O-week, day one

First day of O-week! And man, was it long!!

We started with a nive breakfast with our small "Transition Teams," or T-teams, as we call them. There are twelve of them, with about 9 students each. Each T-team has three or four MS2's to guide us, answer our questions, etc.

After breakfast we were rather mysteriously told to line up single file and we then entered the main lecture hall. As we started to move inside, we were greeted by a thunderous standing ovation from the staff, deans, department chairs, and as many MS2-4's as could make it today. It sounds rather corny, but our "clap-in" was actually really, really cool and a totally moving experience. Apparently when the MS2's finish their classroom work this spring, we will clap them out. It's a fun tradition -- I like it!

We were welcomed to the school by what seemed like God and everybody (today's theme was welcome) and we talked a lot about professionalism, which sounds dry but was livened up by a funny little skit-type thing and some great speakers.

At the end of the long day, we got our O-week T-shirts, a gift bag from the alumni association, and our facebooks. I appreciate corny humor, and so I thought the T-shirts were great. Our unofficial school motto (though usually applied to the undergrad portion) is "where fun goes to die." Our med school motto is apparently now "where fun comes to be resuscitated." There's even a fabulous little logo underneath that is a VF/VT rhythm that feeds into the words "class of 2010" and comes out in NSR. I thought that was an especially nice touch even if I'm probably one of the only ones in the class who can really appreciate it at the moment.

We got an hour to run home and change (since it was professionalism day we had to dress professionally) and then we went to a BBQ with our T-teams that was hosted at a MS2's house (there were several different ones, of course). Afterwards we met back up at the school and took buses to an excellent bar called North Beach. There was indoor sand volleyball, basketball, pool, air hockey, foosball, darts, an ice cream sundae bar, and it was really a blast. I taught some of my new friends how to play cricket. I lost. But it was still a most excellent time.

We've got to be back to school in less than seven hours, so it's probably time to call it a night. :)