Chopped Salad!

I *actually* cooked today. Wahoo!!! After I pried myself off the treadmill and made it home I threw some frozen chicken breasts in the oven with a little butter, S&P, and Mrs. Dash's spicy blend. Then I started chopping.

I chopped lettuce and avocado. Then I chopped the chicken. Then I threw it all together with some black beans and Mexicali corn. Then I got REALLY fancy and put a little avocado in my food processor along with some light ranch, lime juice, and Mrs. Dash's spicy blend. I ended up with a delicious chopped chicken salad. I was very proud of myself because I have never really thought I made a good salad at home. Now I know you just have to chop everything up really small and let the flavors meld. Yum yum. I was going to take a picture, but I'm lazy and I couldn't stop eating long enough.

While all this was going on Kris and I took turns playing a game he brought home from work. He's a manager at a local gaming store. The game is called "Lips" I think. Basically it's karaoke for the Wii and they give you points based on your performance. So so so fun and hilarious. I think I nearly burst his eardrums with my rendition of Beyonce's "Irreplaceable." That poor boy. I didn't get very many points on that one, but I really blew them away with "Love Song" - better known as the "I'm not gonna write you a love song" song.

After eating and shenanigans Kris was back to work for a midnight promotion for some new game that's coming out and I was off to renal pathology land. Yes, I still wasn't finished looking at it for the first time until today. Yes we covered it 3 weeks ago. Yes I'm still not sure if I know ANY of it. Oh well. I wasn't a total slacker today. I did go to all of my classes except 1 and then I came home and watched it on my computer. Don't you love technology?

Runner's Log

5.05 miles 42'22" 8:23 min/mi 489 calories burned
New record!!! I walked about 5 minutes of it, but it felt good.

Change of Plans

Today was supposed to be filled with a trip home and attending a good friend's wedding shower. Even though I felt guilty for not studying all day I was really looking forward to it! Then my poor friend called to tell me she had been struck with Mycoplasma pneumoniae (she actually said "walking pneumonia", but what good is all this expensive education if I don't use a little of it?). The girl was kind enough to cancel it and not risk giving it to us all. That's the thoughtful and responsible thing to do. She's only having 1 more shower before her wedding on March 14 and since she's one of my good buddies I REALLY want to be there for her shower. The problem? It's the Saturday before test week. The solution? I'm ALREADY being a big slacker and going to Oxford that Friday for a Modest Mouse concert. On the way back to Jack-town I can just swing by my hometown and go to the shower. It's so unlike me doing all these FUN things the weekend before test week. Not that I'm never a slacker, but usually the weekend before test week I'm wound so tight that if Kris even looks at me the wrong way I can go into a rage and then tears within 2 minutes. This, my friends, should be interesting...

I can see it now. She's going to be opening presents and I'll offer to help rip the paper off faster. I'm always surprised the rest of the world is normal for that weekend. How can people be smiling? Don't they know I'm about to have 6 tests? Why is everyone moving so slowly? What's with the small talk? I've got 8000 things to learn in the next 3 days. AHHHHH!!!!!!!!! This is one of the things I really don't like about myself - I'm very self-centered. It's not in an "I'm better than you" way but more of an "Oh my gosh, I don't have time to sit around playing like all these normal people" sort of way. At least I'm aware of it right?

Another thing I do when I'm feeling stressed is finish people's sentences. I feel like I already know what they're going to say and I'm too impatient to just let them get it out already. I try to keep a lid on it most of the time, but feel free to put me in my place if I ever act like this around you.

Today was spent like a usual weekend day, a little lazy at the beginning, some studying in the middle, a big break, then more studying. I'm such a night person. I'm not dreading the nights in the hospital next year nearly as much as the early mornings of the surgery rotation. It's going to be hard to put makeup on in the car on the way there when it's still dark outside in the morning. That being said, I'm turning in my preferences for the order of my 3rd year rotations tomorrow. I'm less concerned with the ACTUAL schedule and more concerned with who I'll be sharing it with. I think I can get along with most people in our class though, especially since we'll be too preoccupied running around to get on each other's nerves too much. For those of you who want to know, here's the rotations I'll go through next year (in no particular order):

Surgery - 12 weeks
Family Medicine - 6 weeks
Psychiatry - 6 weeks
Internal Medicine and Neurology - 12 weeks
Ob/Gyn - 6 weeks
Pediatrics - 6 weeks

The family medicine rotation is split up. We spend 2 weeks at Baptist in Jackson and 4 weeks in a rural setting. My hometown qualifies as a rural setting and I already know most of the docs there so I'll most likely end up there. That's great too because it's only about 1 hour away from Jackson. I'm not planning on spending 4 weeks away from my husband, house, cat or dog. Do you know what kind of mess I'd come home to? Seriously...

Ahh Saturday

This Saturday was uncharacteristic for me because I got up before noon. I woke up at 10:00, made some coffee, watched a little tv to help me wake up (ha ha)and then attempted to study. I don't know what the deal has been lately but every single time I have good intentions and try to study the real world intervenes. Kris's car died yesterday. I tried to jump it off, but apparently when the motor is completely dead that doesn't really matter.

Today I was just sitting down to study when I hear the doorbell ring. I'm not so good with unexpected visitors. I wish I was. The problem is I'm just not comfortable being around people when I have no makeup on. I wish I was, but it's just a fact of life. On this day I had on no makeup, a giant zit, slept-in hair, and pajamas (with no bra of course) on. Fortunately it was just Kris's dad and brother there to work on his car and they weren't requiring me to entertain them. After they let me know they were there I immediately scrambled to put on makeup and you know, real clothes. After 2 hours of work and 1 trip to O'Reilly's, they declared the car DOA. Kris rode back with them to Kosciusko to grab my dad's old car.

So after a late lunch I set to work on finishing up a lecture and re-taking one of the dreaded psychiatry quizzes. After 3 takes (with a 3 take limit) I finally made a 100 on it. Now I just have to retake 2 more. Goodbye much needed hours of my life.

While printing out some of our "independent study" documents for pharm I realized I was running out of ink. By the way, I like how teachers call something "independent study" when they really just want to give you more stuff to learn and test you on but not be responsible for teaching it to you. I've never had my ink cartridge refilled, but heard it could be done. I poked around online and figured out Walgreen's was having a $5 ink cartridge refill sale that ended today! Of course I took them up on that.

My best friend Julz happened to be in town this weekend so I decided to hijack her and take her along for the ride. I wanted to visit with her but knew I didn't have any time to do anything FUN. I'm stuck in the nerd hole but can't seem to get anything accomplished this weekend. Anyway, we made it to Walgreen's, got the ink, I saved $12 and got super excited.

Now I'm back home wondering how I'm going to cover 42 lectures worth of information in the next few days. Wish me luck!

Runner's Log (a day late)

2.79 miles 23'52" 270 calories burned. Hooray!

I probably could have gone farther but I kept stopping for breaks to visit Kris at the end of the street. His car broke down right at the entrance to our neighborhood. His dad told him to sit with it for a little while until it cooled down so he sat there for about 20 minutes. I think that completely stopping makes it harder to start back up sometimes.

Here's a gross observation for you. There's this one house on our street where apparently the family smokes because every time I run by I smell cigarette smoke. I can smell it OUTSIDE!!! It just radiates out from the house. They must be having a smoking competition in there or something.

Lazy Productive Day

It sounds like an oxymoron, but that's what I think of on days like today. There was a lab session scheduled for 1/2 of our class, but I had mine on Wednesday so I'm a free girl today! I slept until 12:30. I really NEEDED it though. Just yesterday I left the library and skipped my lunch hour to sleep in my car outside my preceptor's clinic. That's just pathetic. I'm about to cook up my typical weekend breakfast - waffles with scrambled eggs and fruit. Then I'll probably study a little. Then I'll run. Then I'll study into the wee hours. Rinse. Repeat. This is my usual weekend.
I might break it up with a trip to Cups to study when I get sick of looking at the walls of my house or with a movie if Kris offers (he usually does).

I made chana masala yesterday. I stole the recipe off Katie's blog over at http://drkatiegoestomedschool.blogspot.com. (I tried to hyperlink it, but I'm not tech savvie and it didn't work.) She stole it from Martha Stewart. It was de-lish!!! I didn't add the onion because I knew Kris wouldn't eat it if I did, but I think next time I make it I will. Let's face it - he's not going to eat it anyway. I was particularly excited because the sauce had just the right amount of heat. It was so easy too!

* 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
* 1 teaspoon cumin
* 2 small onions, finely diced (1 1/2 cups)
* 2 cloves garlic, minced
* 1 1/2 cups crushed canned tomatoes (I used 3 c. tomato sauce)
* 1 teaspoon ginger powder
* 2 cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
* 1 dash of cinnamon (I add cinnamon to every tomato-based dish I make)
* 1 teaspoon coarse salt
* 1 tablespoon curry powder
* lowfat plain yogurt
* 1 fresh lime


Directions
1. Cook rice according to package directions.
2. Heat oil in a large skillet over high heat. Add onions, and cook until they begin to brown. Add garlic, and cook 1 minute more. Add the spices. and cook 1 minute.
3. Add tomatoes and chickpeas. Bring to boil. Then reduce heat to low, and simmer 10 minutes.
4. When it was ready I served it over rice and put a dollop of yogurt and a squeeze of lime over it. Then I put the leftover lime in a frosty beverage (wink, wink)

Just a Thought

Maybe one of my Lenten vows should be to get places ON TIME. That one might just change my whole life. Hmmmm.....

Runner's Log

29'01". 3.18 miles. 308 calories burned.
It was so pretty this afternoon I just had to take advantage. Fortunately Kris and Woodrow kept me company. Kris rode his bicycle and Woodrow ran with me. Whenever I take him with me I get an arm workout as well - he is 30 lbs. of muscle and likes to drag me around a little. I don't complain when we're going uphill, but it got a little pitiful when he was chasing after Kris on his bike and yelping because I couldn't run that fast! (Thanks for not slowing down for us Kris. Gosh... The nerve of some people.)

Happy Fat Tuesday!

