Today was mainly Welcome to the Course, Here's How Everything Works lectures. Actually kind of frustrating, because I've been in medical school for a week, and I haven't really had a real lecture yet. We had our first lecture on taking a medical history, but it was more about the importance of taking a good history, which is still pretty introductiony. I just want to start a real class.
We did, however, get our printed syllabi. We get print-outs of the slides for each lecture, and the first three week's worth of lectures (the material for the first exam) have been bound together in one book. We'll get another one for the next four weeks, and then another one after that. But when they first handed it to me, I thought it was for the entire anatomy course. Then I noticed the dates on the cover. Nearly 400 pages of two-per-page PowerPoint slides for three weeks worth of material. Oh my god.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Saturday, August 7, 2010
I Actually Look Pretty Cute In It
This morning was the White Coat Ceremony. It was cool, but I would've enjoyed it more if I hadn't been so exhausted. We've had orientation lectures all day every day for the past week, plus the mixers at night. I went to about half the mixers, and I'm still exhausted.
But it is cool to have the white coat. Not that we'll wear them very much the first year, but I like seeing it hanging in my closet. It makes this seem more real. Sometimes, I still feel like I only just took the MCAT and I'm waiting for the scores to see if it's even worth applying to med school. But I'm actually here now. I have a white coat. It nearly fits me (I'm a little petite for it, but it's pretty close).
My Dove Peanut Butter Chocolate Promises are telling me to "spoil myself" and to "listen to my heartbeat and dance." I don't like it when my food tries to give me personal advice.
But it is cool to have the white coat. Not that we'll wear them very much the first year, but I like seeing it hanging in my closet. It makes this seem more real. Sometimes, I still feel like I only just took the MCAT and I'm waiting for the scores to see if it's even worth applying to med school. But I'm actually here now. I have a white coat. It nearly fits me (I'm a little petite for it, but it's pretty close).
My Dove Peanut Butter Chocolate Promises are telling me to "spoil myself" and to "listen to my heartbeat and dance." I don't like it when my food tries to give me personal advice.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
On Having a Negative Net Worth:
Today's biggest orientation lecture was about medical school loans and dealing with debt. I was expecting it to be more of what I've read online and was told in undergrad, but it was actually the most helpful lecture we've had so far. And I thought I'd share the most helpful thing from it.
http://www.mint.com
This website is awesome. If you need to create a budget and manage your loans, you should create an account and try it out. It keeps track of your debit card transactions, your credit card balances, your loans, and your monthly expenses. It automatically categorizes most of your transactions (and pretty accurately, too) so you don't have to go through everything and add up each category yourself. If you set your grocery budget as $300 a month, it calculates the total amount you've spent at grocery stores in the past month and shows you via slider bar how close you are to your spending goal.
I hope that was a helpful, if incredibly dull, entry.
http://www.mint.com
This website is awesome. If you need to create a budget and manage your loans, you should create an account and try it out. It keeps track of your debit card transactions, your credit card balances, your loans, and your monthly expenses. It automatically categorizes most of your transactions (and pretty accurately, too) so you don't have to go through everything and add up each category yourself. If you set your grocery budget as $300 a month, it calculates the total amount you've spent at grocery stores in the past month and shows you via slider bar how close you are to your spending goal.
I hope that was a helpful, if incredibly dull, entry.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
She's Not Very Talkative, Though
This morning, I met my cadaver. And it wasn't nearly as weird as I thought it would be. It was still weird. But I really expected to feel...something intense, and I really didn't. I guess it just doesn't feel real yet.
No actually, there is one thing that made it feel real: she still had pink nail polish on her toes.
Like many medical schools, my school has two groups working on one cadaver. There are eight of us, split into two groups of four. We alternate dissections, and someone from the first group shows up for the first few minutes of the second group's dissection to teach them what their group did. I like my group of four. I think we'll do well together. And I think when you're dissecting a cadaver for the first time in your life ever, you need a good group of people with you.
No actually, there is one thing that made it feel real: she still had pink nail polish on her toes.
Like many medical schools, my school has two groups working on one cadaver. There are eight of us, split into two groups of four. We alternate dissections, and someone from the first group shows up for the first few minutes of the second group's dissection to teach them what their group did. I like my group of four. I think we'll do well together. And I think when you're dissecting a cadaver for the first time in your life ever, you need a good group of people with you.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Disorientation
First day of orientation. I have received my schedule for the first block of classes (anatomy). Wow. Just wow. I haven't seen a course schedule like that since high school. 9 am (and sometimes 8 am) starts? This is going to smack me pretty hard in the face after carefully planning my undergrad experience to avoid classes before 10 am as much as possible.
