February 22-28

This week was the beginning of my marathon study sessions for the upcoming National Board Exams Part 1 for optometry school. The exam is March 16-17th, and this week I started the goal of studying every day until the exams. Monday afternoon I had to go grocery shopping at Kroger to stock up on basics. We try to eat relatively healthy, but we also don’t have a lot of time, so we do a lot of one-pan dinners and microwave meals for lunches. So my shopping list frequently includes fruits, veggies, snacks, and lots of things from the freezer section. Tuesday was my usual clinic day, but since the schedule was really light, I spent a lot of time studying for the Low Vision exam I had on Wednesday. The studying continued Tuesday night, and the exam went well on Wednesday. Wednesday night I went to a guest speaker for the Private Practice Club, where they served Fazoli’s lasagna for dinner. After studying boards on Thursday and Friday afternoons, I decided to take a break from studying with Nick to go out to dinner at Outback Steakhouse with Candice Olund, Thai Yue, Josh and Lezlie Jones. I was excited to order one of their famous Bloomin’ Onions for an appetizer. After dinner we went to the movie “Cop Out” with Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan. It was funny, but not one of my favorites. Saturday and Sunday Lezlie and I decided to leave our apartments and go to the main Herman B. Wells Library to study. Armed with gummi bears and diet Pepsi, we managed to make quite a bit of progress studying. Nick spent the weekend relaxing and playing video games with Josh. On Sunday, they went to the movie “The Crazies,” which was set in Iowa. Another exciting happening of the week was hearing about the renovations my parents are doing at their house. They have knocked down a wall to expand the living room, ripped out the carpet and ordered new, and repainted all the walls. Mom’s been sending me pictures to keep me updated on the progress, and I can’t wait to see it in person when we visit this summer.