it's funny, because things went both ways: i've been really busy, but i've also been sitting on my bum a lot. :)
i guess that is the nature of being in med school, haha... we're either sitting for long hours or standing for them!
***
essentially my days go something like this:
i wake up sometime between 7:30 and 8:30. shower, get dressed, eat breakfast. even when i'm 'on time,' i usually end up running late. :) grab some coffee, drive aggressively to school, and walk the five miles from the parking lot.
i sit in biochem lecture for either one or two hours. this involves listening most of the time, frowning with confusion sometimes, highlighting my notes a lot, and exchanging whispered comments with the girls (yeah, my little clique, haha). we pretty much always sit together, if possible, and it makes school more tolerable.
at noon, i grab my lunch and hang out with the girls for an hour, venting about school. occasionally i'll go to a meeting.
after lunch there's anatomy lecture. we're in the same place (main lecture hall) as we were for biochem, so this room gets really tiring. sometimes we have a lecturer i like: seiden, moorman... and sometimes mulheron lectures, and i want to kill myself. so, they talk about body parts for a while (1 - 2.5 hrs) then dismiss us for lab.
we all head upstairs to our lockers, and then starts the mass flurry of people opening their lockers and pulling out (dirty) scrubs and (really nasty) lab coats. most of us have paired up with a friend to share lockers: we'll make one the "clean" locker, for putting our books & clothes in, while the other is the "dirty" locker, for scrubs, lab coats, lab shoes. the dirty locker is, inevitably, horrid-smelling -- hence why you want to share.
some people find small group rooms to change in, going behind doors & curtains. i just change in the hallway, which is what most of the guys do. ::shrug:: i guess i'm not super-concerned about it, haha. but if paul stein (director of teaching labs) catches me doing that, i'll be slaughtered... :p
anyway. we then all head into the lab, which is split into two parts: the main anatomy lab, where all the cadavers are, and what's called the 'small lab,' a little offshoot where you can use computer programs, skeletons & models, and look at prosected cadavers. we each rotate into that lab once every three anatomy days, so that we end up doing two days of dissection for one day of small lab.
lab is sometimes ok, sometimes pretty wretched, and sometimes it's actually - gasp - pretty awesome.
when it's wretched, it's because you've spent 2.5 hours digging through tissue to find this one elusive thing that you really couldn't give two shits about, and honestly, if it's that important to know it, you could've spent the last few hours studying it in an atlas. bleh.
when it's awesome - it's because we're examining really cool aspects of the human body, and see how it all fits together, with the amazingly intricate details. and when you find that artery or nerve you've been digging for, there's this thrill of victory that's hilarious to think about: we're all like, "yes!!! i found the axillary nerve!" it's pretty damn nerdy. ;)
after lab, we strip off our scrubs as quickly as possible, change back into normal clothes, and usually people head home / to the gym / somewhere that's not school... i think it's kinda difficult to stay there when you feel generally icky and tired. but we'll often come back to study in the evenings. typically, i'll run any errands i need to, head home for dinner, and either study at home or meet up with people at school.
by the end of the week (and by that, i mean thursday), people are ready to go out... so they'll often get a group together, or send an email, or pass the message along, that we're celebrating so-and-so's birthday on thursday, and we're going out to this bar on friday, and who'll be driving, and blah blah. since it's basically like high school, with ~160 in our class, most people know each other, or at least recognize them.
the weekends are for more going out and, of course, lots of studying, because that's our time to catch up on sleep and catch up on school. all that reading and lab notes and practice quizzes? yeah, a good deal of it ends up being pushed to the weekend, because our evenings are so full of just keeping up with that day's lectures, and prepping for the next day's dissection.
***
so. that's my life right now, pretty much. sounds incredibly exciting, doesn't it? i know, you all envy this glamorous existence... hahaha.
besides the usual, other stuff i did this week:
joined another club (Salud)
interviewed for an e-board position (HIPHOP)
applied to another e-board position (AMSA)
woke up early twice to study
watched videos of dissections to prepare
got splattered with human tissue
nearly fell asleep reading 100 pages of anatomy
interviewed a standardized patient with acid reflux
took a HIPAA quiz, for the third time
learned how to take blood pressure, but couldn't actually hear anything
got a tetanus shot that made my arm feel like i've been beaten up
saw my uncle, visiting from lebanon, whom i haven't seen in three years.. but only for ~2 hrs, because i had to study
and
chatted with a third-year who assured me that it only gets worse
yeaaah.
to be honest, i waver a lot these days between being super-optimistic and determined about things, wanting to learn and grow and mature and become super-awesome... and being sort of depressed at what has become my life, and how it's going to continue.
but i've decided to adopt, as my personal philosophy for now, something that my friend & classmate caroline said, as we noted that life would be hell for the next four years, and then at least four years of residency:
when the light at the tunnel is really far away, you're better off just learning to enjoy the tunnel.
so all i have to do is convince myself that this will be loads of fun... :)
well, kids, i'd love to stick around, but my to-do list of eight large segments to study is beckoning... actually, it's yanking on my hair...
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