What's New
What is new? the truth is I don’t really know how to respond to that question anymore. I study. And sometimes there are new flavors to the studying. I have a final in immunology in a week. Typing that made my chest hurt a little. I have good friends. I am afraid to drive my car at night because some strange electrical problem causes one headlight to go off. What’s new is that it is 1 pm and I haven’t changed out of my pajamas yet.. no wait I did that last Saturday too. What is new is that I am embracing my deep womanly scent because I have not turned on the AC because my last electricity bill was $175 and I am comfortable at my desk with the fan on as long as I don’t move around much. What is new is that while hanging out with my classmates Natalie and Christine, I met a very drunk and somewhat entertaining man named Chicken and his buddy Phil. Natalie lives at the grand view hotel at grand Anse, and when I heard how much she pays for her one bedroom (About the same size a little more run down) UTILITIES INCLUDED I am considering a move. There is a pool at Grand view, where Christine, Natalie and I were pretending to study and where we met Chicken and Phil and where Phil, who was as drunk as Chicken and maybe a little peeved that he could not flirt as vigorously as Chicken because his wife was standing across the pool, pushed Chicken into the pool with no warning. Chicken then got out of the pool, complaining vigorously about his two ruined cell phones, and proceeded to remove his pants and break dance on the pool side asphalt. Thank god he had swimming trunks underneath his pants.
What is not new is the incompetence of the clinical skills program here. Once again they scheduled a lecture, and then changed the lecture to LATER in the month without telling any of the students. Only about 10% of the class showed for this one, I imagine that the final turn out will be less than a dozen people out of a class of 350. Later that same day I went to a patient interview small group where many students were evaluated on criteria we had not been introduced to, and then our small group facilitator violated FERPA regulations, which this particular school has chosen to adhere to, by announcing our grades to the entire group.
What is also not new is there is no chocolate nor are there chips or cookies in the house . I once again made the unwise and dare I say foolish choice not to have snack food around the house while I am studying. My ass seriously needs a few extra inches of padding if I am going to sit on it all day, and the cantaloupe is just not cutting it as far as comfort food goes, even with a zesty spritz of Caribbean key lime.
But I have made some nice wall art out of the motor pathways printouts, and I enjoy looking at the tall grass outside my window move in the Caribbean breeze. I got to eat Thai food this week courtesy of Molly’s Half Thai boyfriend Patrick and my brain seems to be slowly kicking back into gear after finals. The visiting prof from UCSD who is teaching respiratory physiology is good, and Dr. Aziz, beloved for his clarity the clinical relevance of his lectures is teaching autonomic. Pretty interesting stuff.
SO life is good, not much is new. And if I get going on the immuno, I am just be able to justify flinging my self in the ocean in a few hours.
Chowder friends
About a pitch in the dirt and a cricket match
I am sitting in an ice-cold lecture hall at 9:45 in the morning watching the West Indies Cricket team play a match against India. The helpful AV guy put on the Caribbean version of ESPN for us when our clinical skills lecturer did not show up. It is either that or some strange form of preparation for our lecture on the cerebellum… that funny part of the brain that helps us organizes our movements. Cricket is deeply weird. The ball is "bowled" at the ground andbounces before it is hit. I just watched what I would call an outfielder catch what I would call a high fly ball with his bare hands. Here is the neuro science lecturer. Time to pay attention.
My lecturer just pointed out how idiotic it was of Rush Limbaugh to say that Michael J. Fox must have been off his meds or faking it in those new commercials for the democrats. Parkinsonian movements are terrible, and can't be faked or controlled well. I
Later.. after lunch
... this must be a BIG cricket game because there are large groups of grenadan men gathered around any televsion and watching the game intently. No gloves. Did I mention they catch the damn balls with no gloves on?
Don't forget!
I recieved my absentee balot in the mail yesterday, sat in my lecture and filled in my bubbles ( no hanging chads.. ) and sent it back to New Mexico. The rest of youse guys.. don't forget to vote..
Fun
You had a long week? Burnt out from m idterms? What to do for fun? How about go and stick people with needles and be stuck in turn.