Hello world! I've been enjoying Fat Tuesday, but it sort of snuck up on me this year. I have usually obsessed about what I'm going to give up for Lent for about a week before this and then I eat/do all those things I'm giving up on Lent. Well, that didn't quite happen this year. I'm still trying to make up my mind. For the last 7-8 years or so I've given up some combination, and most recently all of the following: fried foods, carbonated beverages, fast food (with the exception of salads from takeout places), ice cream, and pizza. I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but you get the gist. This year I want to do something a little different. I thought about going vegan, but I'm not sure I have the time/patience/money to overhaul my pantry. I thought about things like running at least 10 miles per week or studying at least 1 hr daily for the STEP on top of all my other work. There's just a few things I know I'm going to try to do. I'm open to suggestions though. Here's what I've come up with so far that I'm definitely doing:

1. Giving up all form of dessert. SO hard for me!!! I have a MAJOR sweet tooth. This could get interesting...

2. I'm definitely giving up the carbonated beverages - maybe permanently? Wouldn't you be proud of me frylime? I've actually done this one every year and I've noticed it gives me more stamina when running. One of our teachers explained why one time, but darned if I can remember it now when I need to most (the STEP is looming. Have you heard?)

3. Oh yeah - I'm giving up facebook and popsugar (except for Sunday check-ins just to make sure noone's messaged me something really important or trying to get in touch with me. That's just rude.

4. I'm going to limit myself to checking my e-mail and all these wonderful blogs I read 2x daily - once in the morning, once at night/afternoon. That's going to save me lots of time and make me more efficient.

Seriously, leave me suggestions in the comments section. I'm open to them. Also, they just make my day.

Ooh - I really need to quit gossiping too. That's a bad habit of mine, but I've been much better about it lately. When you don't go to class/study with people you have much less of a chance to really gossip.

By the way, I'm not Catholic. I'm Methodist, but my youth group started doing this forever ago because we did have a few Catholic kids that attended our youth group and we all thought it would be fun. It's kind of stuck since then. I have good intentions ALL the time as far as studying, running, etc... but they're usually not all accomplished. I NEVER break my Lenten promises though, which is why I have to think about them really, really hard. Help me out peoples!

On an unrelated note - I went to see my preceptor today and he really put me and my partner to work! We took histories on every single one of his afternoon patients! And we only missed 1 question. That is, our preceptor only asked 1 question that we didn't think to ask. Maybe we're learning things after all.

All Clean, All Better

Ah, my house is clean! Last night Kris let me know that his little brother and little brother's fiance were coming into town. This always ends up with us having dinner together, then the boys drinking beer and playing video games, the girls talking about wedding shenanigans and school stuff (she's in nursing school), and late night trips to get ice cream. Needless to say, it's a good time and it's always a good surprise when I hear that they're coming into town.

The house has been a wreck for the last few weeks what with the painting of the living room and test week and all. I decided with company coming into town it was high time to remedy that. So I woke up bright and early (read - 10:00) this morning and cleaned, and cleaned, and cleaned... I cleaned the guest room, the guest bathroom, swept the floors, filed bills. Now the house looks livable and I feel about a thousand times better.

I studied for a good long while yesterday so I don't feel too bad for taking the night off. The one thing I hate the most about med school is the fact that even when you're doing productive and necessary things like, I don't know - laundry, cleaning the house, grocery shopping, cooking, taking a bath, running, etc... you feel GUILTY. You feel guilty because you're not studying. Maybe that's just me. It seems to be the consensus among a good many of us though. I'm not letting the guilt get to me as much lately, but I know this summer is going to be hard what with the STEP looming and all. I'll need a little of that guilt to get me motivated to study while it's all sunny and beautiful outside and everyone's playing. Anyway, that's enough for today. I'm off to fit in a lecture before they arrive. Hope everyone's weekends have been fabulous :)

Runner's Log

My longest run yet!!! I know because Lance Armstrong came on my iPod and told me.
4.05 miles, 35'34"
Calories burned - 393 Woot!
This makes up for the catastrophe that was this morning.

Clearly Not My Day

After the upset that was the psych quiz I decided to make myself feel better with a little of God's nectar - I made myself an espresso. As I was sitting down to work on a transcription and drink my fancy drink, the cat decided to jump on the table, knock the espresso on the floor, spill it everywhere, and break the teacup I had it in. Grrr........

One Way to Piss Me Off

Make me spend 2 hours taking an open-book psychiatry quiz and I still come out with a 74. How does that happen??? I did learn that if I spend at least 1 hour obsessing over this I might have OCD. I'm well on my way.

I Am...

a procrastinator. I'm still pooped from last block!!! I've yet to really start studying pathology for this block because we're studying the kidneys and I HATE the kidneys. I haven't started pharm yet because we don't have a handy-dandy already slapped together drug list. So what have I done all day?

I'm nearly finished painting my living room - finally. I cleaned our bathroom. I took a bubble bath. I did listen to one lecture on vaccines. I think I already knew 99% of the info in the lecture though, so not quite sure how productive that was. Now I'm about to watch Grey's. Then after that I'm determined to learn about those stinkin' kidneys. Send some motivation this way please!!!

Follow ups

Here's some answers to comments I've received in the last few days.

Laura - I followed Dr. Dempsey around. Isn't she wonderful?

Amy - I think what I like about family medicine right now is the fact that it's all about variety. You get a little taste of everything. Neuro, ortho, cards, are all interesting on their own, but why pick 1? It's kind of fun to see it all. That being said - I'll probably go into something super specific like pediatric urology. Ha!

Runner's Log

3.28 miles (5km) 34'12" Now I need to study!

Hypotensive and Hypertensive?

So I was supposed to meet with my preceptor today to see patients, but he was in clinic for about 15 minutes so I went around with one of the residents. She's one of my favorites and has the best doctor-patient interaction skills I've ever seen.

In my 3.5 hours there we saw 6 patients. Two of them had the exact same name and were put in the exact same exam room, one right after the other. Weird. They couldn't have been more different though. One had never been on any medications and was 65. The other had more doctors, surgeries, and prescriptions than I could keep track of. She was nearly in shock when the doctor told her that a family medicine doctor could do more than just annual pelvic exams. "You mean, you can refill my prescriptions too?" Uh, yeah... Maybe not your morphine and hydrocodone, but we'll get to that later. I think when you're taking so many pain meds that you require daily phenergan or else you vomit all over the place it's time to reevaluate the situation. Whatever though. I don't know much. I'm just a student.

I got to hear 2 heart murmurs, though I really don't think I would have caught them if I hadn't known they were there. They were both very faint. I got to see otitis externa for the first time - that's just an infection of the ear canal and not an inner ear infection. Basically the canal looks red and inflamed with some flaky debris.

Probably the best part was when during a yearly check-up type thing for a new female adolescent patient the mom busts in during the doctor's history and starts asking questions about some online drug prescription plan thing that sounded kind of shady. Then the little girl busts in and says "Mom, this is MY time." Priceless. It was so true.

We also had an older patient who was STILL bitter about a breast lump from 5 years ago that wasn't picked up by radiology. She tried to tell us that calcifications in the breast tissue were a sign of cancer because they signified change. Umm no. You don't tell patients with calcification (a very normal thing that can happen in older women) to go out and get a double mastectomy. Whatever though. It's just kind of funny when the patient tries to tell you how to do your job. I'm not bitter though.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot the whole reason for the title. We had one patient who was hypertensive and obese (no diabetes Laura. She wasn't the trifecta :)) She was on no meds for hypertension. She had never been on any meds and was otherwise healthy. So the resident was going to start her on a drug for hypertension. Then she tells us sort of on the way out the door that she FAINTED last week. The way she described it was typical vasovagal syncope (fainting due to hypOtension). She got up from a seated position, walked to the bathroom, and woke up on the floor. This happens when blood pools in your veins when sitting or lying. You require the muscles of your legs working to pump the blood back up to the heart (and brain). Then she also mentioned some tingling sensations in her face and a feeling of something stuck in her throat. Seriously? Needless to say the doc decided not to go with the meds just yet and to get a further workup of the patient - EKG. The problem? No insurance. A simple in-clinic EKG is about $800 when you're self-pay. Some places don't care and just do all the tests, no matter how expensive or necessary. UMC tries to work with you and figure out what tests can be delayed, which are most important and the cheapest meds that are the most effective.

Anyway, that was just a typical day at the clinic. I kind of love family medicine so far, but I'm not sure that I won't fall in love with something else next year. I'll keep y'all updated.

Note to Self:

Black linen shirts are nice in theory, but bad in practice - especially when you have a white dog and wear a white coat. Doh...

Runner's Log

2.77 miles, 25 minutes. Felt good!

Valentine's Day and Why Kris is a Superior Gift-Giver

Remember how I didn't have Kris's gift 3 days before Valentine's? Well, things got busy and I couldn't think of what to get him. So the morning of I woke up and made him a "gift certificate" for a round of putt putt golf. I put it in an official-looking envelope. How was it official-looking? Because I wrote those exact words on the outside in big red Sharpie. Ha. He also had a sweet card, Reese's hearts, and flavored Tootsie rolls in a cute bag. So at least it looked nice. Anyway, he was happy with it.

Then came time for my gift - he freakin' got me a hot pink iPod nano! Are you kidding me? We set a limit of $20. I think he broke that unless he's a major thief or something. I'm not usually a super-girly hot pink kind of girl, but I think it's pretty sweet since it was a Valentine's gift. Anyway, I'm VERY excited about it. While it was er, fun, "sharing" his iPod, it wasn't really convenient. He would take it to work and then I'd wait for him to come home before I went to run with it and sometimes it would be too dark by then and I wouldn't end up running at all. So hopefully I'll be more on track with my running from now on.

After our gift exchange I got ready and we went for a late lunch - or breakfast for us at Cock of the Walk. It was a bit overcast when we left the house but it cleared up once we got there. I indulged and had fried chicken. Yum. After we ate we went out and fed most of our left over french fries to the ducks and seagulls. Some of the seagulls even caught the fries in mid-air. It became a game where they'd fly down by our heads, hover for as long as they could hoping for a fry, and then fly off. The ducks didn't like this very much since they're pretty much water and ground-bound.