The mixer last night was surprisingly fun and un-awkward (for the most part). That's something that's kind of cool about progressing up the education scale. I went to a public high school, which meant that the students in attendance were just the kids from the area. No one had to apply and be selected; we were just a random assortment of personality types. Then I went to a small, private liberal arts college. The kind of college that attracts a particular kind of person. Also the kind of rather selective college that only accepts a particular kind of person. So most of the people in undergrad with me were, if not cut from the same cloth, at least purchased from the same fabric store.
But medical school is even smaller and even more selective. It seems like just about everyone I met last night had something in common with me. It sounds cheesy, but I honestly clicked with everyone I talked with. I had a pretty easy time making friends in college, but I've never wound up with so many new numbers in my phone at once. Now if only I could remember at least half the faces that go with these names...
The mixer last night was surprisingly fun and un-awkward (for the most part). That's something that's kind of cool about progressing up the education scale. I went to a public high school, which meant that the students in attendance were just the kids from the area. No one had to apply and be selected; we were just a random assortment of personality types. Then I went to a small, private liberal arts college. The kind of college that attracts a particular kind of person. Also the kind of rather selective college that only accepts a particular kind of person. So most of the people in undergrad with me were, if not cut from the same cloth, at least purchased from the same fabric store.
But medical school is even smaller and even more selective. It seems like just about everyone I met last night had something in common with me. It sounds cheesy, but I honestly clicked with everyone I talked with. I had a pretty easy time making friends in college, but I've never wound up with so many new numbers in my phone at once. Now if only I could remember at least half the faces that go with these names...
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Welcome to Med School, Here's Your Flask
Orientation starts tomorrow. There's a mixer tonight at a local bar. Looking through the social schedule they gave us, we seem to have social events at bars every single night of the week. They list the starting times as 10:00 pm for most of them. But then the next day, we have orientation lectures starting at 8 or 9 am. I kind of get the sense that the welcoming committee is getting us used to med school via the Baptism by Fire approach. Get us used to being slightly sleep-deprived all the time, and start us on our ulcers and dependency problems early. That's thoughtful of them.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
The Apartment
I have officially moved into my first apartment.
To celebrate, I made four boxes of Jello, using up every vaguely bowl-like item I have, and essentially filling my half-sized refrigerator. When I moved, my parents gave me a bunch of Jello and pudding mixes they found in the back of the pantry. I haven't really had a chance to do any grocery shopping yet, so the gesture was much appreciated. Though I don't think they intended for me to make half of the boxes at once.
The apartment is a studio, in which all utilities but electric are included in rent, bringing me in a little bit under my school's estimated student housing costs. Student housing did get back to me and offered me a dorm room, but I just can't do dorm living anymore. I can't share a bathroom with twenty other people. So I found my own apartment. Today, the day after I signed the lease, student housing contacted me again, offering me a one-bedroom apartment (even though they said I'd be taken off the housing list when I turned down the dorm). Thanks so much. It actually worked out for the better, though, as my studio is just as nice and much cheaper. And my various plants seem to like it.
Wow, I start med school really soon. Really, really soon.
To celebrate, I made four boxes of Jello, using up every vaguely bowl-like item I have, and essentially filling my half-sized refrigerator. When I moved, my parents gave me a bunch of Jello and pudding mixes they found in the back of the pantry. I haven't really had a chance to do any grocery shopping yet, so the gesture was much appreciated. Though I don't think they intended for me to make half of the boxes at once.
The apartment is a studio, in which all utilities but electric are included in rent, bringing me in a little bit under my school's estimated student housing costs. Student housing did get back to me and offered me a dorm room, but I just can't do dorm living anymore. I can't share a bathroom with twenty other people. So I found my own apartment. Today, the day after I signed the lease, student housing contacted me again, offering me a one-bedroom apartment (even though they said I'd be taken off the housing list when I turned down the dorm). Thanks so much. It actually worked out for the better, though, as my studio is just as nice and much cheaper. And my various plants seem to like it.
Wow, I start med school really soon. Really, really soon.
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