things i learned today

1) My backpack has a built-in whistle...

This was pointed out to me by a friend on the bus who complimented me on my new backpack (my old backpack's straps had been frayed to pieces--hello, medical school!). She's been looking at the same exact backpack since her backpack straps are fraying too. (My only conclusion is that all first-year medical school costs should factor in a new backpack purchase.)

Anyway, she said when she went to the North Face store, the salesperson's main selling point was the built-in WHISTLE on the clip of the sternum strap (the transverse one that goes across your chest).

And lo and behold I found it on my backpack, and I proceeded to whistle with it quite happily on a bus of crowded people. Unfortunately, or fortunately, it's Boston and it's the shuttle (nowhere could you find more apathetic, stoned out people), so no one really quite noticed or gave a hoot, but I was super excited with my new find!

So if you're also looking for a backpack with a whistle, but don't want to pay ridiculous North Face prices, buy from here. I have to say that I was really hesitant to buy a North Face backpack (because c'mon EVERYONE has a North Face backpack and it's nice to try for some originality sometimes), but I am super happy with my purchase, and it's an added bonus that it's on sale and there's no shipping cost or sales tax from SunnySports.


2) If a person you are testing for HIV expresses past or current feelings of suicide or homicide, do NOT continue administering the HIV test.
This was kind of creepy to learn today at my rapid HIV testing training (day one) through ProjectTRUST. Although, it does make a lot of sense not to give really bad news to someone who is suicidal or homicidal.


3) I'm going to have no weekend this weekend.
Between two HIV testing training days and VagMo shenanigans/rehearsals this weekend, I'll be busy from 9AM-7PM both days. And I'm wayyyyyy behind in physio.

This blows. (But not as hard as my whistle can!)

back to the grind

So after an incredible weekend of doing whatever I pleased, it's back to the grind again.

Today we started histology and physiology, and the day went by like a blur. I'm definitely feeling most unexcited about histo--seems to me like another rather useless bunch of information to learn with no real practical application. ...Unless of course you're my mother, or any other pathologist who is happy to sit in their dimly lit office staring down a microscope all day. But as my mother (and anyone who will listen to me) already knows, I am not going to be a pathologist. Or a neurologist. Or a psychologist. Or really any doctor who uses any specific body of knowledge that we've covered so far in the first year of medical school (histo, neuro, human behavior in medicine... hmm).

To balance out the depressing academic side of our studies, we start our clinical part of the semester this week. I'm shadowing a family medicine doc each week for the rest of the semester, and I'm not sure it bodes well: this afternoon I called her office to confirm our meeting time later this week (after I had sent a very politely, meticulously spell-checked email earlier last week), and was told by the secretary that the doc was with a patient and that she would print out my email and show it to the doc, who would call me back.

So I hung up the phone, feeling relieved that I had Made Contact and All Was Well, and waited patiently by the phone like a pre-pubescent girl waiting to hear back from a boy from school. (And like a pre-pubescent girl, I did some cyber-stalking of my doc with Google.)

I noted the time when I hung up with her secretary: 3.13PM. Okay, I thought, it should take her about 15 minutes to call me back and confirm the time since primary care appointments usually only last like 15 minutes, right? Well I sit there waiting, waiting, staring at the phone.... Then I turn on the TV and zone out for a while.... and 30 minutes later and she hasn't called, so I go and lie down in bed, but not before checking five times that my ringer is on LOUD AND SHRILL so that I won't miss the call if I doze off.

Well, of course I did doze off and she never called and now I don't know if it's because she was with that patient for a long time and forgot, or if being a primary care doc is really as hellish and busy as they say. So busy and hellish that you don't even have time to call back a perfectly earnest and fervent first-year med student, who will HANG ON YOUR EVERY WORD because you're a REAL-LIFE doctor?!?!? (And more importantly, not the type of boring doctor her mother is.)

Perhaps my time would have been better spent pre-reading. (Always a BIG bonus when you're already "behind" after the very first day of class. Hell, I was behind before I even got to class.)

what i do when i'm not studying

After a few failed starts to Ye Olde Medical School Blog, hopefully I've managed to settle down on this one. It turns out that I'm no good at starting a story from the beginning at all. I tried to write about my white coat ceremony, I really did. I tried to start from Day One and recount the sweaty-palmed anxiety of marching at the ceremony, feeling like I was about to ooze out of existence because of the unbearable heat of midday August in Boston. But to be honest, it really wasn't very interesting stuff to remember.

