Traditionally, commencement celebrates the graduating residents and fellows who are completing their training in ophthalmology. However, tradition at Mass Eye & Ear also stipulates an important role for the first-year residents – the junior skit. Over the course of two weeks, my classmates and I collaborated in a momentous effort to gather attending physicians from every department (including our chairperson) to make a fool of themselves in front of a camera. More important than my hacking cough or my grand rounds presentation, the video editing consumed my waking hours. The result was a creative masterpiece in the style of “24” to parody events at the infirmary in the course of a day. Commencement festivities concluded on Thursday with dinner at the downtown Harvard Club overlooking the Boston skyline. Friday was our departmental annual meeting, with a series of research talks that concluded with yet another lavish dinner at Loeb House. To celebrate with the graduating seniors, we set out for drinks at Om followed by dancing at the Royale. Some smart talking and fast money handling (not by me) finagled a discounted cover charge before we hit the dance floor to the beat of hip hop, techno, and pop. It was my first night out in a long while, and it reminded me of how fun it used to be.

As I approach the end of my year as a junior resident, I was slammed with two nearly back-to-back weeks of ED night float. Having barely survived the ordeal, I emerged only to face a new nightmare – my desktop computer wiped out by a virus. Fortunately, this gave me a chance to re-format my workhorse computer and finally upgrade the 10-year-old operating system to the new Windows 7. This meant not only having to back up my important files onto various external drives, which took several days; but also having to upgrade most of my collection of software programs to newer versions. With new 64-bit support and my 6 GB of RAM, the new setup is running quite nicely. This time, I took care to cover my behind with three security programs and switched to Firefox for safer browsing of unsafe sites. So far, I’m liking the new interface – even though it takes a bit of getting used to. My favorite features include the slimmer and more efficient taskbar, as well as the ability to dock windows to fill just half the screen. Aside from the frantic installations and customizations, I also spent some time this weekend catching up with med school friends over homemade ribs, steak, and shrimp at their homes – an auspicious start to my upcoming 3-week stretch without a day off.