I know I know I feel HORRIBLE because it's been so long since I've done anything. You can't hold it against me though!!! We've had finals around here and this is my first week off since and up until now, I've been up to my eyeballs in studying. So rest assured, this will be a very long blog updating you on everything up until now. So, if you've got the time, hang out and read, if not, I'm insulted, make the time. Haha just kidding. But seriously, just a little heads up, this blog is going to be a lot, probably all over the place because well, that's me. haha.
So, obviously to start off, the end of the semester came so fast, and finals went by even faster. I wrapped up my 6th clinical rotation at Mass General, only two more to go!!! I'm going to miss my team that I worked with SO much it makes me really sad. I'm so happy I got to even work with them, they were all such fun, upbeat people that it made work something I looked forward to every day. I will run into them around the department as I go back in the spring to finish up my rotations. So with clinical out of the way, I had time to focus in studying for my Clinical Class final exam, Radiology's 4th exam and then the final, and Oncology/Pathology's final exam as well. I am very glad to report I did extremely well with all of those exams, and careful to point out that I did study A LOT but it feels good to have it pay off :) I walked out of the semester with making the Dean's List, and on record my best semester yet at Suffolk. Nice way to close out the college career if you ask me. Something that was very interesting was the Mock Exam that we took in my Clinical Class. My professor/advisor Gina, made a mock examination of the Boards which we will all have to take when we graduate to get our RTT License, and she did so by compiling a bunch of exam format questions. So we sat down, took them in the physics lab on the computers,(space was limited on campus), and sat for the real time it would be given in, as if we were really taking the exam. Boy was that a real eye opener. We got our scores on the computer when we finished the exam and I didn't do as well as I thought or would have liked, but, I didn't do horribly. It was a real learning experience for sure to be able to see what it's going to be like to actually sit for the exam. Of course at the real time I do it, I'm going to be having an anxiety attack, palms sweating, fidgeting and flipping out all at once, but it's expected haha. What kind of stunk was that while I was taking this exam, I got 103 questions into it (there were 145...) and my program froze that I was on, and I had to start ALL OVER AGAIN!!! Ughh!! I know!! Not fun, but oh well. Stuff happens.
The holidays are here and what a relief. I have been looking forward to the holidays for a few months now and as much as I love the buildup, seeing the malls decorated, hearing Christmas music on the radio and such, having a tight budget to begin with, you can imagine how buying Christmas presents for the family is stressful. It will be nice though, despite the deflated wallet. It is one of the only times of the year that my family is all together under one roof. My relatives fly in and come to my house in Dover for Christmas Day, but in regards to my immediate family, that is the hardest to gather in one house. Having one sister living in Washington D.C. and the other living in Hoboken,NJ/working in Manhattan, you can imagine that I rarely ever get to see them. With my parents still living at the house I grew up in back in Dover, it is nice to be able to easily shoot out in a 40 min car ride and be home. This year, my Dad will be able to be with the family on Christmas. With him being a Pilot, you can imagine his schedule is pretty tedious and at times inconvenient. Last year he was returning from his week long rotation ON Christmas. His flight didn't get in until late Christmas Night.... so you can imagine that when I heard that he is off on Christmas day and will be able to be home, I was ecstatic. As much as my family can make me go crazy, I still love them and am very excited to be able to have everyone home for the holidays. As far as how Christmas is run at the Pignatelli Household, here is a little rundown. Christmas morning, after waking up to the smell of bacon wrapped scallops (for someone who doesn't eat seafood, it's oddly a comforting smell), once my parents, sisters and I are all up, and we can manage to tear my mother away from cooking for a few minutes, we all go in the living room by the Christmas Tree, divvy up the gifts, and unwrap. Now here, we only unwrap the gifts from each other, the immediate family. We leave the rest for later on when the relatives come. After the gift reveals, my sisters and I usually battle it out for who gets to shower in the bathroom first, because that usually means the other two have to help set the table/set up for when people come over. After getting showered and dressed; usually a pretty casual attire Christmas, we help my mom with the rest of the cooking or whatever else needs to be done. I usually stay away from the kitchen for the better of the rest of the family. I would say my skills are a little rusty but that would imply that I once cooked well, which who are we kidding, I just don't really cook.
