Adam and I spent the weekend in the Pacific northwest. It was cloudy. It rained. It was damn cold. But I loved it. We stayed with Michelle and Matt, who were excellent hosts and tour guides. We also managed to meet up with a couple of other firends who are also living in Portland. It was a great weekend, that made me realize even more just how much I miss the northwest. I miss green. Portland has lovely parks with extensive trail systems. I miss good beer. There seem to be breweries on every cornor in Porland. We even made the drive up to Hood River and had lunch at the Full Sail brewery. 
I miss being able to shop at REI and having those clothes be acceptable "going out" clothes. I miss yarn stores. Seattle had 5 or 6 yarn stores within 15 minutes of where I lived. San Diego has two. And only one of those is any good. Portland seems to have a yarn store in every neighborhood. The one we went to Sunday was fabulous, 4 rooms and a cafe full of yarn, patterns and very helpful people. I got some great recycled cotton yarn to make a mesh shopping bag, but have gotten myself into a bit of a mess. Should have gotten that yarn swift I wanted for Christmas. 
Besides enjoying my time in the rain and dragging Adam to yarn stores (he's such a good sport!), I interviewed at OHSU for endocrine fellowships. I really enjoyed my interview there. The faculty was great, so friendly and seem to genuinely enjoy teaching and working with the fellows. The fellows are also very happy and enjoy working with the faculty. They have a great clinical education, and also have a center dedicated to the study of weight regulation, which is my area of research interest. You spend the first year of the program with clinical resonsibilities--6 months in-patient consults, and 6 months on outpatient clinics. Then years 2 (and 3 if you choose to do a 3rd year) are all research, with only one half day of clinic per week. OHSU is a beautiful hospital, Portland is a beautiful city. It would be a great place to go.
Besides enjoying my time in the rain and dragging Adam to yarn stores (he's such a good sport!), I interviewed at OHSU for endocrine fellowships. I really enjoyed my interview there. The faculty was great, so friendly and seem to genuinely enjoy teaching and working with the fellows. The fellows are also very happy and enjoy working with the faculty. They have a great clinical education, and also have a center dedicated to the study of weight regulation, which is my area of research interest. You spend the first year of the program with clinical resonsibilities--6 months in-patient consults, and 6 months on outpatient clinics. Then years 2 (and 3 if you choose to do a 3rd year) are all research, with only one half day of clinic per week. OHSU is a beautiful hospital, Portland is a beautiful city. It would be a great place to go.The only downside is OHSU's reputation. It's not quite of the same reputation as UW, UCSD, UCSF or U of Colorado (my other top contendors), so I wouldn't have the name and reputation to help me out in the future as much as I would with the other programs. It is still a well known and respected program, so I don't know how important that will be. We'll see what happens with the other prorams. If I like them (and their cities) as much as Portland, it becomes an easier choice. My next interview at this point is UCSD on February 15th, but I'm still trying to schedule UW so that may happen in the meantime. It's going to be a long process. My last interview is in April, so I have a few months of this ahead of me still.
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