Kick in the Pants

Med school started 'forreal forreal' yesterday, with Host Defenses and Infectious Diseases. So far, it is busting our chops big time. And it's barely been two days.

Exam day Tuesday didn't go quite as Ian had hoped. And tragically, this is Ian's new reality:

In other news, things I've learned so far:

The only way to get better is to get wayy worse first

And there is a profound revelation reflected in Ian's shaved head

(yes, his nose is actually that hooked. Peer closely the next time you see him; it'll creep him out)

This is kind of turning into the 'Ekta and Ian' show, isn't it? Only good things can come of it.

Don't Forget the Confetti

Today we are featuring some guest art by [drumrollllll] IAN P! Dutifully doodled on the last day of lectures before our long weekend, between the hours of 1000 and 1200. Make of that what you will.

Every exam day, Ian comes with high hopes -- of gifted A's, laptops in the air, and confetti:

 And tragically, every exam day, those hopes are dashed.

Hope springs eternal.

Dukes and Pirates

Signs my caffeine detox worked (AKA, ET on one cup of coffee today):

(Disclaimer: May also be signs of excessive studying and pod-induced claustrophobia. 

Read as: side effects of medical school. 

AMCAS should issue a warning label.)

 - I spontaneously start dancing in my seat like a jitterbug

(Please note, this is NOT me attempting to swing dance in my seat, which would have disastrous results, such as me falling out of my chair and suffering a traumatic brain injury after hitting my head on the corner of my bed, or perhaps more tragically, falling out of my chair and toppling my desk over, killing my cool stereo system in the process).

- I facilitate a rum-war between my Lego Jack Sparrow and my teddy finger puppet pirates

 

- I want to dunk Liz in a pit of green Nickelodeon goo to commemorate her birthday (HAPPY BARFDAY!)

- I work on a ridiculous blog entry instead of studying.

 

Ok, who am I kidding? That happens almost every time.

A derepressing (not depressing) December

aka How I Got My Brain Stuck in the Alphabet Soup Jar

...and valiantly strove to fish it back out before 12:30pm Monday desperately hoping something had stuck.

Well, except the torture is over, so I'm not actually hysterical and can look back on this weekend with a healthy dose of amusement and sarcasm. In that vein, I invite you to enjoy a photo-essay.

I spent my weekend drowning in a sickly colored stew of enzymes and mechanisms involved in DNA, RNA, and protein replication, repair, processing, etc., with a base of genetics and modes of inheritance, flavored with diseases and molecular bio techniques, with some drugs to taste. My white board at some point said at least part of it best:

 (Ignore the cute doodles, courtesy my friend TQ; if only they were that accurate).

Despite having yet to crack the spines of any of my borrowed CMB textbooks, I felt kind of like Oasis and Ender, crushed under the weight of all that knowledge and despair:

 Raja, on the other hand, looked positively gleeful and extraordinarily pudgy conquering my mountain of textbooks:

I would almost wish to share his sentiments, except it would probably involve an immensely high volume of sugar intake to reach his girth, which is his secret source of power.

Sunday night found me studying the drug list. And consequently musing on all sorts of toxic scenarios therein. In short, I was going a little crazy:

(For the uninitiated, α-amanitin is arguably the most deadly amatoxin, in this case found in Amanita phalloides, or the death cap mushroom. It inhibits RNA polymerase II, causing the cells in your liver to burst, leading to death within a little over a week.)

Luckily, I made it to and through Monday, arguably in one piece, and hung out with a lot of pretty cool people Monday night to glory in our post-exam-ness. And as soon as I got back:

Boy was I tired.

Hanging with Yorick

Laurel and I spent some quality time in the pods today getting inside my skull. And I mean that literally, not figuratively.

If my blog were an anatomy atlas, I would draw in a bunch of arrows and walk you through the million foramina, fossae, and fissures therein. Thankfully, for the sake of both your sanity and mine, it isn't. Quirky person that I am, though, I will walk you through our time of hardcore studying.

He started out by sampling my caramel macchiato - I'm sure (I hope) coffee-making techniques have advanced for the better since his heyday.

Sadly, between the two of us, we polished it off pretty quick.

It potentially wasn't our brightest idea to caffeinate him, though. Pretty soon, he dived auditory meatus-first into 21st century technology, commandeering Laurel's iPod and rocking out to Outkast...

...after which he proceeded to chat up a storm of bone dust, and showed me a pencil tattoo under his eye socket that read "infraorbital fossa."

At some point, we gave up on the pretense of studying and spend many precious moments staring creepily at Laurel, much to her chagrin. Or amusement. I'm still not sure which.

We were having such a swell time, we didn't even realize it was time for solemn farewells.

On the bright side, we had a jaw-droppingly amazing time. Being crazy creepers.