Then we decided to go play putt putt golf since we both enjoy it, the sun was out, and the weather was fairly mild. Some of the holes were a little slick, but we made it. We both got a hole-in-one at one point or another. Kris beat me by 3 strokes though. Then we went and checked out movie times. Taken was playing at 10:00 so we decided to head home and relax a little before heading out to see it. We headed home, drank some champagne out of some of the crystal glasses we got for our wedding and Kris played video games while I started setting up my new iPod. Then we headed out to see the movie. It was so good, but so scary. My heart rate was way way up at some points. For those who don't know - it's all about a girl who goes to Paris with a friend for a sort of senior trip deal. They get kidnapped and sold into sex slavery. The girl's biological father is some sort of a retired awesome ninja guy and works to find her. That's all I'm saying. No spoilers here. I'd recommend it and I'm not usually an action movie girl.

Overall we both had a fabulous day. I'm glad since usually days that are built up like Valentine's or birthdays don't tend to go so well. I think it is just because they are so highly anticipated that nothing ever lives up to what's expected. This year we just kind of played it by ear and went with things that we knew would be fun - no stress involved. Sometimes you've just got to go with the flow and do what feels right. That's one of the things I'm figuring out this year. If it doesn't feel right - don't do it. If you wake up at 6:00am with plans to study but feel like crap - go back to sleep. If you had plans to cook an immaculate dinner but now feel like cheap takeout - go for the takeout. Don't beat yourself up over silly details. Okay, I'm off my Oprah soapbox now. Have a fabulous week everybody!

So...

Valentine's Day was yesterday. It was really fun and I'm sure I'll do a whole post about it later, but for now I'm at Cups trying to get some work done. Here's the problem. We finished Micro and picked up 3 new classes - Psych, Preventive Medicine, and Biostatistics. That's not really a problem. They're all pretty common sense I think, but I keep getting my coursework for Preventive Medicine and Biostats mixed up!

So I just finished reading a bunch of articles that I know went with the 1st lecture - but I don't know if it was the 1st lecture for Biostats or Prev Med. I know I just reviewed the Intro powerpoint - but I don't know which class it was for. These are simple problems that can be remedied very easily, but it just kind of throws a wrench in the way I go about studying. I go on a lecture-by-lecture basis. Once I've reviewed everything from a lecture, I mark through it with a highlighter on my schedule. Maybe they should just combine these classes next year and save the future M2s a couple of headaches.

3 Days 'til Valentine's AND...

I STILL don't have Kris's gift. I have some "fluff" stuff to go in the bag with it, but not what I am actually getting him. We vowed to only spend $20 so I was thinking a funny DVD like Role Models, but it isn't being released until June. Oh no! Any funny movie suggestions?

Tachycardic

I don't know what's wrong with me, but I've had an impending sense of doom ever since I woke up this morning. I did get literally 1/2 my hair chopped off today so maybe that had a little do with it. I think it has more to do with the fact that we got a TON of busywork dumped on us today. I also realized the rest of my week is nearly eaten up with school engagements when I really just want to play and recover from the last 2 weeks. Or maybe it's my psychic 6th sense coming out. I'll let you know on that one...

Runner's Log (a day late)

20 minutes - 2.43 miles. I was on fi-yah!

Also...

If I hear one more comment about "the recession" or how "MS is the fattest state" I might cut somebody. At least once or twice a week in classes we hear about MS's obesity rates. YOU'RE PREACHING TO THE CHOIR!!! I run. I recycle. I pay my taxes. I don't want to hear about it. That's all :)

How is it Monday Already?

I'm so confused as to where the weekend went. I know I spent most of it painting my living room, but I'm still not finished!!! I'm only 1/2 way finished. I also went to Baptist Saturday morning with my mom to visit one of her good friends. It felt so nice all weekend I meant to go running, but instead I just painted.

Today made it clear the weekend was over and it was time for chaos. I usually spend the 1st week of each new test block just getting organized. I file away all my old notes from last block, print off old tests from this block, download the newly updated schedule - because there's always a change, download the new transcription schedule, etc... It goes on and on.

We were e-mailed just this morning to let us know that our 1:00 was mandatory. Then during that class they made our 1:00 for tomorrow mandatory! Well guess what suckers... I've had a hair appointment for tomorrow at 1:00 for the last week and I'm not about the break it. They never send around a role sheet anyway. I've needed to get my hair cut for about the last 3 weeks. I'm just ready for a "style." I've been growing out all my layers and whatnot for the last year and while my hair does feel a lot thicker I guess I'm just not an all-one-length plain jane kind of girl. It's boring. So tomorrow I'll be getting something different.

I'm off to more painting, but I really need to be working on the 2 transcriptions I was supposed to do today, making an appointment with my preceptor, and making appointments for dinner dates with my friends that I've put off for the last month. Oh dear...

Oy...

The test today was pretty rough. It's not that it was difficult, per se, but it was that I was so completely underprepared that it seemed difficult for me. I'm sure it was easy for some people who actually studied more than a day or 2 for it. I guess I'll know better next time.

I'm currently recovering with a chips, queso, and a beer. I just finished watching the Grey's Anatomy I missed last night. I must say they're stepping up their game. Earlier this season I thought they were circling the drain, but this episode was a lot better.

That's all. Have a great weekend everybody!

Runner's Log

35 minutes, 3.25 miles - because I walked, A LOT. Ha ha.

I was surprised to see 3 fellow classmates working out today after the pharm test. Perhaps we needed to blow off some steam? 4 tests down, 1 to go. Then I'm taking the longest nap ever and staying up all night to paint my living room. Can't wait!!!

Damn that Pancake Lady

She breaks my heart every time. As soon as I walk in the cafeteria she announces, "No more pancakes!" and then the person in front of me always gets the last 2. I try to explain to her that pancakes are my only joy during test week but she's not having it. Oh well - I guess my hips will thank me later...

I Love it When...

the 2 ditzy secretaries in charge of proctoring our Intro to Clinical Medicine exam get to class 5 minutes late, then proceed to tell us in their best kindergarten-teacher voices: "Alright y'all - you need to be quiet now because we're passing out the test."

Seriously? Maybe you need to get here on time. Don't they know the value of our time quadruples during test week? Do NOT waltz in the classroom late and then tell us to hush. Especially when it takes you 15 minutes just to pass out the test. Gosh...

These are the same secretaries who didn't bring enough scantrons last time we had a test. They're both about 25, wear heels or stilleto boots everyday, and sit around probably talking about where they get their nails done.

I'm not moody or anything. Less than 48 hours 'til test week is over!!!

How to Start the Day Off Right, er Correct...

1. Get enough (at least 6, less than 12 hours) sleep.
2. Take a bubble bath.
3. Moisturize.
4. Put on something warm.
5. Go to Broadstreet.
6. Get coffee and toast.

I mean, what could be better?

Micro is OVER!!!

Wahoo!!! We took our last test Friday and our national board on it this morning. I must admit that even though that class was pretty much torture about forcing you to learn every little detail, I think it really helped for the boards. This is the 1st board I've ever taken where I actually had a clue for every question I saw. I'm sure I didn't get them all right, but they at least gave you enough information to reason out the question if you DID know the material. We'd seen it all before. So that was nice. I was tired by the end though. 3 hours and paragraph-long questions does that to me. Anyway, must study for the "easy" test now along with pharm.

I Don't Want to Work

I just want to paint my living room and sew stuff! When I'm stressed/sick of school during test week it makes my creative side want to come out in a big way. I want to go to Wal-Mart, buy a sewing machine (because my mom has the one I usually sew with right now), get a simple dress pattern and some fabric, sit in my living room with Steel Magnolias on and make a freakin' dress. Then I want to wear it. I will not have this urge (quite as much) once test week is over.Last test block I painted a picture that is now hanging in my guest bathroom.

On an unrelated note - I broke out my crock pot again today. Threw in some chicken breasts, cream of chicken soup, let it cook on low for 5 hours. I'm about to put some shredded swiss cheese and crumbled bacon on top. Whip up some mashed potatoes and green beans and call it a night. Yum.

Now - back to studying for pharm and micro. Blech...

25 Things

1. My dad passed away in May 2003. It wasn't until the 2nd year of med school until I understood the entire pathological process of what killed him. Here goes: alcoholic cirrhosis-> portal hypertension-> development of new veins (esophageal varices)->delirium tremens (because he quit drinking)->nausea/vomiting->Mallory-Weiss tears of the esophageal varices->exsanguination. I have thought about him every single day since he died.

2. I'm not sure exactly which field of medicine I'll go into yet and I'm TIRED of people who aren't in the medical field asking me. I know you're trying to make conversation and don't know what else to talk about but there's so many other things! I am a person who does 100 other things - cooking, running, gardening, piano playing, movie watching, sewing, painting, drawing. Sorry if I seem bitter, but as a general rule med students don't like being asked questions they don't have the answers to. Also - please don't TELL me which specialty I need to go into. ESPECIALLY if you're not in the field. You have no clue what you're talking about. It's like me telling a CPA how to do my taxes. (Don't worry - I still love you all if you've asked and you're genuinely interested :) It doesn't ruin my day or anything, it just gets old after a while.)

3. On a lighter note - I love reading fashion blogs. There's a few I look at where people chronicle their outfits daily. If I lived somewhere else I would dress completely differently. I often have to tame down what I would like to wear on a daily basis because a lot of people wouldn't get it.

4. I tend to avoid confrontation. If you're in my way I'll probably just walk a mile to get around you rather than saying "excuse me," and walking by.

5. I think it's funny that my mom was homecoming queen and head cheerleader and I was one of the very few girls NOT invited to join the social club in high school. We had one called Vogue. It was like a sorority for high schoolers. Sounds dangerous right? I'm STILL glad I wasn't in it.

6. I feel like I have more in common with the people in my med school class who are from various states and went to dozens of different colleges than I do with people I went to high school with. See #5.

7. I genuinely LOVE everyone in my class. Okay there's a few that make me want to pull my hair out, but if they were suffering from anaphylactic shock I'd gladly stick them with an Epi pen.

8. I have the bestest seeser in the world. I love sitting at her and the bro-in-law's kitchen bar and talking while said bro-in-law proceeds to cook really yummy food.