Actually it was fun and interesting. We are lacking in real clinical skills training here in Grenada in the land of basic sciences. But many clubs run "clinics" where you can learn basic skills, like the one I went to last night where I actually sucessfully put a catheter in someone's vein. In this case it was the lovely and talented Natalie pictures at right. The patient and very competent Chris, pictured left, Is/was an anesthesia tech before he become a med student. He was a phenomenal teacher. For the record Natalie also stuck me too, and it was more interesting than painful.
This and That
It is 8:15 and perhaps the most telling comment about how midterms went is that I fell asleep at 7:15 last night and slept straight through until 5 this morning. It is not that I was missing sleep, staying up late cramming. I got 7 to 8 hours of sleep every night during midterms. It is not that I had exhausted my self physically by a long hike or swim. I was just mentally exhausted. I tried to study over the last couple of days and I have been going to lecture but NOTHING has been sticking. So I find myself in a sort of battle. I want to give myself enough of a break so that I am rested and ready to resume my studies, but I also don’t want to get behind.
Speaking of my situational ADD, I am sitting in a clinical skills lecture to which perhaps 110% of the class has shown up. It is on the science of alcoholism and started a full hour earlier than most of our lecture. Unfortunately clinical skills is considered a class merely to be born, not really embraced. Ethics lectures are even more poorly attended, and the well-meaning lecture in charge of the ethics portion of the class is widely regarded as condescending and out of touch with student. Obviously I am finding the overly basic and unenlightening lecture on alcoholism less than compelling. If I wasn’t falling asleep at 7pm perhaps I would do something to create a change in the situation, but for now I am unmoved.
In front of my apartment there is a hurricane-damaged hotel without a roof. The rumor is that it has been sold. A small jungle of oleander, bougainvilleas and other flowering shrubs has grown up around it. To get to the main road and catch the bus I walk around the hotel and through a small glen. Last week a flock of smooth beaked anis.. a strange cross between a crow and a parrot, scolded me for disturbing their morning. For the last three days, a set of friendly and determined men has been clearing away the little jungle with machetes and re-exposing the hotel. They create great heaps of flowers and green shrubbery. It has been sad to see the not so old hotel in ruin, but also sad to see my little jungle go away. I wish they had fixed up the potholes in the road instead.
Results
Midterms are in. I think I got an 88% on well everything. I lost count there at the end with phyio.. it could be an 88% an 86% or a 90% but I am too brain dead to care. I have lunch to get, a work sheet to submit, then I am off to the beach with my shiny new new yorker that just arrived in the mail.
Possessed
This morning I woke up started to study for my physio midterm on Monday and but instead just had to hack away at the 3 inch layer of frost covering my freezer. I should be scared. I am scared. I should be studying. But my brain and discipline are both in rebellion. There. I typed it out loud. Can I be done with this silly useless procrastination and just move on. Its endocrine and cardio for god’s sake. Not easy. Time to go. Really. No really time to go now. Bye.
Midterm Update
I am superstitiously afraid of writing this, because it is certainly not out of the range of possibilities that I just royally screwed up my neuro anatomy midterm exam, but I have to say that I kind of enjoyed taking it. The problems were kind of fun. Lots of things to think through and less stuff to regurgitate. Oh well, let’s see how I feel when the grades come in…..
My Immuno midterm was all memorization with a short time line (100 questions in 50 minuets) I earned a very high B on that, not my kind of test. All alphabet soup.
It doesn’t precisely hurt, but my brain feels like someone has bathed it in caffeine and then let it contract until all the flexibility has left this tissue, then rinsed it in rubbing alcohol and squeegeed it dry. That is what studying 16 hours a day feels like. This is my brain on overload.
Options
I had dinner last night at Molly, Annalee, and Amanda's house. Their neighbors who are vet students came and brought two adorable kitten they just got. I had been thinking about getting a kitten but when I showed one to shade who had been contenedly lying btween my legs getting her belly rubbed she jumped up gave me a panicked "Oh hell no " look and sat by the front door for the rest of the night.
I think this time I'll let my aging pet live out her time as a solo act.
