Coming to the end of my Tulane career is definitely bittersweet. After five years in this city, I have definitely learned, seen, eaten, and experienced a lot. Luckily, I will get to be in the Big Easy for at least another year, however, I'm not quite sure what I'll be doing yet. Looking for a "real" job is definitely a new experience for me and many of my classmates, but I look forward to joining the "real world" while I apply to Med School. I'm sure that living the "student" life will be very much missed and much more appreciated after I take a break from it.
I feel like I have these huge tasks ahead of me, like completing my med school application and getting the ball rolling with the job search, but I think it's going to be a lot easier once I break these seemingly huge mountainous projects into much smaller, manageable pieces. I'm at a transition point right now where this is about to happen and I'm about to get some momentum and accomplish a LOT of things this coming May. I'm a little nervous, a little anxious, but very excited.
Too bad I live in a city without any relief from the stress, right??? I made it to a very wet, muddy Jazz Fest last weekend for a grand total of two hours, but had a wonderful time. I highly recommend going to anyone who has never been before. It's one of the few festivals that I know of where people don't decide to go based on the lineup of musical acts, but for the many other aspects: the food, the characters, the mud, the tradition. This year marks my 6th or 7th Jazz Fest, and I hope that I am able to attend many, many more. I met up with a family friend (and Tulane School of Medicine graduate!) at the festival who said it was his 30th consecutive Jazz Fest. This city leaves such a mark on its residents that no matter where I end up, I'll always have New Orleans to come back to, which is something that my parents and former New Orleans residents have been telling me for years. I've been here long enough and visited with them enough times to see that it's really true. People love coming back to New Orleans, and people especially love to live in New Orleans. Hopefully I will be one of those people for a very long time.
Something I really hope to keep up with as I enter the real world and get regular working hours is being able to volunteer at KIPP. Unfortunately, their hours conflict with regular working hours, but hopefully I will be able to work something out or take a day off every now and then to help out. Last Friday, the first graders took a trip to LSU in Baton Rouge, and I loved hearing all about it. Most of my little friends were very excited about visiting Mike the Tiger and had a very fun day. I will miss them very much over the summer but definitely plan on spending a lot of time with them as their school year comes to a close this May.
Total Hours for April: 10 hours
Total hours for the semester: 30 hours at KIPP
