One Week to Go!

Took a trip to Kingston today, along with my younger sister Kristin. The goal was to spend some time together before she goes to school, and show her my new school, Queen’s! Having only been there twice before myself, though, we were exploring together.   It was a good opportunity to hit up the bookstore. I drooled over the medical textbooks (which take up an entire wall!!) but was very disciplined to only buy a few. The recommendation from previous students has been to wait for classes to begin before making any big textbook purchases. But when there’s one on sale, well, I just couldn’t help myself. Kristin also bought this mug for me as a welcome-to-Queen’s gift!

Grabbed the ferry out to Wolfe Island – it’s free! It was a nice way to see the Kingston waterfront, as well as Fort Henry from the water. Actually, as our ferry was going past it seemed like there were some cannons being fired from the fort. Not sure why.

We also peeked into the lecture hall that will become my new home starting from next week, and perused the walls where portraits of the previous med classes are hanging. The older class photos tell stories of overcoming inequality: you can pick out which years were the first to have women in the class, and also non-whites. The photos also show a shift in how we respect the cadavers. Seems like it was a tradition for the students to pose with their cadavers, in this case infants:

Today that tradition is rightfully seen as disrespectful to the people who donated their bodies. 

Well, it was a beautiful day in Kingston, and a great chance to get excited about starting classes a week from tomorrow!

Kristin and I get a little crazy when we hang out together: