Swimming holes, pig pickin's and other southern-isms

Let's begin by saying the DPT program at Duke knows how to butter you up.

My first day of class was held here:

Professional Development is so fun!

But then real classes started. And I was hit smack in the face with classes from 8-5 every day, followed by studying til 9 or 10pm (or 11...or 12...) 

Here's the thing. I'm a firm believer of the "work hard, play hard" mentality.

Which is why I went boating on Labor Day, even though I probably (no, definitely) should have been studying attachments, actions, and innervations of muscles, the brachial plexus, the steps of the sliding filament theory, and various other blah blah blahs.

Shortly after this picture was taken, for lack of a better phrase, I ate $h!+ and messed up my knee. So that was it for me for boarding that day (and for running that week).

Luckily, there were some other wipeouts so I didn't feel quite so bad:

Since my last post I also ran into an old friend:

 ^^ Elder David Swinney, a friend of mine from California

 who is serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of 

Latter-Day Saints here in Durham.

And I've made some new friends:

^^ Liz - She's Ecuadorian and speaks fluent Spanish and she's super rad.
Also, we are the dream team when it comes to humming songs. Let's just say "spontaneous breakout of 'Royals' by Lorde" and leave it at that.

 ^^This is my new friend Matt. 

He picked up wake surfing no problem and it kind of made me want to punch him in the face. 

But he's cool, so I didn't. 

In congruence with the whole work hard, play hard thing, this was my weekend.

And be warned, things are going to get real southern real fast.

First off, I went to the Eno Quarry, a place described to me as a "local swimming hole."

In California, we have beaches. In Utah, we have lakes. 

Here, we have beaches and lakes... but apparently we also have swimming holes.

^^ Lauren and Kirstin, two girls in my PT class

They were brave and actually jumped from the ledge into the water below.

I opted out, mostly "because my knee might give out."

It wasn't because I was scared if that's what you're thinking.

Nothing sounds more thrilling than running and jumping off a ledge where you have to clear about a ten foot section of submerged razor sharp rocks below.

I mean, I HAVE been wearing a knee brace all week...

^^ The view of the jumping area from the other side of the water

After the swimming hole excursion, I squeezed in some studying.

But then... THIS:

A PIG PICKIN'

I'm not going to lie, when I first heard the term "Pig Pickin'" (and no...it's not a pig picking. pickin') I was secretly hoping for this

But apparently a pig pickin' is just a fancy name for smoking a whole pig and feeding a lot of people with some delicious Carolina BBQ.

Anyway it was FUN. And DELICIOUS.

^^ Wilbur (RIP), Danielle, Liz, me (following the doctor's orders and

wearing my dumb knee brace), and Christine (my roommate).

 ^^ This is impressive. I took about a bajillion pictures and the cook thought I was crazy but I threw up some shakas and told him I was from California and then he was cool with it.

^^ Helloooooo southern food.

Carolina BBQ = DELICIOUS.

I had heard very mixed views because it is vinegar based and some people aren't into that.

But I am into that.

Also, HUSH PUPPIES (bottom left corner of plate) - my mouth's new favorite food and my butt's new arch nemesis.

I'm really loving it here.

But don't expect me to use the word ya'll any time soon.

Or start listening to Brad Paisley (is he even still relevant? I know nothing about country music).

But I must say, I find T Swift's new song quite catchy and I hate her for it (it's not even country though... especially that part in the middle where she goes all P!nk and then Ke$ha up in here).

And then there's also this which I discovered a few days ago and naturally it sent me spiraling into a vortex of useless YouTube videos.

Til next time,

Mel.