The Family Visit and a Proper Summer

I have had the pleasure during the past couple of months to enjoy one of the nicest summers of my life.

Nora, Evelyn, Lainey and I have fun in the mist.

The summer started with a visit from most members of my family, and as it always is, it felt amazing to reconnect with them. (I should more accurately say "with you," since you guys are the principle readers of my blog.) Carolyn's family drove down from Morgantown, West Virginia, which meant that I was able to see all of my nieces and my brother-in-law, Kip. Laura, who had recently moved to West Virginia to begin her PhD program in Communication Studies, also came over from Morgantown. Mom, Dad, Amy, and Josh all flew in to Washington, DC from Wyoming as part of their Mormon Church history trip that our family takes every four years. Because of that, our vacation began in the nation's capital. (We unfortunately weren't joined by Maria or Paul this time. We missed you and your families/partners!) Because Uncle Max, Aunt Rosina, and our cousin Bridget all live there in the suburbs around DC, we spent the day with them. We met Max's adorable dog (who seemed both to scare and delight my sweet little nieces), we got Big Macs at a McDonald's restaurant, and we enjoyed an afternoon at the National Zoo. Unfortunately, Dad had to handle a number of difficult situations during our "vacation" in DC, including the fact that Max got hit by a rude driver who attempted to drive off even though Max was in his car and motionless when she collided with him. Dad also had to help Uncle Max figure out some end-of-life paperwork. So I think for Dad it was less of a vacation, but the rest of us had a jolly good time. (Carolyn and Kip had a scare with a small pebble up Evelyn's nose that didn't come out until hours later, so now that I think about it, there were many people navigating problems during this day. Yikes!) Holding Nora on my shoulders, for example, we enjoyed things like looking at the cute primates in the zoo or just all being together.

My family then drove up to Baltimore in order to see what my life this past year was like. I was able to show them all of the most important parts of my first year in Baltimore. They saw my small apartment, walked around the campus of Johns Hopkins with me, saw the teaching hospital of the medical school, and even got to meet three of my most important Baltimore friends: Tim Campbell, Anna Goddu, and Dr. Janice Henderson. We grabbed lunch with Tim, and he fit in very naturally with our family. Dr. Henderson generously had us over for lemonade and strawberries on her beautiful deck that afternoon despite the fact that she was cooking dinner for a birthday party that evening. And Anna came over to our hotel (since she was temporarily staying just a block away from the hotel, conveniently) and spoke with my family for an hour or two outside on a beautiful Baltimore evening. It meant so much to me that my family came up to Baltimore to see the various parts of my life and meet the new people that I met here that mean the most to me. It was a really beautiful day for me. And, true to Weatherford form, we enjoyed a delicious Italian dinner at Amicci's Restaurant and made sure to get Cold Stone ice cream that day, too. Would it have been a Weatherford get-together if there wasn't ice cream? Hard to say.

My eyes are closed, but everyone else looks great in this photo of the whole crew before departure.

Most of the family left after a day in Baltimore in order to begin their vacation up north to upstate New York. Laura, however, was able to stay, and she and I shared some really nice times together. We went and saw Maleficent, which was a really powerful movie with a beautiful message. It reminded me a lot of Wicked and Frozen primarily because a central theme of the movie was humanizing a villain and explaining the motivations behind her seemingly nefarious actions. It meant a lot to have Laura stay an extra day, and it was really hard to say good-bye to my family as people left. I miss you all!

Irreverent compounds are my favorites.

The next main activity of my summer was being the general and organic chemistry tutor for the incoming post-baccalaureate students. Most of them (about 25 students) were taking general chemistry, but a few people who started during my year in the fall (as opposed to the summer) were enrolled in organic chemistry over the summer, and I was the tutor for all of them. In order to do a thorough job as a tutor and to answer these bright students' questions, I had to put in a substantial amount of work for both classes. I effectively re-took both general and organic chemistry, just without the pressure of exams and grades. Though I will admit that there were times when I resented doing four practice exams for general chemistry and three for organic chemistry after reading the textbook chapters in order to prepare for the questions I knew were coming my way, in general the opportunity was wonderful. It highlighted to me, yet again, my love of teaching. I love standing in front of a group of people with a piece of chalk in my hand, eager to relay information and a way of thinking about a concept. The time passes for me so quickly when I teach. I also really enjoyed seeing the solidification of many of the chemistry concepts that I taught. Though I was essentially forced to grasp these concepts quickly when I took the courses, there was not much time to let all of them sink in and for my brain to find the interrelationships between them. Going through it all a second time helped me fill in gaps and bridge some interesting chasms. It was a true gift of a job.