9. My husband and I don't have that much in common on paper, but somehow we just work. He makes me laugh every single day - even if it's on the inside sometimes. A few things we agree on - vintage records, David Bowie, Elton John, Modest Mouse, Flight of the Conchords, and Wes Anderson movies.

10. I appreciate humor much more than beauty. Kathy Griffin is my all-time favorite comedienne. I think we were separated at birth even though she's 30 years older than me.

11. I love to sing - and don't think I'm THAT bad. I am stage shy though so the only person who's ever really heard me belt it out is Kris. If I'm driving, chances are I'm singing LOUDLY.

12. There's 3 people in this world that can complete my sentences - Kris, Julia, and my seeser, Jennifer.

13. I think everyone should live alone at some point, even if just for a few weeks. I did this senior year at Ole Miss when Julia went to England to study abroad. Even though I missed her, it was fabulous for a little while.

14. I am a major homebody. At the end of every test block ( a solid week of tests in med school that happens every 4-7 weeks) my class usually has a party. Last year I made myself go to most of them. I had fun 1x. I can think of nothing less fun at the end of a week of no sleep and stress than to go home and get gussied up to drive somewhere, plaster on a smile, and talk to all the people you just spent the last week in a room with (even though they're awesome), and then having to worry about how to get back home if you drink anything. I usually come home, drink a beer, take a nap, wake up and watch movies all night with the husband and animals.

15. Two of my favorite authors are David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs. I am not sure why I have so much in common with gay men who live in New York City. (Kris, do not insert a dirty joke here, even though it's the perfect set-up.)

16. I am a grammar Nazi.

17. I have had a job since I was 17. I put myself through college without a single student loan. I don't like taking money from anyone.

18. I am consciously aware that I am turning into my mother. This is especially obvious by the tone in my voice when I fuss at our dog Woodrow and by the way I putter around in the kitchen with wet hair and a robe on in the morning during the holidays just trying to get all the food together. I'm okay with it though. My mom is a wonderful lady.

19. I like challenges. I would love to train for the Chicago Marathon and run it one day even though I currently only average 2-3 miles on a run!

20. I think that we are all more alike than we are different. I wish more people would realize that. ERACISM. That is all.

21. If I had a personal chef or infinite free time I'd love to try being vegan for a while. It'd be interesting to see if it was worth it.

22. I care more about having a (relatively) clean house, healthy food, clean clothes, and time to exercise than I do about having good grades in med school.

23. I play on a tennis league with my sister 1 night a week in the Spring. (See #22)

24. I have a blog. www.seriouslysillygirl.blogspot.com

25. I take a bubble bath every single day. Showers suck.

So Ready

So ready for this test to be over. It starts at 1:30. I'll probably finish around 3:00-ish. I've already made big plans in my head. They include but are not limited to:

1. Going to J. Crew because they are having an INSANE sale right now.
2. Going to Michael's/T.J. Maxx to look for cute things to decorate my house.
3. Stopping by BOPS for a Snappy Turtle - because I have a free coupon. You don't really have to justify BOPS though.
4. Taking a long nap.
5. Exercise of some sort and perhaps cooking dinner.


I should start studying for the rest of the tests that are next week, but we don't have tests again 'til Tuesday and my brain is already FRIED!!!

Things to Do After the Storm

This is just a little note to remind me of what all I need to do after the next round of tests. We have our last Micro test this Friday, the Micro board next Tuesday, then Path, Pharm, Genetics, and ICM on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I'm not so sure of the order just yet. Anyway, to do:

Find a dentist in the Jackson area. Make appointment. Get the teefies checked out.

Paint the living room. It's a little, er, bright for my taste. I was fine with it when we moved in, but after 6 months the blinding yellow and gold is starting to really irk me. Anybody want to come over for a paint party? I could provide snacks and margaritas. Maybe the margaritas aren't such a good idea. Don't want a bunch of drunk monkeys painting my living room.

Plant the 3 holly bushes I've had sitting in pots in my front yard since December.

Nail up the house numbers. We just realized our house is the only one on the street that doesn't have our address posted ANYWHERE - not on the mailbox or the house.

Largest Bat Colony in the WORLD?!?!

An almost pointless thing I learned while studying viruses for Microbiology tonight. Austin, TX hosts the world's largest bat colony. Bats are really big carriers of rabies in the US. So if your patient comes in foaming at the mouth or in a stupor and happened to have been bit (bitten?) by a bat in Austin, TX they might have rabies.

Peer Pressure

Ha ha. I kid. You will notice I've changed my background and title. I have a few lovely ladies in my class that also have blogs and have recently done the same. I didn't even know you could use these cutesy backgrounds 'til I saw theirs. I know - I'm slow. So anyway, I am a big old copycat and I jumped on the bandwagon.

I have actually been wanting to change the title for a while. "Seriously," while it does apply to countless situations I have and will continue to find myself in over the course of this thing that is my medical education, was getting kind of old. I signed up for that back in the heyday of Grey's. I think we can all agree that show has nearly jumped the shark. I will keep watching it though. I'm just THAT loyal. Ha.

As for "Chasing Zebras," all those in the medical field already know what that means. For those of you who don't, here's a brief explanation. Whenever you go in and get a history from a patient and then present it to your attending he/she asks for a differential diagnosis - a list of every possible thing/ most probable things that are causing the patient's symptoms. If they have a runny nose and sore throat and you throw out something like, I don't know, brain tumor or pheochromocytoma (an incredibly rare tumor on the adrenal gland that EVERYONE in med school is on the hunt for), then your attending will likely say: "Quit chasing zebras." If you hear hoofbeats - it's probably a horse, not a zebra.

Runner's Log

21 minutes - 2.1 miles + a 5 minute cooldown. Woot for 2 days of running in a row. It's really just another procrastination tool though. Shhh!!!

Runner's Log

15 minutes - 1.5 miles
because it was cold, my throat was hurting, AND I developed one of those horrible cramps right beneath my ribcage. 15 minutes is better than 0 minutes though!

Excitement

Kris has been lusting after a new iPod for a while now. Yesterday he broke down and bought himself a new nano. I've also been wanting a new nano even though my 5-yr old mini works just fine. Why, you ask? For the Nike + technology. It hooks up with a sensor you wear in your shoes while you're running and gives you info like how far you've run, calories burned, etc... It's pretty nifty.

The nano comes in 2 varieties. The 8G is $150 and the 16G is $200. That means it holds 2x as much music for just $50 more! So being the genius that I am I suggested to Kris that we just share the iPod. That's what marriage is all about, right? So we decided to go for the one that holds 2x as many songs. I think this will work out alright since Kris and I never work out at the same time - mostly because he never really works out. *I'm going to get in trouble for that one.* he he he.

I think he's mainly planning on using it next year when he's teaching *fingers crossed* during his off period. He can listen to some music while grading papers. I've just ordered the sensor online. It's reasonably priced at $29. The best part is the sensor fits in the sole of Nike running shoes, but if you don't have those you can get this nifty little $5 contraption that fits on any other type of running shoe and holds the sensor. So really for $35 + shipping of course I've just ordered a rejuvenating motivator to my current workouts. That, my friends is exciting.

In other exciting news I used my new crockpot for the 1st time last night and had amazing results. I'm not a big meat-eater. I like it, but I don't like buying it, cooking it, etc... It seems like whenever I cook anything other than chicken it comes out tough and dry.

Enter - the magical crockpot. I'm obsessed. I made a super easy recipe yesterday. It was just 1 big pork roast, 1/4 c. brown sugar, 6 oz orange juice concentrate, and 1 chopped onion. Let it cook on high for 3 hours, then low 3 hours. The meat fell apart when it was done. I was able to "cut" it with a spoon. I just served it over white rice for a simple dinner. I think next time I might add pineapple towards the end for a little extra oomph. It really was good though. I knew it when Kris and I both looked at each other at the same time and gave a thumbs up. (I was studying - or maybe watching Grey's Anatomy - in the next room. He was on the phone with iPod tech support.) This is how it goes sometimes at our house. We eat dinner at the table about half the time and in various other places the other half of the time. Also, if the world was on our schedule everyone would eat breakfast at 11:00, lunch at 3:30, and dinner at 9:00. They would go to bed at 1:00 or 2:00, and get up at 10:00. Ah, life would be ideal :)

Don't Fret.

Don't worry. I figured out the meaning behind the mysterious slide. It was... on the next slide. My bad.

"Since 1987 there have been 50 candidate preventive vaccines for HIV-1, 30 candidate therapeutic vaccines for HIV-1, but zero have proven effective in humans."

This...

50 +30 = 0


is an actual slide from one of our microbiology lectures. What's even better is that the lecturer ran out of time to get to this one. I'm not sure why he ran out of time since he only prepared 162 slides to cover in less than 2 hours. IDIOT. There should be a 40 slide per hour rule.

I'm utterly perplexed as to what this could mean. Usually we don't have slides with such scarce information on them. For the most part the info is correct. I'll have to let you guys know if I ever figure this one out.

Is there any wonder microbiology is my worst class?

Did You Know?

Did you know that the reason Martha Stewart went to prison was due to an anti-cancer drug? It's a little drug known as Erbitux (Cetuximab is the generic name). Apparently she sold her stock in the company that was producing Erbitux the day before the FDA announced it wasn't approved. The really sad part? It turns out Erbitux was an effective chemo drug and it later went on to be FDA approved. Yikes...

Also, for those of you not in the medical field - when we are taught pharmacology in school we learn the generic names for drugs. That's because the trade names are always changing and there's all kinds of combo pills coming out now. So if you ask your doctor about a drug and they get a confused look on their face it's usually because they don't know the trade name. I've seen the residents look up several drugs of their patients and then go Oh... It's just lisinopril and blah blah blah. Just FYI...

Runner's Log

25 minutes - ~2 miles, because I was lazy and walked some.

Also - while running and listening to a song called Tic Toc, I looked down and saw a container of Tic Tacs on the ground. Coincidence?

The Mysterious Case of Gran Torino

What a wonderful weekend it's been so far. So it hasn't been wonderfully productive, but it has been wonderfully fun. I hadn't been to the movie theatre in probably a few months unless there's a movie I'm forgetting somewhere in there. Then this weekend Kris and I ended up going twice!