And even more amazingly, all of my previous attempts to entertain myself with the story of that one time in lab when my anatomy partner threw a human heart at me with a mean spiral because "it sorta looked like a nerf ball" -- well even that was a bust. So I'm going to start this story 23 weeks and 6 days into the semester, and try my best to forget that image of a projectile human heart.

***

Thursday morning was our dreaded Neuroscience final, and we all emerged bleary-eyed from the auditorium four hours later with grand hopes of two things we had forgone all week: eating and sleeping. I went out for lunch with two classmates to a place that I've already forgotten the name of (in my food- and sleep-deprived stupor, remember?) For the majority of lunch we talked about what we'd do with our "Free Time" now that Neuro was over and now that we had a three-day weekend ahead of us. Talking about our plans for the weekend buoyed us up even more than our good meal, and we walked out of the restaurant high on our freedom from ever having to remember the ventral amygdalofugal pathway again.

The rest of the day Thursday I spent in long overdue meetings for clubs that hadn't corralled its members since before winter break, and I finally got home around 5pm and threw myself in bed. But within 15 minutes of getting into bed I pulled myself out from under the covers and mewled piteously to Andrei in the next room: "I have all this free time to do whatever I want--whatever the hell I want--and I'm choosing to stay in bed?"

So we went out to the Coolidge Corner Theatre to see Up in the Air, which was a movie that I had meant to see after our FIRST neuro exam in December, but never got around to doing. On second thought, I think the reason I didn't see it after the last neuro exam was because I DID succumb to staying in bed for the rest of that night. Carpe diem doesn't always apply to med students, obviously. Yup, sometimes seize the sleep is my only motto.

The movie was good. The cast was magnificent, especially the female actors Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick (whose role in the movie was apparently conceived just for her, and you could tell). Andrei liked it, but I thought it was totally hyped up (much like I thought Garden State was hyped up in high school). It was a funny movie and maybe "representative of our times," but I couldn't help but think that it was trying too hard in some places. It was a little unapologetically emo, and George Clooney acting emo, doe-eyed, and lost was not really that interesting to watch.

Friday I spent all morning doing chores (i.e. watering our plants and tackling all the laundry I had not-so-judiciously avoided in the two weeks before the exam) and waterproofing the tan riding boots my mom bought for me over winter break. Before I knew it (or, alternatively, three CSI re-runs later) Andrei was home and we left for the Prudential Center to do some window shopping. Ironically, the only window display that caught my eye was a display of boardgames in the window of Barnes and Noble, and I made a fabulous purchase. It's something I've always wanted! More so than a Gucci bag (Andrei likes to pronounce it "Guck-y") or a Free People dress (Andrei always jokes about the name "Free People").

As expected, we ended the night at Trident, my favorite bookshop in Boston. I love their cafe, especially their teas and carrot cake! It's a ridiculously cozy place and it wasn't too crowded (guess not too many college students spend their Friday nights in bookstores). We caught the tail-end of Trivia Night at Trident and had some fun playing Scrabble. A perfect night in my book.

Saturday I felt equally as ambitious to get out of the house, and so we spent most of the day in the Coolidge Corner area. We had lunch at Dok Bua, my favorite Thai place in a one-mile radius. On the way home I did some shopping at the Gap. I made off with some yellow and teal opaque tights, a striped turtleneck sweater, and a charming grandpa sweater. It was a good haul, worthy of a critical Asian mother's eye :o)

Saturday night Andrei made chicken curry from scratch (there's no argument that he's the better cook between us), and the rest of the afternoon was awesome because Titanic was on, followed by the SAG Awards. Later Lijo and Anna G. came over to hang out and watch movies and do the whole catching up thing.

Today we're doing more catch-up: pho with med school friends in Harvard Square, and a visit from Anna S. later tonight. I really miss that girl! In the meantime I've got to put the finishing touches on this new blog, clean my desk out, finish the book of short stories I started Friday, and pre-read for class tomorrow.

Okay, maybe pre-read.