Saturday, February 22, 2003

Big news folks. Yes, even bigger news than the earth shattering haircut. My friend from hawaii, Joey, asked me to go to the Endymion Ball. He's riding in the parade (tossing beads to drunken flashers) and he gets to invite one person to go with him to the ball that follows and he thought he'd ask me since he knew that such invites are rare for folks like us who aren't from this fair city. I, of course, panicked after since all Joey told me was that I needed an ankle length ball gown like for prom. Now, guys tend to oversimplify at times so I wasn't sure how true that statement was so I had to get Stephanie to fill me in on the details of mardi gras balls. To my relief, I was told that I probably don't need to buy a boutennier for Joey since he won't be showing up at the ball until 1 am (the end of the parade) and since I'll be there from 8 to 1 hanging out with his friends, there really is no need for a flower for him. And my second thought was, I can't do any of those slow dances (waltzes and what not) but apparently that's not necessary anyway (whew!). I can't dance at any tempo anyway but we can pretend that it's the alcohol that prevents me from being decent. Oh great, just thought of something else, my alcohol induced heartburn. Yes, pepcid ac failed me last friday and so now I can worry about it failing me again. Maybe I should see about getting a PPI...Well, I need to go dress shopping and shoe shopping and try to figure out how to fix my now short hair. Hmmm...if I had known earlier, I would have left my hair long and gotten it styled (more options with long hair). This is all so girly and prissy for me. Reminds me of my issues with such things when I had to prepare for proms. If only my brothers grew up teaching me how to put on makeup and dressing girly instead of showing me how fun it can be to throw darts at my dolls and climb (and inevitably fall off and hit my head) on the station wagon, I would be so much better off now! This is so against my Cancer personality (the astrological sign, not the disease!). But then again, I am on the cusp so I also have bits of Leo in me...
Oh and my stereo is finally fixed again. And, since I filed a complaint with SONY and the BBB, I got them to at least extend my limited warranty and should my stereo fail yet again (knock on wood!!!), I now have a file and can complain to someone who knows of my plight. See, the squeeky wheel does get the grease! That was lame. Well, my neighbor's cousin is in a parade that comes by our condo on veteran's blvd so I better get ready to head out.
~me~ at 3:44 PM

Wednesday, February 19, 2003

Apparently some mysterious lottery took place sometime this week and we just learned what order we'll be doing our clinical rotations next year. And then if we don't like the order we have, we can play the swapping game with each other to get what we want. So basically, this lottery was more like they had so many set order groups and then went down the alphabetical list of the class roster and dealt us out. Here's what I'll be doing:
1. Family Medicine
2. Surgery
3. Internal Medicine
4. Neurology (4 weeks)
5. Psychiatry (4 weeks)
6. OB/GYN
7. Pediatrics

I don't know where I'll be doing these various locations but I just hope I'm not assigned, esp the ob/gyn one, to my personal physician. I wonder what happens if such an event occurs?
I got my hair cut today at an amazing place! It's called the Aveda Salon and Spa and for $25, here's the fun I experienced. While waiting for my turn, I wore a neck pillow that was warmed and smelled of clovers and other lovely scents. Then, after I told Yvette (my stylist person) what I wanted, I got a head, neck, and shoulder massage. Then my hair was washed (again, nice smelling things) and cut. Turns out Yvette was premed but decided it wasn't for her after a year in college so she was curious to hear about my med school experiences. Usually i only get my hair cut every 6 months or whenever I get motivated to get it cut (it was almost 7 months since the last cut) but if this is what I can expect at Aveda, I'll have to get it cut more often!
And now, I need to study a bit and then head off to check out rugby. Just thinking about the bruises I'll have pains me but my friends are all playing so I thought it would be fun. If I'm lucky I'll be 2nd string and will have minimal opportunities to injure myself. Hey, if Wiese can get a subdural hematoma playing rugby, then there's really nothing stopping that from happening to me.
~me~ at 4:16 PM

Tuesday, February 18, 2003

It seems somewhat sad that my entries seem to be about my new fascination with micro lab. Could it be that I enjoy looking at and playing with these bugs? Or is it the excellent Dr. Buchanan who takes 3 pages of instruction and shortens it to one wipeoff board of illustrations and simple tasks? Well, today was day 1 of pyogenic gram + cocci. And yes, my friends, I got to play with the ever lovely staph aureus. But wait! It turns out that staph epidermidis also looks like grapes. But s. aureus will always be my first. I got to learn the somewhat importance of that horrible bottle of hydrogen peroxide my mom poured all over the wounds of my brothers and I. It turns out that mom was a microbiologist and was simply performing the catalase differential test on our wounds to show that there was some strain of staphylococcus (presumably staph epidermidis) in or around the wound as only staphylococci will provide the well known bubbling when flooded with hydrogen peroxide. I questioned Dr. B about the validity of such torture and he says that by flooding these bacteria with H2O2, we use up the bacteria's catalase enzyme and this supposedly has benefits to reduce infection...I still firmly believe it's just a method of child abuse that happens to have some benefits. We also got to do throat cultures of our partners and on friday we find out if any of us have streptococci growing on our throats. Fun times. Tomorrow we learn about our fun in the autopsy lab coming up. And then I get my hair cut. Don't worry, dad, I'll be sure to give details when I tell you about my trip to the morgue to watch an autopsy.
~me~ at 5:37 PM

Monday, February 17, 2003

Well I apparently have dropped off in my posting. Probably because nothing exciting has happened. I decided to to check out the women's rugby scene this week. Dr. Wiese tells me that I should be safe in the wing position as long as I'm not being slammed by a 250 pound person running at top speed (the cause of his subdural hematoma). I'm getting my hair cut by a new person so I may be traumatized or happy come wednesday afternoon. Hmmm...haircut at 2 and then rugby practice at 6...I'll look nice for rugby! I've decided to stop studying all together. These past exams have shown me that pure guessing is giving me higher scores than actual studying. Okay, I can't say that for sure but I got a 98% on my path exam by some miracle but studying for pharm only got me a 82%. And sort of studying got me a 90% in psych (it was human behavior and the practice exam made me think I had it all down but the real exam was 100x harder)...perhaps I overanalyzed the questions but that sucks. i would have been happier if I got the higher grade on the pharm test and the lower one on the path exam because that would have made more sense. Could it be that my brain deals with minute details of pathology better than remembering the multitude of drug names for the same basic drug category? see...it just doesn't make sense!!! Or maybe I finally got a break and all my educated guesses went the right way for a change. Well, I'm going to study some microbiology. Tomorrow is the lab where we get to play with streptococcus and staphylococcus in lab. Ahhh...staph. aureus...my lovely grape-clustered bug! Too bad you cause horrible infections that can kill the immunocompromised...
~me~ at 5:12 PM