Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Finals are fast approaching

So it is 6:40
I got out of class at 3:45.
Between then and now I picked up my new car, waited for two friends to pick up meds at the vet clinic and then gave them a ride home, went for a 45 minuet walk, checked over the car with my insurance agent~ who will also hook me up with all other things vehicle related, went grocery shopping and bought more minutes for my phone, had a conversation with my RA about end of term stuff and heated up my dinner. I am such a slacker. Three hours I could have been studying shot to hell.

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Stuff and things

Bought a car this week-- haven't picked it up yet because I need to get it registered and insured. Found an apartment. Bank accounts are being emptied out. My first final is now less than two weeks away. I leave 4 weeks from today.
Boyo ~ boyo

nuff said

Monday, April 17, 2006

One Final Down

Okay so it was the final for my one credit clinical skills pass fail course but I took it and I passed it.. Yeah!

Sunday, April 16, 2006

Happy Easter





Life is always a balance of the good and the bad.

This Easter morning was no different for me..
I woke up at 5:30 and by six there was a huge rainbow outside and a group of orphans singing hymns.

Now it is almost 10 and I have been studying the histology of the endocrine system almost continually since then and NOTHING feels like it is sticking.
Plus there is the added bonus of feeling like Howard Hughes because I stay in my room so long without talking to anyone.

And so when the rigors of my program get me down, and even the orphans and the rainbow and the beautiful sea can’t cheer me up, I cling to one thought that makes me feel better about myself….

I always thought Peeps (the marshmallow sugar Easter snack) were cool.

Happy Easter Folks,
bite some heads off some chocolate rabbits for me


Friday, April 14, 2006

Helloooooooo

Are you still out there.. does anyone still read this thing? If so, please comment.

Thank You

The management

Infinite Jest


Today featured another set of mock patient interviews ( I was the only one in my group to come up with the correct diagnosis of pelvic inflammatory disease) Dr. Brahim’s ever entertaining office hours—which are not for the faint of heart he asks you to name anatomy structures with all the subtlety of a drill sergeant. He also likes to pick the new person and ask them about an obscure nerve or artery that HAPPENS to be named after what it supplies and yells “think man” while the student stammers for an answer. He is actually a huge cupcake, but people get intimidated by him.
Today also featured me getting on an overcrowded bus with a human skull in a box tucked under my arm. My study group decided to check one out for the long weekend. I, of course, have named him Yorick. He is sitting on my desk right now. He is helping me remember that my life may seem a little strange to some people.
And I was starting to think about having a crush on the guy who sits across the isle from me during lecture. But then I found out he is president of the Catholic Student’s organization. Not that there is anything wrong with being Catholic, some of my best friends are Catholics. And today he was wearing a Yankees cap, so no more crush. It did allow me to have the conversation with Molly about why it is unacceptable for her to root for the Yankees but that it was fine for her to root for the Mets.

All in all a good day.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Another Beautiful Day in Paradise


You know in the Jane Austen novels the characters say things like "she absolutely had no conversation and incorrect opinions"? While I can still claim some incorrect opinions I am just plum out of conversation. Life is much the same. Wake up, study, take the bus to school, go to class/lab/study groups, come home, walk eat dinner, watch a little TV, study go to bed. That's it. Walking is still good fro appreciating I live on a very beautiful island. I am looking forward to a four day weekend. Finding out that there is a large Mennonite community on the island because they were singing hymns in the parking lot of my grocery store qualifies as an event. Still no new is good new. Finals will be over by noon four weeks from tomorrow and I will be flying back to the states five weeks from tomorrow.
I have this strange feeling that I will wake up tomorrow and be back in the states halfway through my medical education.. I better wake up and enjoy the beach.

Monday, April 10, 2006

Study Walks


Really. That is an anatomy flash card in Paula's hand. Really

Finally Mangos


Silly north american me.. I had wondered where the mangos were but they weren't in season unil now! O joy Mangos! My fruit diversity has just increased!

Sunday, April 09, 2006

Study Slut

What did I do this weekend?... so glad you asked. On Friday night I studied biochemistry with Molly (big quiz on Monday) until about 10. Got up at about 5:30 did laundry had breakfast with Molly, studied some more on my own, went to campus to meet real estate agent to see apartments at 11 am. Real estate agent didn’t show put ran into Peggy and studies more biochem until about 2:30 came home showered studied and went to the most excellent Indian Culture student organization show at 6.. went out to dinner afterward with molly (mediocre expensive microwaved fondue) came home went to bed up at 5:30 studied biochem until the 9 am bus.. went to anatomy lab studied cranial nerves with Paula Molly and RT came home at 11:30, went grocery shopping talked with Janie mom and dad started studying again at 1:30 studied on my own until 5:30 (biochem) started studying biochem again until 8:00with RT made dinner (Risotto from a box peas and chicken breasts with garlic and basil and I will likely shower and do the dishes before I start studying again. The Alarm is set for 5:30. But did you see? I stopped studying Saturday at 2:30! I may even watch the Daily Show while I eat. I am such a slacker!

