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The fog that is the third year of medical school has lifted. I would like to tell you that I have been too busy studying during every spare moment to post diary entries. I would like to tell you that the pursuit of a top spot in my class and a choice residency at Harvard has left me no time to even get on the internet. The truth is that most of the time when I got home from the hospital I was ready to just chill out and not think about any medicine. We finished up our clinical duties on May 28 and then took a week off to study for the shelf board exams. We took those 6 exams in an eight-day span and left the long year behind. Goodbye to the pain and suffering of the M3 and hello to glory days of the M4. It is a cliche in med school that the 4th year is the best year of the rest of your life. Most claim they would do it forever if they could figure out a way to get paid for it. You get to take courses you’re interested in, not much is expected of you, you can do all the procedures that you want, and you are not responsible for much at all. The free time is also very sweet. We have to do 8 one month blocks between July and May of next spring when we graduate. That means 3 whole months completely off. And some of the 8 months are almost like being off. For instance I am taking Computers in Medicine in July. I will have to do a couple of days worth of research on a topic that I am interested in anyway and make up a small presentation. The whole month’s course will maybe take me 4 days of work. So I will try to be better about writing and use some of this free time to look back on the funny and not-so-funny experiences of the third year.