well, still didn't remember what i was talking about before, but here's a new thought:
plane flights to the east coast are expensive! southwest to bwi is the cheapest, and it's not so bad. but everything to philly flies through chicago -- what a pain! i miss being in the DC-area and being able to search out of three easy airports -- you were bound to find a deal!
we interrupt this blog for this shocking job ad: click here. oh my god! lengthy, well-researched stories, my ass! lengthy = diatribe and well-researched = biased. i can't even imagine. that reminds me: during orientation, i mentioned to a kid from louisville that i had heard that louisville was a blue city in a red state. he looked at me like i was crazy and said, "no... louisville is a red city in a blue state." we looked at each other in disbelief for a few seconds, then realized that i was talking about politics and he was talking about sports. haha, it was a sitcom movement.
back to planes: flights out of louisville are expensive, and most are routed through chicago. sucks, sucks, sucks. so going home for holidays is getting harder, and we're looking at driving to philly for thanksgiving. a 9-10-hour drive each way is pretty extensive for just a weekend, though, so we're flying to dc for a wedding in october. i'm trolling skyauction.com regularly to look for deals. it's addicting.
so that's about it: louisville = great, louisville airport = not so great.
Monday, September 19, 2005
luhahvul
i moved here cause i had to -- came here for school. but, it's a great city. all the big-city DC/Philly amenities, but midwest/southern charm. (most people say it's the south, but some say midwest; in the civil war it was neutral, but it's east of st. louis, which is technically the gateway to the midwest; not everyone here likes sweet tea, and some people hate it, we're in the eastern time zone, but everyone's MUCH nicer than on the east coast.) i love my apartment, love the location, HATE the motorcycles that drive by every night. good food, good nightlife (apparently; i haven't been out too much because of school).
and, sorry to do this, but i just completely lost my train of thought while watching will and grace. if i find it later, i'll finish :)
and, sorry to do this, but i just completely lost my train of thought while watching will and grace. if i find it later, i'll finish :)
i've opened the hydrant
so, i know it's been less than an hour since my last and first post, but now i've opened the floodgates, so i think there will likely be some proliferation today.
first: i got a comment on my first post. no one knows i have this blog as of yet. it was a spam comment! grrr. but, i've left it so you can see it; after all, it does contain a compliment.
during dinner, we watched seinfeld, and it happened to be the one where kramer pretends to have gonorrhea for the med students. we have that. they're called SPs, or standardized patients. my first SP, the second week of school, rocked, cause i asked all these great questions and wrote up a great SOAP note (all that practice from the AAMC ER, you know). however, my SP's chief complaint was burning with urination, and i totally forgot to ask him about sexual activity. that was a bit of a blow, but i guess it's ok cause we weren't actually being graded on diagnosis, just on how personable and caring we were. on that, i excelled. and i told him to quit smoking and stop drinking so much caffeine (that was his eventual diagnosis -- he was drinking 8-10 cups of coffee/coke a day!). anyway, it could have been gonorrhea, which was what kramer had, but i didn't ask. oh well -- next time. tomorrow we're learning how to take blood pressures. most of the SPs are writers or actors -- i heard that one is a comedian at the comedy caravan on bardstown road. last week we had to do the mental status exam, and my patient was a depressed woman who worked as a copy editor at the C-J and was depressed because she had to read all the war and hurricane news all the time. boy, do i know how she feels. it was kind of funny, to me anyway. in real life, she's a freelance writer (i asked). they get really good training, from what i understand, and are trained to give us, the students, feedback. that's honorable and great and everything, but why on earth do they volunteer to let us do gyn and rectal exams on them? even for extra money? i guess i'm grateful, but still suspicious...
speaking of the news, i hate it. i hate that i'm addicted to it and a news junkie, but in the end that's not so bad because i'm well-informed. i hate news that's poorly reported and biased. i hate that mainstream news tends to get science news wrong. and i hate that other people aren't news junkies, so i have no one to talk to about the things i read. i can't say, "hey, so what do you think about such-and-such?" because i end up having to explain such-and-such to people first, and in doing so i inevitably bias them toward my viewpoint, and what's the fun of a discussion then? plus, even if we are in med school and have tons of things to be learning, what good is it if we don't keep up with what's going on around us? i may not like my addiction, but it's certainly relevant to life!
