Pocatello, Idaho, a place that makes Curling seem exiciting

I am now in Pocatello Idaho for my pediatrics rotation. I am super excited about it because Pocatello is supposed to be one of the better rural areas to do your peds rotation. You get to see a wide variety of clinic patients, round on children in the hospital every day and also round on NICU patients. My old roommate, Melissa, did her Peds rotation here and had a very good experience (although she did warn me that they work you very hard here).

Despite being an ideal location for a pediatrics experience, Pocatello itself is perhaps not the most exciting town in the country. Many people have asked me how Pocatello is and what it is like. I have struggled with a way to describe it. Perhaps the best way to explain it is that Pocatello is a place that even makes the sport of curling seem exciting. Allow me to explain. The Olympics are now in full swing and there is a news channel that seems intent to play every minute of the curling competition despite it being perhaps one of the most boring sports played in the winter Olympics. In other locations I have been at during the winter Olympics, it seems to be a widely accepted fact that when curling comes on, the channel should be changed. Curling is perhaps even below commercials in interest-holding-ability.

However, in Pocatello it is a different story. In several patient rooms, parents sit holding their sick child watching curling in rapt attention. In the physician's lounge in the Pocatello hospital, curling has been playing on the big screen TV every day. It is even a item of discussion in the elevator (i.e. "Hey, Jim Bob [<-- made up name], How about Canada's Curling team? Aren't they something?"). Perhaps the scariest event of all occurred when I went home Friday evening after a very long week and found myself watching curling in a near mindless state. It was an almost out-of-body experience. How low had my life sunk? What had happened to me that I was actually exposing my brain to the neuron-atrophying affects of curling? Then I realized it could all be explained in one word: Pocatello. Indeed, Pocatello, Idaho is place so boring that it makes the sport of curling seem exciting. I have included a few pictures of the area of Pocatello, surrounding my apartment to aid in the illustration of what Pocatello is like.

This is the parking lot in front of the apartments the medical students life in. As you can see, it is jam-packed and parking spots are hard to come by (note sarcastic tone of this sentence). Did I mention I received an angry note after accidentally parking in another tenant's spot after coming come in the middle of the night after call. As you can see, he or she was right to be upset, as there was obviously no where else to park.

Here is the view out of my apartment window. Did I mention that the apartments are "in town."
Here is the prettiest picture I have of Pocatello. It did have its moments of beauty/charm.

Here is a picture of the road in front of my apartment after the snow had melted.
Now think back to the pictures posted above. Look at this picture of an Olympian throwing a curling stone (or whatever they are called). Doesn't it now put off an air of mystery and perhaps even excitement? Do you see how curling could captivate you if you lived in a place such as Pocatello for an extended period of time?