sakex

No. Literally. Not in some sort of deep philosophical way about new found feelings or anything. It feels like I am physically dying. It feels like my entire frontal lobe is throbbing. I can't eat or drink anything without wanting to throw up. I have tremors in my upper extremities, balance issues, and numbness in my fingertips. I can't comprehend normal everyday conversation and my vision appears to be deteriorating rapidly.

Life lesson (which correlates nicely to one of our physiology exam topics) of the day: sleep is important.

Imma go take a nap now. Got lab in the afternoon. These two weeks of exams...I don't even know how to properly express how I feel about them. Just dying.

this makes me happy:


the human voices are kind of annoying though

detached our body's head from the vertebral column, removed a wedge of the occipital bone down to the foramen magnum, and bisected the head in half just lateral to right nostril down to the tongue using a hacksaw due to the limited supply of oscillating saws. Everybody in my group was disgusted, particularly with the complete exposure of the tongue after the bisection, and found the dissection "scary." I enjoyed it and thought it to was one of our more interesting sessions. I don't know what this says about me as a person but probably not good things... =/

This class gives me a headache. I'm either loving it or hating it but never in a comfortable, apreciative middle ground.

I love that it's so hands-on. After sitting through what seems like endless hours of lectures in a dark, windowless room it's nice to work with my hands. The smell isn't that bad either. You get use to it after awhile unlike neuroanatomy. (sidenote: The only time I had to go into neuro lab on Monday was before ecm so I had to go directly to see my patient after. Such a bad idea! The fumes from the preservatives were absorbed in my eyes and made me tear up randomly in front of my patient! I'm sure that made him feel real comfortable. Never. Again.) It's a fantastic opportunity to explore the body. I really don't understand the people who skip lab or chose not to dissect; after this year it'll be a rare instance to ever get a chance like this. Besides the standard skinning and other scalpel work, I've gotten the chance to saw a leg off from the level of the sacrum (election day. skipped party in grant park to do so. worth it), perform what was essentially a full spinal laminectomy (inauguration day. many obama references!), and saw off the calva to remove the brain to observe the cranial nerves (sawing is fun. my group is convinced I'm going into ortho surgery).

Downers can pretty much be characterized by everything that happened this week. You can never know enough. Granted this is true for everything in the field of medicine and I have long accepted this fact but this week was just threw this in my face and laughed at me. After putting in additional lab time at night with my study group to try and learn this foreign language my preceptor goes and questions my dissection group about things that I have never heard of. After it became clear that we knew nothing about forensic pathology, she spent the next 2 hours yelling at us about our ignorance and how we are going to kill all our patients in the future. Of course we had to stay 3hrs later than all the other groups to redeem ourselves by dissecting things that weren't even listed in our manual. It was just so physically and emotionally draining. The fact that half our group ditched us when they saw her screaming, leaving only three people (including myself), did not help. After getting home I just laid down and couldn't get up (which btw, completely threw off my study schedule. lame. and it made me miss my tango lesson. double lame).

Tomorrow will be another 8 hr review session. Except it's not really review since this semester they removed lecture during the week due to my class being crazy and complaining. So what it really is now is 8 continuous hours of lecture punctuated by three 15 min breaks on Saturdays. And instead of listening to him natter on while sitting in a lecture hall, we get to stand in a crowded little circle during lab to listen to him natter. It's definitely a good thing that our professors are so receptive to our criticism and try really hard to improve our curriculum but why such extreme changes...?

Just a quick post as penance for not working out today (New Year's resolution still being met!):

( best thing ever )

Now back to the books.

[Ok, I lied. The best thing ever is Jae and Changmin singing "It's Raining Men" but this is still up there on the list.]

I know I'm going to regret saying this come tomorrow but I'm kind of glad that classes are starting again. The last two weeks of break was so unbearably boring. The Monday back from Georgia I read neuroanatomy, reformatted both my computers, got a haircut, knitted a "scarf" (not really since it's really short and I can't find anymore of the same yarn in stores, blah), spent too much money on the internet (cosmetics from korea/japan is amazing but why is shipping so tragic?! s/h came out to half my total order amount T-T), caught up with We Got Married (my favorite couple left...sadness), marathoned House, reviewed anatomy and then sat around not knowing what to do anymore.

If I had just sat around right after finals instead of going somewhere I think I would've been perfectly content with wasting my time during break. But, actually doing something right afterwards...in beautiful 80 degree weather... really messed up any plans for lazing about. blah. I also got into the habit of waking up at 7am from the volunteering so there was a lot of time for boredom. If only that would continue into the semester....

Classes:
Med Gross Anatomy/Embryology II
Med Neuroanatomy
Med Tissue and Cell Biology II
Physiology II
Brain and Behavior
Fundamental Immunology/Microbiology
Essentials of Clinical Medicine II
Intro to Molecular Medicine/Genetics
edit: Human Development

First semester finally done! I can't believe school has only been a few months; I can't even remember the beginning of the semester when we first started and only had biochemistry and physiology to worry about. Ha, and we're suppose to recall all that information in a year and a half from now! I can honestly say that I have studied more in these past few months than my entire undergrad. The fact that they're just adding more classes onto our schedule for next semester is extremely frightening. No lie. I guess that would explain why I feel so stressed right now instead of relief for a semester finished. I haven't even purchased the books my professors want us to read over break! Ah!

I will be spending the next week in Georgia to help with the Nature Conservancy. Our group of ten will be living in a log cabin in Moody Forest and will be helping with collecting seeds, planting trees, prescribed burning, and building firebreaks. I have been really excited for this trip; however, today I was informed that there are two vacancies for the rebuilding New Orleans trip. That had been my first choice and now I can't even go because I'm the site leader and driver for the trip to Georgia! Lame. So very lame. I kept on insisting that the responsibilities could easily be pushed onto someone else but that didn't really fly.

And yes, you read that correctly. Responsible for driving nine other people down into the forest in GA in a giant van. The 15hr drive getting there should be without horrors but the drive back will be overnight, beginning Friday evening after a day of working out in the woods. I believe I will be pounding back 5-hour energy shots the entire time (8333% daily B12 and 2000% daily B6 in just 2oz!) You could say I have been training for this moment since August...

Total amount of sleep since Saturday: 18hr

Hello, brain? If you could return from where ever you are right now, that would be great. Thanks.

Took a TLE. Got 59%. What. The. Hell.

This is not a good sign for what is going to be happening 6 hours from now...

20-something guy #1: Dude, that band was awesome!
20-something guy #2: I know! It makes me wish I were a chick, that way I could have that guy's babies.
20-something guy #1: Me too!

I have problems focusing. That all-nighter is probably happening on Sunday. Might have to go pick up some Monster then. And a water bottle...where did I put it on Monday? Working out without one is proving to be really difficult. What happened to my sports bra? I really need to do laundry next Saturday. Hopefully it won't be snowing still. Being responsible for the lives of nine other people and all that. My co-site leader really gets on my nerves. Why did I agree to this position? Nephrology is annoyingly complicated. My nails are really pretty right now. Should pick up OPI's french collection.

end randomness.