speaking of viewpoints, i've learned not to talk about "left-wing" things here in louisville. it's certainly not like i'm the only liberal-minded person at school, but it's just not worth my energy if i do end up in a dead-end discussion. and on topics like abortion, which i know are near and dear to everyone's hearts, it's just easier to have us all keep our opinions to ourselves. but all these new things happening with the intelligent design/evolution debate, like in kansas, would be fun to discuss with someone. and there's only so many times eric can listen to me vent about it. (in case you're interested, there have been some GREAT Science Friday broadcasts on the topic recently, and you definitely need to check out this website.) i'm used to just mentioning these things casually, as in, "hey, isn't it ridiculous what's going on in kansas?" but first i'd have to explain what's going on, and then i'd be worried someone wouldn't believe in evolution (what's there to BELIEVE, really?!?!! why couldn't god have created evolution? if i were god, i would have gotten pretty bored just creating everything and watching it stay the same for millions -- oops, i mean thousands -- of years. why not build evolution right into it and stay amused watching what happens?) and i just don't have time to get into those arguments with people. i have studying to do, for crying out loud! i need to memorize that the abdominal aortic plexus contains pre- and post-ganglionic sympathetic and pre-ganglionic parasympathetic innervation but that only the post-ganglionic sympathetics and pre-ganglionic parasympathetics continue out onto the branching plexuses!
first: i got a comment on my first post. no one knows i have this blog as of yet. it was a spam comment! grrr. but, i've left it so you can see it; after all, it does contain a compliment.
during dinner, we watched seinfeld, and it happened to be the one where kramer pretends to have gonorrhea for the med students. we have that. they're called SPs, or standardized patients. my first SP, the second week of school, rocked, cause i asked all these great questions and wrote up a great SOAP note (all that practice from the AAMC ER, you know). however, my SP's chief complaint was burning with urination, and i totally forgot to ask him about sexual activity. that was a bit of a blow, but i guess it's ok cause we weren't actually being graded on diagnosis, just on how personable and caring we were. on that, i excelled. and i told him to quit smoking and stop drinking so much caffeine (that was his eventual diagnosis -- he was drinking 8-10 cups of coffee/coke a day!). anyway, it could have been gonorrhea, which was what kramer had, but i didn't ask. oh well -- next time. tomorrow we're learning how to take blood pressures. most of the SPs are writers or actors -- i heard that one is a comedian at the comedy caravan on bardstown road. last week we had to do the mental status exam, and my patient was a depressed woman who worked as a copy editor at the C-J and was depressed because she had to read all the war and hurricane news all the time. boy, do i know how she feels. it was kind of funny, to me anyway. in real life, she's a freelance writer (i asked). they get really good training, from what i understand, and are trained to give us, the students, feedback. that's honorable and great and everything, but why on earth do they volunteer to let us do gyn and rectal exams on them? even for extra money? i guess i'm grateful, but still suspicious...
speaking of the news, i hate it. i hate that i'm addicted to it and a news junkie, but in the end that's not so bad because i'm well-informed. i hate news that's poorly reported and biased. i hate that mainstream news tends to get science news wrong. and i hate that other people aren't news junkies, so i have no one to talk to about the things i read. i can't say, "hey, so what do you think about such-and-such?" because i end up having to explain such-and-such to people first, and in doing so i inevitably bias them toward my viewpoint, and what's the fun of a discussion then? plus, even if we are in med school and have tons of things to be learning, what good is it if we don't keep up with what's going on around us? i may not like my addiction, but it's certainly relevant to life!
speaking of viewpoints, i've learned not to talk about "left-wing" things here in louisville. it's certainly not like i'm the only liberal-minded person at school, but it's just not worth my energy if i do end up in a dead-end discussion. and on topics like abortion, which i know are near and dear to everyone's hearts, it's just easier to have us all keep our opinions to ourselves. but all these new things happening with the intelligent design/evolution debate, like in kansas, would be fun to discuss with someone. and there's only so many times eric can listen to me vent about it. (in case you're interested, there have been some GREAT Science Friday broadcasts on the topic recently, and you definitely need to check out this website.) i'm used to just mentioning these things casually, as in, "hey, isn't it ridiculous what's going on in kansas?" but first i'd have to explain what's going on, and then i'd be worried someone wouldn't believe in evolution (what's there to BELIEVE, really?!?!! why couldn't god have created evolution? if i were god, i would have gotten pretty bored just creating everything and watching it stay the same for millions -- oops, i mean thousands -- of years. why not build evolution right into it and stay amused watching what happens?) and i just don't have time to get into those arguments with people. i have studying to do, for crying out loud! i need to memorize that the abdominal aortic plexus contains pre- and post-ganglionic sympathetic and pre-ganglionic parasympathetic innervation but that only the post-ganglionic sympathetics and pre-ganglionic parasympathetics continue out onto the branching plexuses!
welcome to medical school!
