Almost Done!

Today I have a bit of down time before heading off to work. Melissa, on the other hand, is as busy as ever. Today she is practicing for an upcoming practical, attending class, then heading strait to work. And she’s doing all this one handed! This past Tuesday Melissa went into surgery to have her tendonitis taken care of. The entire procedure only took a matter of minutes but the wait before and after the surgery took forever. We must have waited three hours before she was wheeled off to the surgery suite.

On a lighter note, we have gotten our tickets sorted and we are officially one step closer to Australia. Melissa is so excited she can hardly stand it. I, on the other hand, am a bit more nervous now that we are less than two months away. That’s standard for me really. I just worry about finances, living arrangements and all the little details that surround moving to a foreign country. I am far more excited than nervous, but every once and awhile those thoughts sneak in.

This weekend is Easter weekend so Melissa and I are planning on a quick trip to Bend for one last taste of some of the best BBQ to ever grace Oregon, or the Pacific Northwest for that matter. The only place that could come close would maybe be Pig Feathers out near the coast. Back Porch BBQ in Jacksonville runs a very close second.

That’s about it for this week. We will be sure to give you an update after Melissa goes back in for her follow up appointment. I also have a very informative story about international apartments that I will have to save for another day.

Thanks for stopping by, we both appreciate the support and we hope to see you all soon.

Nothing but love!

Let the Countdown Commence!

Well, we can officially say that our VERY LAST TERM at OIT has gotten in to full swing, and the immense to-do list has quickly become an overwhelming force to be reckoned with.

It was a difficult start as “broke” seemed to be the word of the month.  First our internet broke (hence a bit of a delay between our last few posts), then a visit to my hand surgeon led to a surgery appointment for my broken wrist (trying to get rid of a lesion on a tendon), after that my little ‘ol trooper of a car broke (transfer box went out – yipes!) then we had to purchase our many tickets to get us to our final destination Adelaide, which on top of previous mentioned repairs left our wallets broke! 

All in all though, we are recovering – we are making do with internet, I get my wrist taken care of next week, my car just went in for repairs, and at least a bit of stress has been relieved by knowing our seats are secured on a few planes.

School in itself is a bit helter-skelter.  Chad and I have been stoked to get in to the Cadaver Lab course, and on Monday we made our first dissections of the abdomen and pelvis. By the end of the day we had formaldehyde migraines and it took hours of hand-washing to remove the latex-formalin smell from our fingers, but the fascinating first-hand education of the human body cannot be traded for!

We are also getting our taste of Cardiac Interventional Technology (Cath-Lab), CT, and for me Mammography; for Chad Quality Assurance.  All topics which present their own interesting challenges of memory and recall, and incredibly impossible concepts of Fourier transformation and image reconstruction algorithms created by some mathematical geniuses whose intelligence in incomprehensible.  If nothing else, however, it is at least reaffirming some desires of what we might – or might not – want to pursue in the field.

On the front of our big “move”, we have been trying to balance the packing and cleaning, with studying, and trying to avoid letting the rest of the world know that we feel like chickens running around with our heads cut off.  It is hard to explain the laundry-list of things we keep building in our heads “sort through the things we want to get rid of, figure out what we’re going to do with the stuff we don’t want to sell, find out how to ship anything we might need, where are we going to stay, how to pack everything, where to put it all in the meantime….” I could go on and on, but my heart is already starting to race!

We have 60 days left before we leave Klamath, and a mere 67 before we depart our beloved “States” for our beloved Australia. With the intermittent snow we’ve been getting, I have to say that if it weren’t for our staggering  to-do’s, those 60 days couldn’t pass fast enough!

Where's the "sprung?"

As Spring Break comes to an end, I have to say that we are still waiting for that “sprung” they talk about.  The whole week has been interspersed with ravaging snow blizzards and cold downpours.  I am beginning to think that this weather will last until we hop that plane to the Southern hemisphere – only to arrive as they head into their Winter season!!  Jokes on us, I guess, with our winter lasting twice as long!!  I keep reminding myself that at least in Adelaide, we can pass the winter watching waves lap up on the damp sand, and watch the penguins waddle up the shore each night…. OK, ok, maybe the “penguin march” occurs a little further east, but a girl can dream, can’t she?!

Chad and I were able to escape for a couple days and wander up to the bigger cities of Eugene, and Bend.  It’s always delightful to experience traffic, and good food, and driving faster than 45 mph.  I also got treated to a REAL haircut which was an amazing change! Haven’t had such nice haircuts since I was living in Utah and my sister’s friend Lindsey was in the business!!  Chad also loved it, because we were able to indulge in the best donuts of all Oregon – possibly the US, but we still have more to try before that claim can be made – Voodoo donuts!  They make some concoction with chocolate frosting, rice crispies, and penut butter drizzle that makes him drool ever time.  To be honest, I think he gets so excited that he doesn’t even taste the thing as he inhales it! I prefer the stakes and the voodoo men myself.  No matter what your tastes though, if you haven’t had one of their treats – you haven’t experienced Oregon!!

Anyhow, after the donuts, some amazing sushi, fabulous crepes, and a bit of to-die-for Baldy’s BBQ, we fought the inevitable return to town.  It made it worth it when we were greeted with a “your VISA has been granted” email the next morning!

The days since have been filled with lapping in the laziness we are only allowed until Monday, and trying to get them momentum going on the packing and cleaning for the HUGE move in our future. Now that we have every official document we legally need to enjoy our year abroad, we’re trying to secure some airfare and narrow down our belongings.  We have a big yard sale coming up in May, and we want to be ready with every single thing anyone could possibly hope to find for their own home!!  Maybe that’s exaggerating a bit, but you can bet your cupcakes (which will also be at the garage sale!) that it’s going to be a good one!!

Now, if we could only find our school gear for tomorrow amongst all these boxes…

And... We're Off!

Ready, Set…GO!!  That’s how it feels now that we have met with our Program Director.  Although we knew Australia had officially signed the contract, we were trying to reserve our excitement until we had confirmation that OIT had also signed the contract and made everything all hunky-dory and “legal” and stuff.  And so it happened yesterday that we heard the words we have been waiting 3 years for:  “It’s a done deal.  You’re going to Australia!”  Now the mayhem really begins. 

We are a mere weekend away from Finals – which means our weekend will be spent holed up in the living room with our books and nitelites as we stay up till odd hours trying to force feed every last bit of knowledge into our bloated little brains.  On top of this, we have been scrambling to dot the I’s and cross the T’s on our Visa applications.  Then, on top of THIS, we have been trying to guage airline prices, consider storage options, and wrap our little minds around financing for our foreign escapade.   With elating news, nerves and stress have inevitably followed.  And with finals butting their way into the mix… geesh.

So, while visions of Adelaide, K-space, fourier transformations, Six Sigma, Pathological Indicators, and fresh fish and chips on the beach of the South Sea compete for attention in our minds this weekend, do a little happy dance for us (like my sister did!) and maybe we’ll get around to Spring Break eventually!

Great News

Melissa and I have great news. After checking and re-checking things with the school and with our Australian Hospital, after waiting and wondering for months on end, we finally have an approved, signed contract! Let me say that again, we have received the approved contract from our Australian hosts! It would seem that things have finally begun to come together. Melissa and I hope to hit the send button on our visa applications this week and, with any luck, we will have those before June. We still have a lot to do but having that contract arrive was a big weight off of us.

Next week begins “dead week” here on campus which means finals are right around the corner. This term has flown by. We hope you all are enjoying the fleeting winter months and we appreciate you keeping up with us.

Check back soon to see our next developments -