non-comedogenic

in med school, you learn a lot of new words and acronyms, probably a few each day almost.

then i go and look at my bottle of lotion, and there's one of the best words i've ever seen.

non-comedogenic: does it mean?
a. will not produce comedian offspring
b. will not be funny
c. will not work with medical professionals' offspring
d. will not aggravate acne

if you guessed d, you are right (but boring).
if you guessed a-c, you are my best friend.
if you laughed, i love you.

anywho....about those exams....guess i should get back to studying...

2 down, 4 to go?

i'm talking about exams, baby.

and i'm only talking about between last friday, the 16th, and march 12. that's a lot of exams.

3 are for my practice of medicine class, we are being tested on taking a history and performing a physical exam. 3 for brain and behavior.

next week i have the second half of the practice physical with my buddy, afarin. it's nerve-wracking, but not bad. the next day is a lab exam for neuroanatomy....

i'm sorry there isn't much that's interesting in this entry.

oh! i had a good thing, though...i volunteered in the peds floor at the hospital yesterday, and got to hold and feed a little baby, he was very cute! very happy too...he had a trach which made it interesting because he couldn't make any noise...and he didn't have a very good suck so i got formula all over...luckily there was a blanket...

anyway, that was the most interesting thing that happened this week thus far. besides trying out my new rice cooker, courtesy of my friend matt. now i can make sticky white rice whenever i want!

my eyes hurt

so....much....studying....

exam on friday. on 28 lectures. or 32. depending on who you ask. don't ask.

i'm avoiding kicking myself over not doing so much of the studying thing a couple weeks ago by planning exactly how i'm going to study next week.

or more precisely, that i'm going to study. every day. pretty much.


basically, i've been reviewing all the lectures since this weekend, ranging from getting through about 4-8 per day. things have been going according to plan, i only have about 8 left to review (i say review because i went to lecture....not because i've already studied the material...but it sounds better than "cramming semi-familiar terms in my head while finally understanding concepts taught to me three weeks ago"). so i should finish that by tomorrow night, seeing as i have absolutely no plans otherwise (my v-day has been postponed...due to snow...?). then thursday i can review (for real this time) and study for the other exam i have that day, practice of medicine aka POM.

the majority of my studying has been in my kitchen, on the 2nd floor. or in the 3rd floor kitchen, because the 2nd floor gets really hot sometimes. mostly i've been along side afarin, envying the fact that she's actually reviewing (stinkin overachiever flaunting her stellar study skills grumble grumble). and it's inspiring.

however,

(and this is a very important point)

it's becoming increasingly unclear to me exactly how important it is to get good grades in these classes. ideally, you'd think that getting a high pass or honors in a class would be good for getting into a residency program or doing better in future classes or a little thing called being a better doctor....but i don't really know if that correlation exists.

there's conflicting info on this side that leaves me scratching my head. i guess advisors are basically trying to get people to relax a bit and stay sane so they say that grades really aren't that important. but then they talk about getting into a competitive residency....like in boston (gulp)...

so should i stop talking to people and work really really really hard so that i can ensure that i'll get a residency where i want it? should i keep sanity and let the grades fall where they may? should i really not even try for much higher than the passing threshold because it's just not worth it in the end? should i go to bed now?



i know the answer to at least one of those questions.
good night...

more? you want more???

more from martha's vineyard...

here's pete peering wistfully out to the ocean

us in front of gay head...yeah, pete forgot to bring a coat this weekend....yeah, it was really really cold...

the whole crew throwing rocks into the ocean. they have a long way to go, as you can tell by the rock-strewn beach...i found out they were actually aiming at one of the rocks in the water...

so the weekend was really great, though will probably take a bit of time to recover. i drove down friday afternoon, listening to some lectures i had burned onto cd. i hung out with heather for a bit friday night, as she prepared for a lockin with her youth group, while i was waiting for pete to get out of work....then we rushed down to foxboro to get his stuff and rush to wood's hole to catch the ferry, which we just made, as i mentioned.

saturday we met two young married couples that had been to charles river a few times, and we started talking about church stuff (which was the point of the weekend...sort of...). we decided that we don't particularly like church the way it is....but we are looking for some spiritual community...and we know what we want it to look like...and we have ideas about how charles river could do that...and it all sounds really cool. and makes me sad because i feel far away. but i enjoyed meeting new people, and it was still a great weekend hearing people say things that i had been thinking but didn't have other people to talk to about it (except for pete, of course. and mom's always good for talking about church's foibles...).

sunday night we watched the super bowl with lots of undergrad friends, then monday i visited kara at shrader, which was very nice. she's done a lot for the place, just look at the bulletin boards. and the flyers...and she rages against times new roman, one memo at a time...

phil, coincidentally enough, was also at shrader that day, so the three of us went out to lunch at panera and caught up. it was nice.

i drove back toward syracuse that afternoon, but decided to stop at a motel about 100 miles away from syracuse to avoid driving during snow (and i was exhausted...i had spent the previous two nights on an air mattress that deflated, and a pull out couch with no pillow). so i stayed in the charming town of palatine bridge, whose name cracks me up because the nerves and arteries that run through your hard palate, the roof of your mouth, are called the greater and lesser palatine...and there's actually a palatine bone in your skull too. so i had a definite picture of a palate-shaped bridge...

this morning i drove back to school, made it to some class, and watched 4 out of the 5 lectures i had missed during my galivanting, went to pilates, cmf (christian medical fellowship), and then worked on some homework with arlin...and now i'm here.

ok. over and out.

oh, and comments are always appreciated. though, as kara pointed out, the incomprehensible struggle of merely reading this blog, never mind wandering through the enigmatic process of leaving a comment....so if you are reading this, i praise you and thank you.

(though i still like comments... :) )

why i took this weekend off...

here are some pics from the weekend which i spent in martha's vineyard. which is beautiful. and if it's this beautiful in february, i can't even imagine what it would be like in the summer or spring....

this is the house where we stayed, owned by the messengers, who were very kind to invite the "young and restless" of charles river church to stay for the weekend...

saturday morning breakfast, with pete still looking groggy (must be his first cup of coffee)...you can just see johanna's head over pete's shoulder, and will, will's daughter sarah, and kim...

here's the messenger's other daughter, hannah...peeking at the camera in a car ride.

one of my first glimpes of the water (during the day)...pete and i just made the 9:45pm ferry on friday night...and i really mean just made it...