Well, here I go. I've had this account for a few months, but haven't touched it until now. I just need to get my gripes out, and if I only gripe to my boyfriend, he'll move out and back to Philly in no time flat -- and I know there are certain of you who wouldn't mind that so much, but I would.
I'm 5 weeks into medical school. I've had my first round of tests -- Black Monday, it was called. I passed everything, solidly in the average. Do I need to do better? There are plenty of people who subscribe to the P=MD theory, and it certainly is tempting. But I'm the class president; I'll get a good dean's letter, so there's no need to honor all the classes. If I'm still class president 4th year, that is. So yes, maybe some extra studying and doing well wouldn't be so bad. But three days a week I come home from gross lab and just feel so disgusting I can't believe it. So I shower (or I don't, if I'm going to just grossify myself more by doing my yoga DVD or playing flag football, etc), and then it's dinnertime, and then I need to relax and digest a little (parasympathetic innervation, yay!), and then... well... by the time 9 rolls around, there's no point in STARTING something, is there? And that, everyone, is how I convince myself out of studying. The other two days a week, when I don't have gross lab, it all somehow happens anyway.
And speaking of gross lab, I love it. It's really amazing, so awesome to see everything and dig around in there. I have no problems with the "grossness" of it -- although I do wish my gloves were longer onto my arms because I'm often quite deep into it -- except for the face. I haven't looked at our cadaver's face yet, because I'm sure that would be creepy. Oh, in case you're wondering, he's an old, white man, died of a PE (that would be pulmonary embolism, or blood clot to the lung) with contribution from heart disease, and no, we haven't named him. We discussed it today, actually, but never came to a decision. He's very hairy, so we thought about Harry, but there's a Harry in our class, so that wouldn't be very nice. As far as I know, UofL doesn't have a memorial service at the end or anything like that, like some schools do (see this book for a great read and more info), but I wish they did 'cause it would be kind of nice. Good closure. But, back on topic: the only thing I hate more than the smell of formaldehyded body is the soap in the locker room that I use after we get out of lab. It smells worse than gross lab, I swear. So I walk home and occasionally get a whiff of my hands/wrists and want to vomit. Why not some regular old antibacterial stuff? Not sure. But I may bring it up at the course director's meeting tomorrow.
I'm 5 weeks into medical school. I've had my first round of tests -- Black Monday, it was called. I passed everything, solidly in the average. Do I need to do better? There are plenty of people who subscribe to the P=MD theory, and it certainly is tempting. But I'm the class president; I'll get a good dean's letter, so there's no need to honor all the classes. If I'm still class president 4th year, that is. So yes, maybe some extra studying and doing well wouldn't be so bad. But three days a week I come home from gross lab and just feel so disgusting I can't believe it. So I shower (or I don't, if I'm going to just grossify myself more by doing my yoga DVD or playing flag football, etc), and then it's dinnertime, and then I need to relax and digest a little (parasympathetic innervation, yay!), and then... well... by the time 9 rolls around, there's no point in STARTING something, is there? And that, everyone, is how I convince myself out of studying. The other two days a week, when I don't have gross lab, it all somehow happens anyway.
And speaking of gross lab, I love it. It's really amazing, so awesome to see everything and dig around in there. I have no problems with the "grossness" of it -- although I do wish my gloves were longer onto my arms because I'm often quite deep into it -- except for the face. I haven't looked at our cadaver's face yet, because I'm sure that would be creepy. Oh, in case you're wondering, he's an old, white man, died of a PE (that would be pulmonary embolism, or blood clot to the lung) with contribution from heart disease, and no, we haven't named him. We discussed it today, actually, but never came to a decision. He's very hairy, so we thought about Harry, but there's a Harry in our class, so that wouldn't be very nice. As far as I know, UofL doesn't have a memorial service at the end or anything like that, like some schools do (see this book for a great read and more info), but I wish they did 'cause it would be kind of nice. Good closure. But, back on topic: the only thing I hate more than the smell of formaldehyded body is the soap in the locker room that I use after we get out of lab. It smells worse than gross lab, I swear. So I walk home and occasionally get a whiff of my hands/wrists and want to vomit. Why not some regular old antibacterial stuff? Not sure. But I may bring it up at the course director's meeting tomorrow.
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