The fam usually comes by around 1. I have no idea why but 1 o'clock is always the universal time of when to go over on holidays. Weird. So they come over at 1. Say hello's, how are you's, etc. etc. Pick at some appetizers. Hang out and do anything really. We always have a very early "dinner" as do most, but ours always feels just a bit too early. We eat around 2:30ish, sit around the table for a bit afterwards, chatting it up. During this time, and any other time to follow, it is not uncommon to witness or be involved in a very heated debate/conversation. As my family is a very talkative, opinionated, and expressively loud family (otherwise known as Italian). Not to be intimidated though, the conversations aren't usually meant to hurt feelings, we just like to get very involved. Haha. It's fun I promise. After food, and the table is cleared, we hang around for a little longer, later on in the evening around 6 or 7ish, I would say is the time we open presents with everyone back in the living room by the Christmas tree. I love this because I usually sit close to the fireplace because I love a wood burning fire. It is the 1 time of year we actually use our fireplace because we never really use this room for anything else. After gift exchanges, which is always fun, we go back into the kitchen and set up for desert on the table. That is a whole other show in itself, as you can imagine the abundance of deserts from Mike's Pastry's (on Hanover St in the North End... we do it up right :) heheh ) and also my aunt's famous home made Tiramisu yum!! And coffee, always plenty of coffee. After deserts, some people clear from the table to go downstairs and plop onto the couch in a food induced coma and watch tv and some people, usually a good amount, stick around for the best part of Christmas. My family, declares a Battle Royale, over Trivial Pursuit. Every man for himself, well actually we use teams because there's usually too many of us but you get the picture. This is where the most heated battles get started as the sheer competitiveness is at it's peak. It is my favorite time of the entire day. While it may not be for the better, I am usually one of the loudest at the table. After games, the night usually winds down and people find their way home and Christmas is declared over. I know, I'm tired just typing it all out, try experiencing it. This year, my boyfriend is coming over to meet the rest of my family, I hope he still likes me when it's over with hahah. Just kidding, I'm very excited about it.
The holidays are here and what a relief. I have been looking forward to the holidays for a few months now and as much as I love the buildup, seeing the malls decorated, hearing Christmas music on the radio and such, having a tight budget to begin with, you can imagine how buying Christmas presents for the family is stressful. It will be nice though, despite the deflated wallet. It is one of the only times of the year that my family is all together under one roof. My relatives fly in and come to my house in Dover for Christmas Day, but in regards to my immediate family, that is the hardest to gather in one house. Having one sister living in Washington D.C. and the other living in Hoboken,NJ/working in Manhattan, you can imagine that I rarely ever get to see them. With my parents still living at the house I grew up in back in Dover, it is nice to be able to easily shoot out in a 40 min car ride and be home. This year, my Dad will be able to be with the family on Christmas. With him being a Pilot, you can imagine his schedule is pretty tedious and at times inconvenient. Last year he was returning from his week long rotation ON Christmas. His flight didn't get in until late Christmas Night.... so you can imagine that when I heard that he is off on Christmas day and will be able to be home, I was ecstatic. As much as my family can make me go crazy, I still love them and am very excited to be able to have everyone home for the holidays. As far as how Christmas is run at the Pignatelli Household, here is a little rundown. Christmas morning, after waking up to the smell of bacon wrapped scallops (for someone who doesn't eat seafood, it's oddly a comforting smell), once my parents, sisters and I are all up, and we can manage to tear my mother away from cooking for a few minutes, we all go in the living room by the Christmas Tree, divvy up the gifts, and unwrap. Now here, we only unwrap the gifts from each other, the immediate family. We leave the rest for later on when the relatives come. After the gift reveals, my sisters and I usually battle it out for who gets to shower in the bathroom first, because that usually means the other two have to help set the table/set up for when people come over. After getting showered and dressed; usually a pretty casual attire Christmas, we help my mom with the rest of the cooking or whatever else needs to be done. I usually stay away from the kitchen for the better of the rest of the family. I would say my skills are a little rusty but that would imply that I once cooked well, which who are we kidding, I just don't really cook.