I spent Friday getting things done around the house - making lists, going shopping, bringing stuff back home and getting everything put in its place. I had every intention of going over a lecture or 2 after that, but then Kris got home and I ran some errands with him. We dropped off his computer to get fixed and then we decided it couldn't hurt to look at the movie schedule. There's so many good movies out right now. The Mysterious Case of Benjamin Button was set to play at 7:00. It was 5:00. So what did we do? We settled in at Chili's for a leisurely dinner. That means appetizers (Texas cheese fries - not on anyone's diet), dinner (don't worry I boxed up half of mine), and dessert (Chocolate Chip Molten Lava Cake - oh my freakin' gosh good). Then we went and saw the movie. I really liked it. Kris wasn't as impressed. It's 3 hrs long, but I didn't get bored. I thought the scenery was really nice, but I've decided it's because I grew up in a Victorian house and I just liked looking at the house in the movie because it's also Victorian.

So then Saturday rolls around and my bestie Julia is in town visiting her boyfriend. I met up with her and another friend for lunch at Primo's. It was de-lish. I got what I always get - the club sandwich. I'm never disappointed. Then we went to Northpark. Julia was on the hunt for a new pair of jeans. We all know how fun that is. It's particularly hard if you have hips AND a waist because jeans designers design for one or the other, but definitely not both. We both always have problems with our jeans gaping at the top. I've decided we should just find good tailors or learn how to take them in ourselves. Seeing as how I already know how to sew I could probably figure it out, but I just haven't gotten around to it what with that whole med school thing in the way. You know how that goes. After about 20 pairs of jeans at 2 stores she finally found the right pair. We also stumbled upon Nine West during a rare sale. They had several pairs of shoes for just $19.99. Lucky day! And wouldn't you know they had some flats that I really liked (and needed) and some tan alligator slingbacks that I also liked and needed. They're both comfy, go with anything, and I think I could even wear the heels without wincing in pain every 5 minutes. It was a productive trip to the mall for sure.

Then I went home, went over some breast pathology lectures, and made some potato soup (yum!). Julia called and we decided to do a double date and go see Gran Torino. Her significant other wanted to see My Bloody Valentine but we vetoed him. Poor thing. Gran Torino was really good, but so sad. I'm not giving anything away other than that. I was really disappointed with the quality of acting (other than Clint Eastwood's). I sometimes found myself laughing at inappropriate moments due to poor acting skills. It's still worth watching though.

And now it's Sunday. I really need to conquer some Pharmacology and Micro today but instead I'd rather play online and do laundry. I'm seriously about to look at some Pharm though. Really. Right now. Going to study. Yep. Not procrastinating at all.

The End of an Era

for Woodrow. I took him in this morning to be neutered. He was so excited to be at the vet and loved the whole car ride over. I felt pretty bad for him, but it was time. He had begun "marking" certain parts of the house. That's just a no-no.

Sometimes he's so good and other times he's so bad. Yesterday I was quite impressed with his behavior though. I took him for a walk and as we walked past the houses with dogs, they barked or whined. He did not. He generally ignored those dogs. He is not a "yappy dog" as my mama calls them. We may go a week without hearing him bark sometimes. When he does bark - watch out. He has what is called a "baying bark." Apparently that's what most hound or hunting dogs have. It starts as a bark and turns into a little bit of a howl in the middle.

He also ignored all the cats we walked past. The only things he doesn't ignore are scents. He'll catch a deer scent and want to follow it into the woods. For just 28 lbs. he is so strong. He nearly jerked my arm out of socket a few times!

Anyway, I'm hoping this surgery will calm him down just a little. He's just a tad bit too energetic for our tastes most of the time. One of our neighbors remarked that he looked like he was on speed as she saw him running laps around our house.

I guess we'll see how it all turns out. I know he'll get some pampering this afternoon - the "good" dog food that comes in a can and lots of petting. We bought him a new bed last week and hopefully he'll get some use out of it for the next few days.

Apparently

I really like folk music. Isn't it funny when you learn something about yourself and go 'doh'... I've always known immediately the songs I liked from the songs I didn't, but never really knew there was a trend. Well, to make a long story short, Little Miss Sunshine came on today and I immediately knew that I loved the opening theme. I went to iTunes to download it and discovered it's classified as "Folk." So I started snooping around at all the folk music and realized I recognized a lot of the artists and had some of their songs in my library. Anyway, here's a new guy I found today that I really enjoy and a link to his music:

Brett Dennen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amwVyRH2B8A

And the link to the Little Miss Sunshine theme by Devotchka
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbZM6ZSlvvY

Anyway - this Sunday morning has been fantastic so far. I meant to go to church, but ended up sleeping in instead. Maybe God will forgive me since I made it to the hospital by 8 yesterday morning. Just had to catch up on some much needed Zzzzz. I salvaged the morning by making blueberry almond muffins and coffee. Yum!

Kris is at a friend's house watching football so hopefully I can get some much needed study time in.

Hope everyone's weekend was fabulous :)

Saturdays with Cloy

Like Tuesdays with Morrie. Get it? Ha. Anyway - today my preceptor partner and I went to "the Baptist" as the patients call it to get more experience and to take our first history. Of course it helps that we didn't even realize we were doing our assignment while we were working on it. A resident asked us to go in and finish a history he had started on a patient while we were there. Fortunately it was a very nice man (or was it a woman? You'll never know thanks to HIPAA. And yes that's how you spell HIPAA. I checked. ) who happened to know 2 of our classmates! It's such a small world.

We showed up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, sort of, at 8AM this morning dressed in our Sunday finest and white coats. My partner tried calling Cloy (our preceptor) who had told us he'd be at the hospital "around 8 or 9." Usually when someone says this to me it really means 7:30. So we got there at 8. Cloy didn't answer. I called 15 minutes later and he answered - very sleepily. Whoops... I woke him up. 2 of the things I hate doing the most are talking on the phone and bothering people. I had done both simultaneously. Awesome. It wasn't really a big deal though. He said he'd be in in an hour and told us to page a resident and tag along. Do we know how to page anyone? No. Did we figure it out real fast? Yep. We paged a resident and he miraculously showed up in less than a minute. I was impressed.

Then we basically hung out with the residents for a little while and got the run-down on all their patients that were currently at the hospital. They ate breakfast and then we rounded on all the patients. That was fun and a lot faster than I thought it would be. They said it was an unusually low amount of patients though, so that's nice. Cloy showed up at around 9:30 or 10. The residents were all really nice and taught us a few things in their spare time between patients. All in all it was a pretty good day. We left the hospital a little before 2:00 and I meant to go straight home and write up my patient's history while it's fresh, but that didn't happen.

I had to take a hot pocket and diet coke break and watch a little tv. Now it's 6:00 and I've been working on this history for too long. I hate how being a perfectionist or OCD, whichever I am, can make me take so long. I just want to get everything perfect and it's hard to get started on things in fear of messing them up. This is not a hard assignment and in just a few years we'll be doing several a day and just spending 10-15 minutes on them probably. There's just some pressure there when you know you're getting graded and you're trying to impress (or at least not embarrass yourself). Anyway - that's what I'm doing on Saturday night. Jealous?

Wise Words from my Preceptor

In my introduction to clinical medicine class we are assigned a preceptor to teach us various skills we will soon need such as:
how to take a thorough patient history
how to perform the necessary physical exam on a patient
how to choose a drug/drug regimen for a particular patient
etc, etc...

I had the opportunity to work with my preceptor some over the summer and then miraculously ended up with him as my assigned preceptor without even requesting him. (I think God's trying to point me towards family medicine or something) Anyway, he's really great to talk to because he got his MD at UMC and therefore understands what we're going through. His academic profile is a lot like mine. Never studied in high school and had really good grades, studied a little (the night before the test usually) in college and made it into med school, then hit med school, studied non-stop without the beautiful grades to show for it. So here's what he said yesterday that made me happy:

"Once I realized that the first two years were all a game and not about education, I quit worrying about my grades and bided my time until the clinical years started."

It's so true. You can learn 100% of the clinically relevant information for a test and then easily fail it. It's all about memory power and minute details. Some people have the gift of an other-worldly ability to memorize. Others don't. I most certainly do not - and that's just fine. I still have the ability to reason and understand which means I will be an okay doctor when I'm out.

So Glad

that I'm in the class of 2011. I sat near a group of M1s (class of 2012) at lunch and they seriously talked about computer graphics and interface problems for about 20 minutes. Then they talked about their favorite cartoons. The shocker - 3 out of 4 of these people were girls. Yikes. I'm not really trying to be mean, but bless their hearts whenever I get around those M1s all I can think about is how happy I am to be in my class.

Now they're talking about organic chemistry. And I'm getting the heck out of here!

Hooray!

I have the pseudoephedrine at last! And it's working!!! I can breathe out of both my nostrils simultaneously!!!

The really great part is that I learned 2 drugs out of this whole deal. Sure, I was supposed to already know them. That's not important though. What's important is that phenylephrine is a pile of crap and a worthless antihistamine while pseudoephedrine rocks. You won't find that in the pharmacology book or class notes we're assigned.

Note to Self

Phenylephrine does absolutely nothing for my sinus congestion. Must rip off one of those pieces of paper at the pharmacy with some good old pseudoephedrine in the ingredient list, show id, sign a legal document, and still have the pharmacist suspect that I'm going home to make meth in my backyard. It will definitely be worth the trouble if I can manage to breathe through one or even maybe both of my nostrils after getting my hands on this banned substance.

Also

Might I add - I just realized that the adult dosing for Benadryl is actually 2 pills. Let's just say I got some much-needed recuperative sleep last night instead of hacking my lungs up and blowing my nose. Fabulous.

Hilarious

Watching the librarians scramble as one of my classmates asks them to help with their faulty printer system. They're freaking out. They actually had to leave their safe little cubbies and DO some WORK!!! I swear there's about 10 of them and I have no idea what they do all day besides complain when you actually ask them to be helpful.

Back in the Swing of Things

We went back to school to day. And what better way to say "Welcome Back!" then with 3 hours Gynecology lectures? I skipped out on the 8am - hey, I'm sick, remember? I was quite impressed with myself that I made it to the 9:00 on time. I even managed to pack my lunch and get it in the fridge at school before class started.

