Today was my first day of studying, and study I did. For nearly four hours now I have been going over anatomical introductions and textual explanations of the back, focusing primarily on the vertebral column. Fascinating, and even more fascinating, these hours have flown by, excellently, if I might add, soundtracked by John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Esperanza Spalding.

Tomorrow classes start; biochemistry begins at 9AM, and so far I do not believe that there is any prep work for that. Anatomy, as I've already described, presents with a present task, for on Monday we begin our cadaver dissections, starting with the back. I haven't dissected anything since a pig in the seventh grade, but I feel excited for this. When we toured the lab last week, we had our first faint, and hopefully all of will make it out this lab only slightly smelly and still on our own two feet.

On a final note, I'm feeling about this building, the Lee Medical Building, the way more religious people feel about churches, temples, or mosques. To me, this is sacred ground, from the tiled floors covered in double helices to unbelievably large ceiling window, something beautifully holy and pure is happening within these walls.

Orientation’s in two days now; every day seems a little stranger and stranger. Each morning that I wake up, today being no exception, I get this feeling that these days I’ve been spending here in Vermillion, acclimatizing myself to the more southern part of this fine state, are nothing but a delay, a postponement of that great challenge that lurks right behind those white coats presented on Friday.

I could not, however, be more excited. My textbooks have been sitting on my shelf, calling to me, beckoning me even to start on this path, to open both the books and soon the human being, in an unbelievably intimate and, if Kundera’s to be believed, blasphemous manner (late in The Unbearable Lightness of Being Tomas reflects upon his career as a surgeon, including the first time he ever performed surgery. What he saw, he claims, upon that first incision of the scalpel was greatest blasphemy- to see something that was never to be seen).

That being said, being in Vermillion has so far been quite enjoyable. It has a charm to it, the way most small towns do, that feels warm and welcoming, with bartenders who listen to the Hold Steady and have Velvet Underground/Andy Warhol tattoos to the motley bunch one can meet merely based upon a misidentification.

Transitions

This is the last time I'll sit in this house in Sioux Falls as an actual resident, and I marked the occasion by cleaning out cabinets in my dresser and my desk, finding a collection of old letters, letters that remind me of how I became who I am today, and while I kept many, there were some that clearly had to be sacrificed to new beginnings. Old love letters, surprisingly, do not keep well, nor do they get better with age. So it was with an unexpectedly large glass of whiskey that I re-read letters that had remained hidden for a great amount of time before tearing them and throwing them in the trash. It's funny, in a way, how those letters expose a completely different self than the one I feel I am now.

I'll never forget the past, and I'll certainly never forget those women, but some things need to pass on.