September 4, 2007: i will officially start med school one day before my 30th birthday.

i would be lying if i claimed i wasn’t a little disappointed to be starting later than earlier. but after a couple of emails with the ever-patient and ever-accommodating director of admissions at MUA, i have decided to remove my name from the May ’07 waitlist. apparently there has been such little movement on the May roster that no one has been bumped up from the waitlist yet. and if anyone is, it will likely be on very short notice.

for a move like this, anything less than a month is too short on notice for me.

i wasn’t always this old and set in my ways. the first time i left the country was at the tender age of 18 and with much less than a month’s notice. one day i just decided i wanted to see Japan. my family has never had a lot of money and i figured landing a volunteer position that covered my room-and-board would be the only way. nowadays you have to pay for the privilege of lending your work for free to a volunteer organization overseas. back then, i lucked out. my dad offered to foot the bill for my $1400 plane ticket and i applied for my very first passport.

i landed in Narita airport mid-1996, just about three weeks after the initial decision was made. and i was dumbfounded. i’m pretty sure my innocent ignorance was the main reason the trip was successful. if i had had any inkling of the cultural and language craziness i was getting into, it might not have ever happened. i was a small-town girl from Saskatchewan who had never even seen sushi.

what did i leave behind back then? well… i was living in Red Deer, AB with tina at the time. so i would have left behind a mattress on the floor, a job as a waitress in a local bar, a rollerblading boyfriend (that sent me lengthy love letters and mixed tapes with Canadian flags on them), and a very stalled academic path that had no idea which way it was wandering.

since then, i have worked/volunteered in England, France, and Scotland. and each time i leave, my preparations seem to get lengthier and more complicated. as i sort out storage options for furniture and “stuff” in my current house, i miss the mattress on the floor. i miss the pick-up-and-leave-it-all-behind youthful attitude.

what am i leaving behind now? well… i am living in Prince George, BC right now with my mom and my sister. so i will be leaving a small roomful of aforementioned furniture and “stuff”, a great dog, an independent boyfriend (that will hopefully send me lengthy emails, ichats, and itunes playlists), and a restless spirit.

i think that last one is wishful thinking. no matter how far or often i travel, i never seem to be able to leave that restless spirit behind. in fact, it’s making the next four months look a little intimidating…

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