Almost There

Rhett takes his board exams this weekend. Saturday he takes the D.O. board exam, and Monday he takes the M.D. exam. These cover the first two years of med-school, basically all the academic portion. Each exam takes 8 hours to complete...or I should say you are given 8 hours, hopefully you complete it. We are all looking forward to getting these over with.

Rhett has been studying from the moment he wakes up until he goes to bed...and sometimes the books end up in bed with him as he's fallen asleep with them.

He chooses to study at home, which I like otherwise I'd never see him. He has always needed some background distractions when he studies, and his favorite method is to have the TV on. We cancelled our cable when we moved months ago, and we don't get reception for the local stations...so his only option is to watch movies.

Unfortunately we have a pathetic movie collection. In our four years of marriage, we have purchased 4 movies: Nacho Libre, Roman Holiday, Phantom of the Opera, and Zoolander. The rest have been gifts, and thus pretty limited.

Throughout the many months of studying in that red plaid chair, Rhett has watched all our movies multiple times. But with boards coming up, he doesn't have to go to class, so he rarely has a reason to leave the house and it is now odd to walk by and see the chair without Rhett in it. He only gets out of the chair to do one of three things: 1. use the restroom 2. eat 3. check the mail I guess a 4th: help me with the baby.

So these last three weeks, my routine is to take RJ to the library every morning to pick out dad 5 new movies...only 5 because that is the limit per card. I choose some movies I know he won't be too interested in, to help him by limiting temptation to actually watch, and obviously throw in some movies I'd like to watch since he monopolizes the TV...thus To Kill A Mockingbird was a recent selection. Rhett ended up watching more than he felt he should and said: "That was the first good black and white movie I've seen." So sometimes he has ended up liking the "duds" I've picked out for him. But not always...

But the library is closed on Monday so he had to resort to our own selection. I went to a friend's house and asked if I could borrow a stack of movies and explained my situation having to feed the film craze. I told Katherine: "He's probably home watching Little Women right now as a last resort." Thankfully I took a huge stack of DVDs to borrow and walked into our house to hear the theme song of Little Women. So ironic...needless to say Rhett was grateful for the new stack.

As I was leaving later that night, he was loading a DVD and I asked which one, he responded: "13 Going On 30" I thought that was weird, I'd picked that one for me, but it might be funnier than Little Women at least. I got everything together, and as I was loading RJ in the car, it was the scene where she has the change into a 30-year-old. Rhett exclaimed: "Oh no...is this a magic show? What is this? The chick version of Big?" I laughed and left. Later I asked him how he liked it.... "Ended up not being like Big, but still not very good."

Just now, he grabbed Bye Bye Birdie out of the sack, 10 minutes into it he just yelled into the office: "Jess! What is this crap?" I responded: "It's a musical...thus the singing and dancing." Shortly after I heard the music of Indiana Jones.

Rhett will be relieved when these exams are done, as will myself and our plaid red chair I'm sure...and our DVD player that has been on the marathon of its life. But he has had the chance to half-watch some movies these last few weeks he probably wouldn't have watched otherwise

I actually have no idea how he studies while he half watches movies. I need complete silence. But whatever works for him. He says he feels like he's wasting time if he just sits and studies in silence ALL DAY LONG. This way, not only did he study all day, but he also watched 8 movies. So Mr. Productive. I suggested he explore the option of studying while he folds laundry...he hasn't tried that method out yet.