What did I tell you?

The best part about tutoring, however, didn't come until the day after my students took their final exams. One of my organic chemistry students really struggled during the first summer term. She just barely scraped by with the lowest possible passing grade, a C-. The program director told her that her chances of getting into medical school were essentially zilch and that she should probably withdraw (with just one class left to go of her post-baccalaureate program!) and pursue a different career. She was devastated and came to me crying. Within a day, however, she resolved to stay in the program and to try her best in Organic Chemistry II by switching up her study strategy and giving it her true all. She asked me if I would be her private tutor and meet with her a couple of times every week to go over reaction mechanisms, chemical syntheses, and a host of other practice problems. I agreed. We met up and made a lot of progress together. In early sessions, I would stop and ask her the most basic (unintended pun, for all of you chemistry buffs) of questions: "what is the base in this reaction? Which compound is acting as a nucleophile? Is the iodide anion a good leaving group?" A couple of weeks in, she was correcting me for doing a water work-up instead of an acid work-up after a proposed chemical synthesis because the pKa of the functional group in the final product necessitated a strong proton donor. She was doing amazingly well, but she needed to get a solid A on the final exam to get an A in the class. The morning after the final, I hadn't heard from her but didn't want to press her for information in case she was upset by these professor's very difficult exams. I took a long run, and it was a perfect morning for one. The sun was out, and I was about three miles into my run, enough to be experiencing some endorphin release and the pleasant sweatiness of hard work. I was running with my iPhone in order to track my distance, elevation change, and route, which also meant that I could receive e-mails and texts while I ran. A few miles into my run, I got a text in all caps saying something like "OMG I GOT A 98 ON MY FINAL. I'M SO HAPPY. I COULDN'T HAVE DONE IT WITHOUT YOU. THANK YOU. I LOVE YOU!" Chalk it up to the endorphins of the run, but I started crying tears of joy for her in the middle of my run. I was so unbelievably proud. She had defied everyone's expectations, including her own, and had had the most robust success. Medical school was now back on the list of possibilities for her future. She believed in herself. She was a perfect example of what we humans can do with some resolve, grit, and faith. It was amazing. We went out to a nice restaurant later that week to celebrate, and we were both so happy.

I was also able to have some fun with various friends this summer. Susannah came down to visit me, and we always have a great time together. As we are wont to do, we walked all around the city and enjoyed a scenic walk along Baltimore's harbor. Over a tasty dinner of some of Baltimore's best pizza (Iggy's Pizza), if I do say so myself, we had another one of our inspirational talks about living our highest life. We both try to encourage each other and ourselves to live the best lives possible. This often translates to setting goals and addressing areas in our life where we are not performing or acting as we wish. It also means, however, accepting ourselves where we are and repeating the mantra, "you are enough." It always inspires me to be with Susannah, and the week after she was here, I worked out six times (and was pretty sore for most of the week)! Unfortunately, I haven't kept the habit up, but I'm at least making inroads at better ways of living and being.


A member of my post-baccalaureate class who is a Baltimore native invited me and her two other close friends (also post-baccalaureate premedical students) to go sailing with her and her parents off of the coast of Annapolis, Maryland. We had a wonderful day down there--we snacked on guacamole and chips on the boat, lay down on comfortable beanbags on the bow of the ship, and then later cooled off in their family's pool and ate one of the richest barbecues imaginable. The night ended with watching the fireworks from the boat, an experience as special as it sounds. It was a wonderful day.

From left to right: Chris (the hostess), Eden, and me on the sailboat

Another really big thing happened this summer which is that I met someone special. But this post is already long, and I think that Ryan deserves a post of his own, especially considering...well, I'll save that all for the next post. :) Check back in soon! I'll write within the week.

I love you all! Thanks for making my summer great.