Helen's Match Day and Graduation
/What a weird time to be alive.
2020 is going to need several chapters…nay, several books to capture what has already transpired in these first five months. We’re all still under quarantine, and it feels like nothing is happening…but also simultaneously feels like everything is happening. In the past two months alone, life has unfolded every which way. Plans have been cemented, plans have been canceled. For one, we had to cancel our wedding which was scheduled for May 17th. We made the call pretty early on, so we were lucky enough that all our vendors are free next year on May 23rd. I (Helen) am a part of the Betches Brides group on Facebook and have heard countless horror stories about nonrefundable deposits and inflexible vendors, but we were ultra blessed to have sealed the date and the deals in like….2 days. There were a few hiccups (such as our wedding favors which we printed our original date on), but we emerged relatively unscathed.
In terms of plans that have been cemented, I matched at New York Medical College in Ob Gyn! The whole application and interview process was a big question mark looming over our heads this past year. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the match process, here it is in a nut shell: applicants send out apps, programs select people to interview, applicants attend interviews. Then the applicants rank the programs and the programs rank the applicants. This all gets thrown into a complicated computer algorithm which tries to match applicants with programs. On March 20th at noon, everyone finds out where they matched.
PRAISE THE LORD. Because He is good. The entire applications/interview/match process went very well. To be honest, I actually think I somewhat enjoyed the process (hindsight 20/20 lol)! I ended up receiving more interview invites than I could reasonably attend, and I pretty much only attended interviews at programs that I felt like I would enjoy (and also a few for fun because they paid for accommodations!) At the end of the day, I had a solid rank list and would have been happy at many of the programs. Since Daryl is training in NYC we had hoped and prayed and prayed and prayed that I would end up there…and I did! At the perfect program with all the surgical training and opportunities that I had wished for. It wasn’t the match day I expected (thank you coronavirus), but it was the perfect match. I am so grateful.
Max apparently does not enjoy being sandwiched by uteri.
The cats were unimpressed.
After Virtual Match Day came Virtual Graduation, which was a whole other whirlwind of its own. Graduation was scheduled for May 15th, but that incidentally was the day that I moved from Toledo, OH to New York City. We were so lucky that my parents and brother so graciously offered to help us move because WOW we needed so much help because 1) I was moving from a condo in Toledo where my bedroom alone was larger than our entire NYC apartment and 2) We both had fully furnished apartments that we had to cram into our new place. In the midst of moving, we had a mini graduation celebration :)
Daryl set up his very first balloon arch (more difficult than it sounds, as anyone who has ever set up a balloon arch will attest to) and I was both positively impressed with how lovely it was! My dad, the original Dr. Zhang (PhD in Chemistry at the age of 23, y’all), hooded me which was so special and sweet. Daryl managed to get all my friends (and their pets) along with my family to send in video clips of their congratulations which made me cry and get all up in my feels. He also got the cutest ice cream cake from a local specialty shop. It was all just so many feels, guys. SO MANY FEELS.
*also the whole month of May was super hard because I had to say goodbye to all of my amazing and dear friends in Toledo as everyone started to trickle out and move to their residency locations. Then I left and had to say goodbye to everyone who was staying in Toledo. I only cried like 4278934274327 times.
White Coat Ceremony, August 2016
Medical School Graduation, 2020
HOW CUTE IS THIS? Daryl slayed this backdrop.
You can officially add the title “Event Planner” to your resumé. It was all perfect.
The whole fam bam
Dr. Zhang, at your cervix!
Photocred to the best instahubby in the world!
It’s a weird time. The world seems to be imploding or exploding on any given day. But the sun still rises and sets and time stops for no one. For a Type 3/ESTJ control freak like me, it’s been quite the learning experience watching all my carefully laid plans go awry…my SF/Seattle trip, Match Day, medical school graduation, our wedding that we’ve been planning since September 2018, honeymoon to Japan (with the tickets bought and everything!)…the list goes on and on. Even little things like going apartment hunting (we signed a lease without ever seeing it in person), grocery shopping (thank goodness for InstaCart), and furnishing a whole apartment (everything…and I do mean EVERYTHING can be delivered these days) have been new and sometimes unsettling. But I’ve also learned that if we can ground ourselves in love and faith and purpose in these times, we can get through anything. I’m not usually a touchy-feely person, but I am LITERALLY DYING to throw my arms around everybody as soon as I possibly can.
Peace, love, and virtual hugs (for now),
Helen