I'm pretty sure I had "strep throat" this past week. The reason I think that is because I definitely had pharyngitis - a swollen, inflamed pharynx and it was incredibly difficult and painful to swallow. In doctor speak this is dysphagia (difficulty swallowing) and odynophagia (painful swallowing). Sore throats are pretty common, but the painful swallowing is more of a hallmark of strep throat. It's caused by Streptococcus pyogenes and treated with penicillin or a z-pack. In hindsight I should have been treated, but hey - it was the weekend and I didn't have any obligation to study. Spending time in bed wasn't too difficult. Now the pharyngitis is gone, but I have acquired sinusitis - my sinuses are inflamed and producing tons of mucous. Yum... I'm pretty sure this combination is also referred to as "the crud." I have actually heard doctors refer to it as that - they were ER doctors though, so I'll let you draw your own conclusions there.

Kris is working at a different store this week. His higher-ups have decided he is "management material" and are giving him a one week trial run at the Game Stop in Flowood. I really hope he gets it since that means a salary and benefits, plus more control over his work schedule. He found out he can't actually start teaching until August (just a requirement of the teaching classes he's been taking), so he's glad to have the opportunity to do this until then. He still has 30 observation hours to complete in the classroom and then he can start looking for a job. Hopefully he'll find one near us - Northwest Rankin, Madison Central, any of those would be great. We'll see though.

Anyway, I now have 143 days till the dreaded STEP. I am off to study land.

Happy New Year!

2009 is here and today I am attempting to get organized and ready for it. I started cleaning up everything Christmas-related on the 26th and I am STILL putting it all away. I have to make another trip to Wal-Mart today for one of those giant Rubbermaid bins.

There's rooms to be swept, rugs to be vacuumed, laundry to be laundered, and dishes to be washed. Plus there's always exercise to be done since it's the obligatory time of year for that sort of thing. I'm thinking yoga tonight since I'm battling a pretty nasty "cold" right now. Running is out with the sore throat and the fact that my head pounds every time I move it too quickly. Kris has this "cold" too, but unfortunately for him he has to go to work.

We both felt like crap yesterday but had planned on going to Bonefish with a group for the last 2 or 3 weeks so we put on our grown-up pants and went. Julia made reservations 2 weeks ago for 8:00. We got there promptly at 8:15 of course and the place was PACKED! There was standing room only and every 5 seconds you had to move in order for someone to scoot by. It wasn't looking good. But after an hour and a half we finally got our table that we had reserved. Kris had a NY strip and I had Lily's chicken (spinach, goat cheese, artichoke hearts) and garlic whipped potatoes. The food was great. We sat across from Hannah and J.R. - Julia's sister and brother-in-law. They live in North Carolina and have been listening to a David Sedaris book on cd which I happened to get for Christmas so we had plenty to talk about. All in all it was a fun night, but when 11:00 rolled around and they were headed to the actual party we were both exhausted. We went home, put on our pajamas, and got in bed. We didn't really intend to fall asleep before the new year, but of course we did.

Mom's headed to our house right now to give us our Christmas presents. I think that's a great way to start off the new year :)

Merry Christmas Eve!

This morning Kris and I were awakened by a crash and the tinkling of delicate glass Christmas ornaments breaking. It was bound to happen sooner or later. Unfortunately it wasn't even our own animal's doings. We volunteered to babysit Jennifer and Andrew's cat for the week. Yikes. Maybe we should start an insurance policy for when Milly visits. The 2 ornaments I was really worried about didn't break - a long spiral glass seashell one from our Honeymoon and the one of a bride and groom for our 1st Christmas from Kris's mom.

Kris just looked at the mess, looked at me, and said "Merry Christmas Eve!"

Then we started cleaning. The cat got a time-out in the bathroom and Woodrow got a time-out outside. We aren't entirely convinced of his innocence. Meery Bob got no time out because she is infinitely cute and innocent. She laughed at the other animals.

Plans for the Day:
Wrap Kris's presents while he's at work
Clean house (why is this always on the agenda?)
Laundry
Bake


That's about it for now. Merry Christmas Eve everyone!

Slacker

So, tomorrow is Christmas Eve and I still don't have presents for the majority of the people on my list. Fortunately we're not having Christmas until several days afterward for most of the people on my list. That = major save... Also, my sister and her new hubby are gone to Ft. Lauderdale for the week so that gives me an extra 6 days to pick up their gift. I may just have to stagger buying presents. I'm very thankful that I live less than 5 miles from every mall in the greater Jackson area.

I went on a shopping extravaganza yesterday. I thought I had nearly gotten Kris's shopping all finished up until I came home and he said: "I hope you didn't get me xxxx or xxxx." Of course that was all that I had gotten him. Great :) Guess I get to go return and re-shop today. Or I might just be lazy and save those things for next year.

Here's something to be thankful for - I passed all my tests!!! Now two of them I barely passed, but I passed them all the same. So there. Take that school.

Gotta run now. Slept until 2:00 today (awesomeness) so I should probably start getting ready and being productive.

1 More Test and I'm a Free Woman!!!

Wahoo! The depressing thought that I'm about to study like nobody's business for the next 10 or so hours and then wake up and go at it some more is just made so much better by the fact that I'll be finished taking tests tomorrow at 11:00. Then we have 2 weeks of freedom. I still haven't put Christmas lights on that tree in our front yard and now I'm debating whether I even should with only 1 week left 'til Christmas.

Kris spent the whole night wrapping my gifts last night. It took him around 3 hours to wrap about 6 gifts, but I'm pretty sure it's because he was watching The Dark Knight and because he couldn't find real tape. He had to use a giant role of packing tape. No complaints here. They look so pretty sitting on our mantle and make me very excited for Christmas to get here. I haven't wrapped a single present yet! If it weren't for online shopping I don't know if anybody would even have gifts yet.

Anyway I must now start the cram session and hope it pays off tomorrow even though these particular professors are pretty cruel. Wish me luck!

Want to see what my future esteemed colleagues have to say? Here it is:

These are the facebook status updates my classmates have been posting. For those of you "old folks" reading who don't know what facebook is... For normal people it's a social networking tool. For medical students it's a way to live vicariously through those people while writing down their angsty feelings.

Joseph D Verzwyvelt just placed a piece of scotch tape on his anus....looks like a bunch of flattened footballs to me.

Jeffrey Reeves is confused. It must be the Coxiella.

Emily Faulks is worms WORMS WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORMS!!!

Joseph D Verzwyvelt is thinking he should have went to Antonelli College, I would be on track to the career of my dreams in a quarter of the time of med school.

Heather Gardner doesn't have anything nice to say.

Jeffrey Reeves has the micro blues.
Responses: Kari Giurintano: Are you sure it's not blue/green? It could be Pseudomonas!
Joey Verzwyvelt: Could be Wucheria bancrofti causing epididymitis or as the lay man likes to call it-- "blue balls"

Oy...

As I predicted, the easy test was not so easy this time. It was full of murmurs, thrills, and hypertrophied hearts. I, however, neglected to pull out my physiology book from last year and relearn all of cardiac physiology. You hear that faint dropping sound? That's the sound of my best average dropping down to meet my other sub-par grades. I guess it was lonely at the top.

Something Intelligent

Well, I couldn't think of a very creative name for this entry, so there you go. Hooray for being 2/5 of the way finished with tests! That's almost 1/2 right? The good part is we're actually 1/2 way finished with the actual hard tests. The one we have tomorrow is what I always call "the easy test" when I'm explaining to Kris why I'm not stressed and I'm taking a nap. It goes a little something like this:

A: (watching tv while eating, or doing laundry, or napping)
K: (in a 1/2 kidding, 1/2 serious manner) "Hey you! - shouldn't you be studying? Haven't you been freaking out about all these tests for the last 2 weeks? Why aren't you studying right now? Huh? Huh?"
A: "Don't worry honey. It's no big deal. Remember, I have the easy test tomorrow."
K: "Oh, okay." (goes back to playing video games)

Now to be fair - K doesn't usually yell out me for not studying because he's controlling or manipulative. It's because he has to listen to me gripe about not studying enough or cramming hard enough *occasionally* when I am disappointed with my grades.

Although to be honest I've begun to make peace with my grades. I used to get all hung up about class average and analyzing where I was in relation to it. I've come to realize that I'll just do the best I can, get all this stupid stuff over with in a few months and then begin rotations, where the ACTUAL learning begins. I guess I learn by doing - and there's not much to be done the first 2 years except look in books. The honest truth of it is that when you're applying for residency they don't really analyze your actual class grades very much. They judge you based on one number.

Enter, the STEP.

I don't know if I've written about it before, but the STEP is this giganto test we take upon completion of the first and second years of school. It covers every subject we've taken and often integrates material. It is an 8 hour long test with about 350 questions. It's not just some standardized test our school makes us take. Every medical student in the U.S. takes it and it follows you everywhere - even to your grave. It is the 1st step in medical licensing in the United States.

You know how they gave us 1 day to study for the boards last year? Well they give us 1 month to study for this test. That should put it into perspective. I've scheduled mine for May 29, 2009. Some people are saying they'd be burned out by then and have scheduled theirs for 1 week earlier. I say to them - I'm always burned out. I will probably take a short break after the end of school in April and then go through peaks and troughs of studying. If I get burned out I'll have time to get a 2nd wind, then a 3rd. I'll also have an extra week of studying and since I always feel like I could make an A on the test if I'd had 1 more day to study, maybe this will work.

Rotations start 1 week after that. Then scores come in July. 14 people failed last year. I'm not really sure how it threw off their schedule, but I'm sure it did. The faculty has been pushing us to start studying because they were freaked out. You know what I say? Give us better teachers. Noone goes to class this year - and they're doing BETTER on tests. Does this make sense? No. Does it show how completely inept most of our teachers are? Yes. Now, they are nice people and I hate to talk badly about them because I could never give the same lecture over and over and over for 15 or 30 years. But my gosh... These people make me wish Powerpoint was never freakin' invented. That's a rant for another day though. But even though I've been going to class so far I think I'm comfortable enough with their testing styles to give it a break next block. I'll let you know how it goes.