(Shout-outs to Laurel, Dr. Pumplin, and Shakespeare)

Anatomy of Stuffing

I got back home last night around 11:45pm after an afternoon/evening of studying that started around 2:30pm and existed to highly variable degrees of productivity (often at the zeroth one - and that should totally be an ordinal!). First order of business, use my $5 Amazon mp3 credit, expiring in 15 minutes. And I now have a brand new album to check out! (Thanks for the help, DTD =))

Maybe it was the late hour, maybe I was finally cracking, but as I aimlessly spun around in my chair, my eyes alighted on my stuffed animals and I found myself idly wondering what their abdominal anatomy looked like. Say what?? My anatomy vision didn't get me too far, though -- all that stuffing got in the way, especially with Raja. And Sly was just too small for me to imagine much of anything. I was trying to superimpose a liver, which would dominate his entire front and then some. Oops. Just for reference, pictures:

Sly's the impish/sleepy raccoon in the middle

And Raja is the ginormous tiger Erik is cuddling up to

Of course, the logical progression from trying to visualize Raja's intestinal structure was to Google stuffed animal anatomy! Of course. It took some digging (and I somehow managed to restrain myself for a whole 24 HOURS before more fully indulging my craziness), but I found something super-cool! This answers almost all of my unresolved, burning questions about the innards of my stuffed raccoon, though I think there may be no hope for Raja:

Okay, so he's made of gummy stuff, whatever that's made of, and not teddy bear stuffing, but close enough. And he's a bear, not a raccoon, but it works, somehow. And, talk about AWESOME. The digital artistry, the level of detail, just...wow. I am blown away.

And the artist, Jason Freeny, happened to have something that tied in semi-perfectly with what I've spent the last couple of hours tackling: the female reproductive system.

Okay, so this image jumps ahead a few months, but close enough. Umbilical cord! Hemostats! Fertilization! HUGE BRAIN! Oh, wait, that's exam 3. Let's not get ahead of ourselves here.

And this last one is especially for Kevin:

I shouldn't be allowed near my blog after, say, 8pm, because my mental processes start breaking down. Clearly.

Bunnies and Inspiration

This whole blogging thing is more difficult than I gave it credit for, in terms of both frequency and content. How can I be expected to be consistently witty? I'm already using all my spare mental powers (of which there aren't many to begin with) to remember how best to permanently maim people --err, I mean, keep them ambulatory and healthy!

Speaking of witty, let's start with a story, because that's obviously a logical segue.

In an effort to keep up with my daily phone calls to my mom, I call her at 7:30 every morning on my way to lecture. After the morning pleasantries, the conversation always starts with her asking, "So, what's new?" Now, back when med school started (I say with a heavy sigh, as this was all of 7 weeks ago), I was all excited to give her the full run-down on fun facts from lecture the previous day or the latest body muscles/organs we had dissected out. To her credit, she wasn't at all grossed out, not even when I hesitantly told her about dissecting a breast.

All of seven weeks later, I'm already exhausted and grasping at straws for conversations that feel like they're coming earlier and earlier in the morning. Granted, fall's onset and the whole dark-at-7-am thing isn't helping. I'm a pseudo-morning person (by which I mean I'm not NOT a morning person, double negative intended), but all I can muster is, "Eh, studying -- nothing exciting." To which my mom pretty justly replies "What do you mean, nothing exciting?? You learn something new every day about your body, that should be very exciting! And then you get to dissect it out."

She's right, of course, as mothers are wont to be (darn them, except not really -- it's part of what we love about them, their extraordinary cooking skills being the other part). (Kidding!). But, back to the point. She's right. Every day IS exciting, even if I'm too tired in the mornings to fully appreciate this. And maybe this is just me being desperate to find the silver lining during our pre-exam week when we are all frantically studying our asses off and hoping we'll pass next Monday, but that doesn't make it any less true.

So we have 5238 bazillion arteries and nerves to memorize -- but just consider what an amazing work of art that makes our bodies. So sometimes our cadavers don't quite help us out as much as we'd hope/like -- there are a dozen other great dissections to check out to make up for it, and really, they're doing the best they can. So Merchanthaler's histo reviews confuse the bejeezus out of us -- ok, even I can't find the silver lining in this, except as Zeke keeps pointing out, he'd probably be hilarious to go out drinking with.

Heck, a handful of us managed to have fun this Saturday, courtesy of inter-pod communication! This sounds highly sophisticated and technical, but really, it was me, Zeke, and Laurel doodling back and forth on the glass separating walls with Prajna, Hannah, and Jared. About the reproductive system (mad props to Prajna for her off-the-charts doodling skills). And bunnies. And Zeke. Thumper! Followed by Pickles!

Point being: Don't let the stress and intensity get to you (she says hypocritically). Treat this time like the stepping stone it is, and kick back while you're at it (though not so far back that you fall out of your chair, *cough* Kevin *cough*). Rock on! \m/