The Interview Trail

Last week I had my last interview for residency.

Planning my itinerary. That half-sized white piece of paper was my life for 2 months.

It's been a wild adventure traveling city to city in a matter of days. The breakdown of my 2 months was as follows:

• 32 days
• 17 flights
• 15 cities, 15 interviews
• 14 Uber rides
• 12 happy hours
• 10 days of winter break
• 8 couches/bedrooms
• 4 AirBnB
• 3 formal dinners
• 2 hotels
• 1 suitcase

This was accompanied by countless friends and memories, revisited and new. Along the way, I lost track of how many faculty members I met (150+). The field of ENT is peculiar in the sense that the whole department pitches in for interviews rather than a select 4-5 attendings.

I never want to do this again.

So, I spent the last few days catching up on emails/life, watching terrible movies with Chad (it's a tradition -- I'm terrible at picking movies!), and trying to maintain the cleanliness of our apartment (wanna take bets?).

Here are tons of snapshots of my interview trail in no particular order. I made it a policy to turn off my phone until after interviews, so these are mostly in-between encounters. Most of these pictures were at the latter half because I had more time to catch up with friends from afar.

Airport: Took this pic to commemorate my interview gear (minus heels -- can't travel with those!) on my last leg home. I had 14 bobby pins in my hair. Also this was my suitcase on a good day.

Vanderbilt, TN: Struck gold with my AirBnB (I've had great experiences!) as this room gave me the best sleep in >10 days of travel exhaustion. Also had their famous craft beer, Yazoo, at the airport with fellow applicants to celebrate my last interview!

It was delicious! Flavor: Dos Peros

San Francisco, CA: Organic Mexican food, ramen (Katan-ya), milk tea in the coolest bottle, Smitten ice cream (the creamiest!), Chantal Guillon macarons, and holy cow the best egg custard tarts in the world fresh out of the oven -- all with two of my favorite people, Duo and Lingo! They also took me to Twitter, and I marveled at their dining area (of all things) which was reminiscent of sushi.

  

 

 

Twitter

The breathtaking view from their apartment

Palo Alto, CA: Caught up with high school friends Jeffrey, Arun, Chuan, & co. It was also Shrewsberry's birthday, so we spent 10 minutes deciding what dessert to get him and had to settle with our #2 because no, you cannot put a candle on a root beer float. Jeff also took me to Facebook, and he let me drive his Tesla!!!

Facebook!

 

  

 Where I located myself at Brohaus the majority of the time. Practiced calligraphy, learned coffee-making via Chemex, you know, the usual. 

Seattle, WA: Din Tai Fung! What more could I say? We had 3 baskets of xiao-long-bao. I also played tourist by visiting the first Starbucks and Piroshky, Piroshky at Pike's Place. Thanks Nick for hosting!

 Seattle at night from Kerrey(?) Park

Airplane: Coming home from Baltimore, I took advantage of a whole row to myself and slept the entire way back home. 

Denver, CO: Getting ready for the social at my hotel (one of the few times I "splurged").

Atlanta, GA: Another AirBnB win! It was close to the MARTA public rail so I spent $12 for 2 days of traveling around the city and to/from the airport. One of those trips was to Decatur, GA (40 min from Atlanta by train) and we had great Southern food. I tried ginger beer.

Dallas, TX: Visited the Perot Museum of Nature and Science and felt like a kid again (though Chad thinks I still act like one, daily). Dinosaurs! DNA! Yeah, Science!

Ann Arbor, MI: We had a Baylor party at Kileen's place. Both Marcus and Kyle were staying over. She was such a great host, and I couldn't resist taking a photo of my s'more fresh off of her real fireplace. 

Columbus, OH: You can see the stadium from the hospital at OSU. Sneaky, sneaky. 

I didn't really capture photos from my time in Philadelphia, Kansas, Iowa, or Baltimore - it was less food, more business for the most part. My computer also couldn't take the trip and passed away in its sleep peacefully. I have to say the fellow applicants I've met are unbelievably genuine, friendly, and fun, many of whom also share my interest in food and Taylor Swift. So there's my 2 month re-cap! I will post winter break funsies another time. Now I have to decide where I want to go for the next 5 years.