The fam usually comes by around 1. I have no idea why but 1 o'clock is always the universal time of when to go over on holidays. Weird. So they come over at 1. Say hello's, how are you's, etc. etc. Pick at some appetizers. Hang out and do anything really. We always have a very early "dinner" as do most, but ours always feels just a bit too early. We eat around 2:30ish, sit around the table for a bit afterwards, chatting it up. During this time, and any other time to follow, it is not uncommon to witness or be involved in a very heated debate/conversation. As my family is a very talkative, opinionated, and expressively loud family (otherwise known as Italian). Not to be intimidated though, the conversations aren't usually meant to hurt feelings, we just like to get very involved. Haha. It's fun I promise. After food, and the table is cleared, we hang around for a little longer, later on in the evening around 6 or 7ish, I would say is the time we open presents with everyone back in the living room by the Christmas tree. I love this because I usually sit close to the fireplace because I love a wood burning fire. It is the 1 time of year we actually use our fireplace because we never really use this room for anything else. After gift exchanges, which is always fun, we go back into the kitchen and set up for desert on the table. That is a whole other show in itself, as you can imagine the abundance of deserts from Mike's Pastry's (on Hanover St in the North End... we do it up right :) heheh ) and also my aunt's famous home made Tiramisu yum!! And coffee, always plenty of coffee. After deserts, some people clear from the table to go downstairs and plop onto the couch in a food induced coma and watch tv and some people, usually a good amount, stick around for the best part of Christmas. My family, declares a Battle Royale, over Trivial Pursuit. Every man for himself, well actually we use teams because there's usually too many of us but you get the picture. This is where the most heated battles get started as the sheer competitiveness is at it's peak. It is my favorite time of the entire day. While it may not be for the better, I am usually one of the loudest at the table. After games, the night usually winds down and people find their way home and Christmas is declared over. I know, I'm tired just typing it all out, try experiencing it. This year, my boyfriend is coming over to meet the rest of my family, I hope he still likes me when it's over with hahah. Just kidding, I'm very excited about it.
New years of course usually jumps up on you right after Christmas, you think to yourself you have a week to recover before doing the whole New Years celebration thing but it always feels like so much less. This year, I am happy to say that I will be going to a friends house with a group of my friends to celebrate. Last year, my boyfriend, and a large group of my other friends bought tickets to go to a bar for new years. It was very expensive but sounded like a great idea. Personally, we all felt it was over rated and a waste of money. And what a better time than now to try a more wallet friendly way of ringing in the new year? Especially since mine is still struggling. It will be really fun. She has made it into a semi-formal event. So girls will dress up (who doesn't like an excuse to dress up) and guys will wear dress wear with ties as well. Everyone is to bring a dish/food and it will be a very yummy/fun new years! I will try to take pictures to post up here for you guys but, well, I usually forget or am too lazy so either I will recruit a friend with my camera or steal some of my friends pics.
Oh yeah, I went to the annual holiday party for my boyfriends company two weekends ago and that was pretty fun. It was at the World Trade Center in Boston and it was beautiful inside! Really cool the way they set it up. The theme was Holidays in Boston (how appropriate) haha, and there were different stage areas set up that had scenery all around. It was really impressive to be honest.
Well, now that you've got the rundown on what has been going down the past few weeks, these next few weeks of vacation should be nice. I'm going to be working at the Admissions office a few days here and there, but otherwise will be enjoying my time off by actually being able to go to the gym, hang out at my apartment, and watch What Not To Wear on TLC with my roomie hahaha. Oh yeah, and I'm scheduled to get my wisdom teeth out on January 9th, RIGHT before I come back from break, that should be nice. I've needed to do it for a while now, but figured since this is my last "break" before I get a real job where I would have to take vacation time for it, this was the best time. I have a big issue with needles and the whole "anesthesia" thing but, i'll let you know how it does. I'm sure it will be comical, if not for me, then for at least you guys and anyone else.
Until next time...
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