Editor's Note: Chelsey Baldwin of Little River is a first-year medical student. This column follows the journey of her class in becoming doctors.

The second annual dean's poster presentation was one of the last times our entire class gathered for the year. "Ya'll clean up pretty good," the ever popular Dr. Paul McDermott prodded us as we filed into the lobby of Colbert Library.
It's true, there was quite a miraculous transformation from the normal sweaty clothes and disheveled hair that accompanies test week to that day. But we were there for a purpose: We had come to convince our various professors that we had understood what they taught us throughout the year and demonstrate that we were worthy of moving on to the next step.

Luckily, the responsibility of this task was spread out across a group of students called a "COM team." Each team has nine first-year students, who throughout the year become a close knit, built-in support network. As a team, we witnessed each other's clumsy beginnings and strides of growth throughout the year. Therefore poster day became the paramount of team pride.

It was times like those that I wish we had some sort of a chant or hand shake because by the end of the presentations, I was full of team spirit for A4, my COM team. A feeling as if we had won poster day rushed through the group and added to my sense of denial that, despite my team's strong performance, we still had another individual test to pass.

However, this was far from the only factor playing into my denial, which included the fact that I felt like I had sacrificed all year, and now that the weather had turned I had had enough. The artificial light of my desk lamp wouldn't do anymore. I needed the sun on my face. Plus, the recent purchase of Netflix did little for my drive once the sun had gone down. Yet the days leading up to the test pass whether you spend them studying or not.

So with the last exam behind me as well and with a sense of due completion, I feel free. I had chanted the date May 14th to myself so many times over the past few months, half believing that it would never come, that seeing days pass the 14th is almost unreal. I've begun my "last summer," as my colleagues call it. It is the last time that I can escape from the clutches of my schooling for months at a time for next summer is the Boards and then straight into rotations. Therefore, the pressure to make this "last summer" equivalent with the "best summer" is on. In fact, my peers and I have spent the last several weeks convincing each other just how awesome each of our summers will be.

"I'm going on a weekend trip, like every weekend."

"Well I'm going to lay on the beach all day, pretty much every day."

"We're going to make it to Disney World!"

"Psh, I'm going to read novels!" … "OK nerd," we tease the only honest person in the conversation, secretly knowing that we all can't wait to do the same. In fact I have started working on two books. I am still working on "The House of God," the novel I had put down halfway finished at the end of Christmas break, literally not one page turned since my last hiatus from school and have also started "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson at the request of my editor.
While neglecting to initially focus on the author's comedic writing style, as I'm sure my editor intended, I've become infatuated with the idea of an adventure.

While I know medical school is an adventure of its own, I think about the amount of time spent on just that one pursuit and it makes me restless. For example, taking in some of the facts from this latest adventure tale, it takes roughly four months to complete the Appalachian trail. If the amount of time I've spent mulling over my first year endeavors was equivalent to time spent on the Appalachian Trail, I would have made it from Maine to Georgia and back again, and I truly think that's enough hiking to make even the most dedicated outdoorsman a little weary.

However, since I haven't spent a bit of the past nine months in the lush greenness of the outdoor world, I've grown quite attached to the idea of making it to the mountains this summer. Hiking around in the undomesticated flora and playing in the ice cold streams of the Blue Ridge seem like the furthest place from the drafty third floor of Colbert library as I can get, a complete and healthy change of pace.

I have fond memories of the mountains from childhood. My parents, sister and I commonly found our way to a town called Blowing Rock in the mountains of North Carolina. These childhood memories glazed over with my desire to do something great this summer have left me with a craving that I think only some hiking and genuine bluegrass music can appease.

Making it back to the Blue Ridge Mountains is just one of the many items that are accumulating on my summer bucket list. Not to insinuate that there is a death of sorts when I return to school, but to stress completion of this list would be a way of avoiding regret for missing out on the opportunities that only time can afford me.

Learning to enjoy the ride has been key for me this past year.

The time and place you find yourself in, is the place to be: That goes for tough blocks of school, the few short hours of spare time on the weekends, or as for now, the summer with seemingly endless opportunities to fill in the gaps I noticed throughout the year. While this philosophy has served me well, I feel certain that at this time in my life, convincing myself to enjoy the summer will not be hard to do.