Saturday, April 08, 2006

Snapshots

Last Saturday I was feeling a little lonely.. decided to take myself out to dinner at La Boulangerie (Pizza salad pasta outdoor seating) and it was twilight. A group of young teens holding candles walked up the street singing something. How nice how pretty I thought. Then I could hear what they were singing, “we can change the world, we can make it a better place” beautiful I thought. “Just say no to abortion JUST SAY NO!”
And then I thought about Deanna who is trying to help set up a program on the island to help pregnant teens graduate from high school, because the first thing that happens here to a pregnant teen is that she gets kicked out of school. Then I thought about the story a physician told me about a girl who hid her pregnancy from her school and her family, and who didn’t seek medical attention when she went into labor, and so her otherwise healthy child died. The doctor told me it was hard for her not to be angry with the girl. Hard for her.

I have been stomping out to the point everyday—sometimes with friends quizzing each other as we walk – 12 cranial nerves—3 divisions of cranial nerve V, each division with 5 to 10 branches some motor some sensory that interconnect and branch etc etc— sometimes on my own with my ipod. I am considering my options as to a personal theme song/album. American idiot by green day was a top candidate last week. I have a serious crush on the soundtrack from Cameron Crowe’s Elizabethtown.. a better soundtrack than movie I think. I am always grateful that he reminds me that I like old Elton John and new Tom Petty.

My favorite biochem professor announced that he has been removed from his position as chairman of the biochemistry department.. which makes me sad. I have no idea why he was removed. He is tough, and has high expectations, and most students would fail his course if the exams grades were not curved. But medical school is not supposed to be easy—even, I hope, in Grenada. And the complainers should think about the day when someone comes to them with his or her baby with some mysterious metabolic disorder, hands them over and says, “can you help.”

This morning I was up early.. had breakfast on my porch with Molly, and am studying biochem until I have to leave to meet a real estate agent to look for apartments.

Tonight is the Indian Cultural Student Association show/dinner. It is a huge deal here, the chancellor and the prime minister of Grenada attend. I will try and post photos.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

And they all look just the same..........


4 week left of instruction until we start the finals cycle—two weeks of constant study interspersed with 3 hour exams and lots of free floating tension. I spent my weekend goofing of like nobody’s business. I only studied for 5 or 6 hours on Saturday (three of those spent going over cranial nerves with a visiting prof from Cambridge.. Dr. Welsh, very nice man who is leaving this week—he reminded us all to actually look at our patients and not just at our lab work) and a paltry 3 or 4 on Sunday. The rest of the time that I spent doing wacky things like watching movies on my laptop having dinner with friends at he waterside restaurant at True Blue Bay Resort and watching Weeds. Weeds, for the uninitiated is a Showtime series about a widowed mom who ends up as a suburban pot dealer when her husband drops dead of a heart attack (available for download from my dealers—the fine folks at itunes). The main characters are all about my age, and as I watched the last five episodes last night it has me thinking a little. The song that plays over the credits is “little boxes----” the same song my mom used to sing to my brother and me as we drove past the houses the doting the hills next to 280 in South San Francisco. It goes something like this:

Little boxes
On the hillside
And they are all made of ticky-tacky
Little boxes
On the hillside
And they all look just the same

(full text of song to be found here http://ingeb.org/songs/littlebo.html)
I remember thinking at the time when my mom explained the social import of that song that I never wanted to end up like those people in the boxes who all went to universities and came out all just the same. Sometimes I wonder now if it was I never wanted or having never felt entitled to the more conventional life, the home, the kids, a husband who I love and who loves me, a stable job—I started to dream of other things.

I get feedback from you all, that this (selling everything and leaving the country to go to medical school) is all so incredibly brave of me to do, but I am not so sure. I haven’t been brave enough to make a commitment to anyone in my life who perhaps would have made life in one of those boxes not just tolerable but profound. And there were a few candidates in the past.. not many but a few. And I managed to scare myself enogh that I never let them close or pushed them away.
The question that comes to mind is would I have been happier had I imagined a more conventional life. Would that life have been safer, less prone to the events that shake and challenge my sense of self? I know none of us are safe from diseases like cancer, random accidents or the fickleness of our collective hearts. Is my choice, the one to always pursue what is most interesting to me myself and I-- a safer choice? It is more lonely and there is safety in that, but it was the thought of staying in my nice stable job at my nice stable home that really scared me. My loneliness here has a cause (I go to school with folks who are largely much younger than I am—old friends are far away) and a projected duration (until I get back to the states for clincals or until friendship here deepen and grow). My loneliness in Albuquerque threatened to be of long duration and due not in a small way to my own inability to form a lasting relationship. That was hard. That scared the shit out of me. That gave me sleepless nights worrying about dying alone.
Here at least I am on a path that will allow me to make my life about something more than the occasionally constricted and twisting pathways of my heart. I have no idea what or who this choice will bring me. But I do know that making the choice to come here was the choice that filled me with the most hope.