Wow, that was a long one! That was completely inadvertent. Gots to go study for the *easy* test now. Watch, I'm going to fail it after talking about how easy it is...

1 Down, 4 to Go

Hooray! Even though I didn't have a stellar performance on the first test, it is over! The rest of this week will simultaneously drag on and fly by depending on the day and time. I'm ready for this limbo to end... I'm not counting or anything but I think it's something like 3 days, 20 hours, 14 minutes.

ACE Inhibitors are Perverts

So I'm perusing my *meticulous* notes for pharmacology and see that I have pregnancy written as an adverse side effect of ACE Inhibitors. How exactly does that work?

Note to Self:

Cryptococcus is not equal to Coccidioides. That's all.

Next Week's Forecast - Hazy

I haven't been posting as much lately - here's why:

Monday 12/15/08: Pharmacology Test(all heart meds and antimicrobials) and Genetics Test
Tuesday 12/16/08: Pathology Test (liver, gallbladder, pancreas, dermatopath, heart, all GI)
Wednesday 12/17/08: Introduction to Clinical Medicine Test (mostly heart)
Thursday 12/18/08: Microbiology Laboratory Practical (every bacteria)
Friday 12/19/08: Microbiology Test (mostly gram negative bacteria, worms, and fungi)

Every one of these tests is over material from the last 7 weeks + a 10-25% cumulative component. Oh joy :) Those of you who are in close contact with the BMU (Big Man Upstairs) need to send some love my way.

AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why is it that everyone wants my time when I have so very precious little of it to give? Now, back to learning drugs...

The Art of Saying No

Today I said no when I was asked to play a make-up tennis match for someone else. It felt pretty good, seeing as how I already got suckered into playing 1 for someone else and I'm probably much busier and will do more in the next 2 weeks than any of the other people that play. That's all.

Hilarious

Watching Meery Bob "milk" Woodrow. She just doesn't understand why he doesn't have any milk for her!

Runner's Log

3.5 miles, 34 minutes even though I walked the 1st 2 minutes. So it's probably more like 3.3 miles in 32 minutes. Either way - I'll take it :)

This Thanksgiving I'm thankful I have the ability to run and for a million other things!

I wonder...

Why do 1/2 of the men in the microbiology department have long ponytails? And 1/2 the micro grad students? It's just weird really...

Our Daily Bread

What we ate last night:
Red beans and rice with turkey sausage
Black-eyed peas
Cornbread
Tami's homemade pickles
Yum!!!

Christmas List Revised

So scratch kitten off the old list and add these to it:

1. Nike + technology for runners - a little chip you stick in your shoe and sync with your ipod that tells you how far you've gone, tracks your speed, helps you beat your best times, etc... So cool!!! Too bad I don't have the ipod nano that you need to work with it. I still have my old ipod mini I got 5 years ago. Can't believe it's still working actually.

2. End tables - but please noone buy me one. I'm very ticky as you probably know :)

3. Lamps - see note above.

4. Art - see note above.

So I guess I just need to buy myself these presents since I'm too ticky to let anyone else pick them out. That's how it works, right?

Christmas Came Early!

Kris got me a kitten - wahoo! Her name is Isabelle, but we've been calling her every combination of Meery Bob, Lizzy Belle, and cat... Meery because she stands up like a meercat and Bob because she looks like a Bob cat. She was raised by a dog and isn't scared of Woodrow, but he does play too rough with her sometimes. She's a lap cat, which is awesome - what I've always wanted but never really had. I think this one's going to stick after my last 2 cat disasters!

Dear Santa,

Here's what I'd like for Christmas this year. I've been a good girl:

1. Spoons!!! - and forks, and knives, but mostly spoons!
2. Viva la Juicy perfume - yum
3. My piano in my house; simple request, no?
4. A kitten - maybe the 3rd one is a charm.
5. Sex and the City movie

Today I made...

chocolate cupcakes - for supper :)

Cheddar's

Kris and I tried a new restaurant tonight. It's named Cheddar's. I didn't have high expectations based on the name, but I was pleasantly surprised. The staff was really attentive. Kris's drink was never empty, and that's saying something. The building is brand new and has a really nice atmosphere, but the prices are really good. You can get a burger for around $4. I had a dijon chicken sandwich with brown sugar bacon and it was fabulous. Kris had a double decker club. We had queso as an appetizer, both got cokes, and Kris even had a beer. All that food and our bill was only $26 before tip. Pretty dang good :) Try it out next time you're in Jackson and let me know if you have just as good an experience- it's on Lakeland Drive beside Dogwood.

Runner's Log

3.25 miles, 30 minutes - felt good!

According to Dr. Rockhold...

The degree of "digitalization" of a patient = How much digitalis you're thinking about putting them on...

Dear Dr. McDaniel,

It's pronounced (ser-um), not (sir-um). Please try to get it straight. Thanks.

Coffee is good

I always have problems coming up with titles for these things, so there you have it. Those were my thoughts when I was posting this. I'm sitting in the library drinking coffee and eating a granola bar - breakfast of champions.

So last night I cooked a whole chicken for the first time in my life. I grossly underestimated the time it was going to take. It took 3 hours. I was thinking 1.5. Anyway, it was pretty delicious. I picked off all the white meat and put into a container to make something else with - perhaps chicken pot pie tonight? Then I picked off all the dark meat and skin for Woodrow. I threw the bones and carcass away after I drained all the good juice that was left in the bottom of the pan. I guess I'll use this to make some gravy. It's not nearly enough for soup. I've decided that since neither Kris nor I eat dark meat or the skin off the chicken it's highly impractical to go through the trouble of buying one and cooking it. So this might be the last time I ever cook a whole chicken - at least I know I'm capable. It was perfectly golden on top and moist and juicy in all the right places, so I was pretty pleased with it.

Probably everybody who reads this already knows my grandmother is in the hospital with a diabetic foot infection. She's actually doing really well. When Amy called to tell me what was going on I thought - oh no, she's going to lose her foot this time. But surprisingly the infection just wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. She had an MRI 2 days ago to see if the infection has spread to the bone, but I'm pretty doubtful. We'll find out today though. I've been to visit the last two days and I reckon I'll keep on going through the week and weekend. The hospital she's in is so close to school and it's really nice to get a chance to see her. Since med school started I haven't gotten to visit with family nearly enough. Usually I would feel guilty for not studying all those hours, but since our next test block doesn't even start for another month I'm just not overly motivated right now. I'll start racking up frequent flier miles in the library next week I guess. I really do think they should supply us with free coffee for every 8 hours we spend in there. I would save about $12 a week.

Runner's log (November 12) - 2 miles, 20 minutes.

Our daily bread - roasted chicken, English peas, homemade pickles (random, I know - but by the time the chicken was done I was too tired to make the cheesy broccoli and rice that I was going to make)

Days 'til Thanksgiving - 14!

Happy Fall!!!

So, it's officially fall! I know this because there are a myriad of different colored leaves in my backyard about 3" deep. I love this time of year. It does make it a bit harder to study when it's so pretty outside though. I just want to go frolick.

Anyway, here's what's been going on. My computer, or more specifically my hard drive, crashed on Halloween. Typical. It's all better now thanks to the techie guys at UMC. I lost all my info and have spent all weekend uploading programs onto my computer so that's been fun. I'm just glad it's all better now.

Kris and I went to Oxford on Halloween weekend in order to go to the Auburn game on Nov. 1. It was all in all a fabulous weekend. We stayed with Julia who attempted to make us cheese toast Saturday morning. We woke up to the sound of the smoke detector going off and her fanatically fanning it and letting out some not-so-lady-like language :) Then we went to the game and watched Ole Miss beat Auburn. We intercepted the ball so many times. It was wonderful!!! Then we hung out in the grove all day and eventually left to go rent scary movies and get chicken-on-a-stick. So by the end of the weekend we had done everything we intended - seen a good game, "Groved", eaten at Ajax (on Friday night), and eaten chicken-on-a-stick. Yum.

Then I went to class all week and Kris worked all week. As for this weekend, Kris went to Oxford Friday for his teaching class on Saturday. He got to do a ride-along with one of his police officer buddies Friday night though. He had to wear a bullet proof vest, but thank goodness he didn't get shot. That's just one more surgery we don't need.

I went and volunteered at the Jackson Free Clinic this morning. It's a clinic for the homeless/people without insurance. All the patients are seen and managed by medical students who report to 1 supervising doctor. So it's a really good place to learn and ask questions and not feel too stupid. We only saw 2 patients because it was so packed, but I did get to hear carotid bruits (pronounced "brew-ees") which are just whooshing sounds you hear in someone's carotid arteries when they're about 1/2 way blocked.

Well, Kris just walked in the door back from Oxford, so I think we're about to do dinner and a movie - hooray! I should really be studying, but I'll do it when we get back :)

Busy Weekend Forecast

Highlights of the Day:
1. running 3.75 miles in 36 minutes - new personal best!!!
2. hearing one of my classmates tell the oblivious girl talking loudly on her cell phone IN THE LIBRARY to "Call him back!" He did it really loudly. You just had to be there.
3. receiving candy from strangers - well, what really happened was the man in line ahead of me at the vending machine got 2 candy bars so he gave me one.

Lowlights of the day:
1. Kris had to go to Oxford for orientation for his new teaching class that starts this next week, leaving me home alone with Woodrow. Woodrow is looking for him and crying. It's pretty pitiful.

Thankful that:
I don't have a cavernous hemangioma on my face, also that I have the ability to walk and run.

Good deed of the day:
Giving my free candy bar to the classmate who told the girl to shut up.

Excited about:
Jen's bachelorette party tomorrow!!! Fun, fun, fun. We're having a slumber party at her house.
Gotta take a bath now!

Just Another Day

Highlights of the Day:
1. Getting on the scale this morning - I've lost 3 lbs. since school started!!!
2. seeing that other people are as freaked out about all the material we're supposed to know as I am.
3. watching Grey's Anatomy. I wish I had a photographic memory.

Lowlights of the Day:
1. having the sewing machine repeatedly mess up (due to an operator error I'm sure) and not being able to hem my pants during the commercial breaks as planned.

