and never mentioned the yuck of finding these pieces in there (ah! family.)

I found a different recipe and avoided the whole gelatin thing altogether. It was great. My family loved it. Eliot's family loved it. It was awesome. Then I decided that I wanted to make a treat for my nonsugar eaters. I found a recipe for cream cheese pound cake. I substituted the sugar for splenda. It was really easy. I threw the ingredients in the mixer for both but somehow they turned out a little differently. One really flourish wonderfully and they other didn't grow much at all. So I cut them both in half and gave two halves to my parents and two halves to Cuca and Dani. The taste was good.