Our Daily Bread:
Kris and I had a gourmet meal of honey nut cheerios for dinner tonight. He followed his bowl with a 2nd bowl. I followed mine with a stick of string cheese - and then coffee. We're quite the food snobs.

Let's Simplify...

So, in an attempt to update my blog more regularly I'm going to try a new format. Instead of rambling on for paragraphs and paragraphs I'm going to start sticking to a few little tidbits. Here goes:

Highlights of the Day:
1. wearing my new orange sweater vest - and getting several compliments :)
2. running 3.25 miles (without a break!)
3. making a pretty decent supper - but I cheated...
4. watching Project Runway while preparing dinner

Lowlights of the Day:
1. leaving my iPod in my car during my run - it was a totally unproductive 3.25 miles. I should've been listening to a lecture.

Our Daily Bread:
Tonight we had some of Tami's leftover stew from our trip home this weekend. I contributed by making some cornbread to go with it. Granted it was from the package, but it was pretty darn good! Who knew?

Did You Know?

So I learned 2 interesting things this week. I learned a lot of other things too, but only 2 of them were interesting. So here they are:

Some of you may remember how Dan Quail used to stumble every time he got off the little private jets that shuttle important people like that around. I hear the media gave him a pretty hard time about it. Turns out he has a slight clotting disorder and he was throwing pulmonary emboli after sitting on the plane for hours at a time. Get up and walk around on the plane people!!!

Because nicotine is a non-selective nicotinic receptor agonist (hence, it stimulates nicotinic receptors), it is a very useful insecticide. It causes depolarizing/desensitizing blockade of insect nervous systems. It's also obviously a treatment for nicotine dependence.

I'm in the library and think the tappity-tap of my keyboard might be annoying others, so I'm going to cut this one short. More later :)

What Did You Do Today?

So pretty much every day Kris and I end up asking each other this question. For me it's usually a variation on study and work out with a few extra things thrown in there. For him it's usually work and playing video games with a few extra things thrown in.

So, without further ado, here's exactly what I did today:

8:00 - Woke up and frantically realized that if I was going to make it to my 9:00 I had to leave in 20 minutes. Scrambled to get out the door by 8:33.

9:00 - Attended lecture on MHC activation in T cell immunity. Enthralling.

9:50 - Power walked to the cafeteria to get breakfast and be back in my seat in 10 minutes. Feat accomplished.

10:00 - Enjoyed eggs, grits, and wheat toast while listening to a fancy pants guest speaker with about 130 publications give a terribly boring lecture covering about 30 immune diseases. He was too smart - I was listening but completely unaware of most of what he said.

11:00 - Listened to and simultaneously transcribed pathology lecture on transplants. Could have been interesting, but the speaker , Dr. Cruse, talks so fast we've all dubbed him the "Cruse Missile." He covered 84 slides in 50 minutes.

11:55 - Freedom at last! For some glorious reason most of us got out of class at noon today. I looked forward to relishing the next 12 hours of not sitting in class.

12:00 - Ran 2.7 miles and did a few crunches. Almost died on the walk back to the car due to heat exhaustion.

1:00 - Upon walking up to car notice the passenger rear tire is flat. Yippee...

1:10 - Find can of fix-a-flat in trunk and thank God for a smart father and sister who always told me to carry the stuff. (Mom, you're smart too. You just never stressed the dire importance of having a can of fix-a-flat.)

1:11 - Read the directions and fixed the flat.

1:13 - Realize I have no idea where I've put my cell phone in all this craziness. Had it just 4 minutes ago when I called Kris to say I had a flat. Now it's nowhere to be found.

1:30 - Arrive at Tire Depot (where they think I'm stalking them because I was there 2 days ago to get my oil changed.) They take the screw out of my tire and patch it. All this happened in about 40 minutes and only cost me $20. They also have wireless internet, so I got to catch up on e-mails while I waited. I like Tire Depot :)

2:15 - Go back to school to look for phone. Goose chase ensues. Can not find it.

3:00 - Go home, have a beer, and watch Dr. Phil. It's been a rough day. Then I realize I have not eaten anything so I eat lunch at 3:30.

The rest is just pretty much the normal routine. Kris got home from work. I studied. I did some laundry and dishes. I'm about to study some more. Here are the things I'd rather be doing though:

1. picking out fabric at Hancock's to make a cushion to go on my hearth.

2. dying all of my faded jeans to re-darken them and make them look new again. I just learned how to do this today and can't wait to try it when I have the time.

3. planting flowers

4. hemming all my pants so that they either work with flats or the 3 actually comfortable pairs of heels I own. That would make life so much easier.


So, in a nutshell, those are the things I'm either doing or thinking about doing on any given day. It's a little exhausting.

This One's For You Amy!

This blog post is dedicated to my cousin Amy because she harassed me about not posting since April 6th when I met her for lunch today. I suppose that is quite a while, but I've had a little bit going on! Let's see, what's changed since April 6th...

1. I completed (and passed, thank you Jesus) all my M1 classes.
2. Kris and I got married.
3. We honeymooned in West Palm Beach, FL.
4. We found and bought a house in Ridgeland.
5. I worked in the UMC Emergency Department for a few weeks shadowing doctors.
6. I worked at the Lakeland Family Medicine Clinic shadowing/learning for the past month.
7. We got a puppy named Woodrow and have since lost our cat.
8. Oh yeah, 2 of my good friends got married and Jennifer & Andrew are engaged!

That's about it in a nutshell. I've been trying to catch up on all the sleep I lost in the past year, but since I've had to be at work at 8am every morning it hasn't really happened. I've got to start going to bed before midnight. Tomorrow is my last day of work at the Family Medicine Clinic and we have 1 week off before school starts so I'm planning on sleeping 'til at least 10:00 every day next week. No phone calls please.

Married life is going great so far. It's pretty much the same except you always know where the other one is since you're living in the same house. It's much more convenient for the most part. I also enjoy the fact that Kris takes out the garbage and mows the yard. (I really suck at taking out the trash.) For some reason he's also learned how to use a hamper and is actually much better than I am about not leaving clothes everywhere. It's miraculous. I don't remember that being in the vows anywhere, but the preacher must have snuck that in at some point.

I'm also in the process of learning how to cook a few things. So far I've had a few successes and a few terrible failures.
Successes = turkey sausage and rice casserole, applesauce spice cake with cream cheese frosting (I ate 1/2 of it and have since decided I'm not allowed to ever make it again), baked pork chops (yes Amy, I used Oven Fry and they were delicious!!!), and turkey burgers (not exactly difficult, but they were yummy.)
Failures = homemade caramel cake. The cake was actually okay, but the caramel frosting was a complete disaster. It had a wonderful flavor but had the consistency of an ice cream topping. Another failure was chicken, broccoli, and rice casserole (and you thought that was impossible to screw up). The rice was crunchy and the broccoli was soggy. Yuck. Must learn to cook more. The only problem is that I refuse to cook anything that's loaded with cream cheese, full fat sour cream, butter, and full fat cheeses. What's the point of cooking a chicken breast when you put all that crap on it? I could just as well eat a Big Mac! Therefore since we live in Mississippi, my options are very limited. Oh yeah, did I mention Kris doesn't eat onions? That cuts out the few recipes that are left. Any good ideas (healthy, easy, or cheap) are welcome!

As for our pup Woodrow, we were told he's a Yellowcreek beagle. I think that's just a really fancy way to say he's white with yellow spots instead of black and brown. He's 8 weeks old and we're in the midst of potty training. It sucks - especially since neither Kris nor I are morning people and if you have an inside dog you must be a morning person. I don't like being woken up at 5 am to whincing and having to go find my robe and sit outside with the puppy while I wait for him to tinkle. So I usually just make Kris do it. Did I mention I love being married?

Working this summer has been AWESOME. It does suck to have to wake up at 6:30 during the summer, but it's worth it. They're paying us a good amount and we get to pretty much do what we want. I've enjoyed family medicine more than the ER surprisingly. The family medicine docs let you do more hands-on stuff since the patients aren't as critical. We get to go in and see the patients, ask them what meds they're taking, get a history, do a physical, look in their ears, and listen to their hearts and lungs. I've also gotten to do 4 Pap smears, a bimanual pelvic exam, and removed about 60 skin tags using lidocaine injection, cutting them with Iris scissors, and cauterizing them. I've also learned how to tell when a patient just wants pain meds and when to get a psych consult, which will be very useful in a year or so.

School starts August 4th so I'll be back in action as an M2 (hooray!). I am planning on blogging more regularly then once I'll be attached to my computer at least 12 hours a day.

Love y'all!

Counting Days

Wow, I can't believe I haven't posted in a month. Tisk, tisk. Things are going good. We're on the downhill slope. There are 30 days of class left with 4 days of testing left. This is very exciting! It actually affords me a little time to take care of very important wedding business. Most recently we (meaning my mother and I) have:

1. had the invitations and thank you cards printed
2. gathered most of the addresses
3. addressed a few invites
4. picked out a place to alter the dress
5. bought everything to assemble the favors
6. visited 1 florist, received too high of a bid, and are currently getting estimates from several others.

Not too shabby, eh? The main things I still have to do are actually get the dress altered, have bridal pictures made, ask the musicians to play, etc... Hopefully that'll all be done in the next 2-3 weeks. The 1st florist we visited wanted us to pay $2700. That's basically the budget for 1/2 the entire wedding. Not possible. Anyway, hopefully we can get it all worked out.
Kris and I have also started daydreaming about houses. Jennifer is supposed to e-mail me some mortgage info this week so we can get started on that process. I really need a front yard - I have to plant flowers. I'll have a whole summer to nest so I can pretty much get anything that I want to done without feeling guilty for not studying. Hooray!
Speaking of houses, we were very lucky that Jennifer's house in Madison didn't sustain any damage from the bad storms we had here last week. Some places still don't have power. A few of the hotels along I-55 had shingles and large parts of their roofs ripped off. I heard Old Fannin Road looked like a war path. Mom and I were going to take care of wedding business that day, but unfortunately weren't able to get much done since noone had power. We settled for shoe shopping, looking at mother-of-the-bride dresses, and eating dinner with Jennifer at Anthony Z's. It wasn't a terribly productive day, but it was fun.