a lot of good stuff happened today. i had my first starbucks out in the new greenspace in front of the Hamilton building, and i discovered i can't tell the difference between a skim latte and a whole latte. while i was out on the greenspace i was reading this awesome article which really sets the course for the rest of my research for the UAW/healthcare/election article that i'm writing. i was getting really discouraged about writing this article and now i'm excited.
meanwhile, my Health Policy professor sent out an email postponing the take home exam one week, from this wednesday to next wednesday. this is excellent because with all i have to do, i was going to squeeze that in to tuesday night. i haven't even looked at it yet so i don't know if that's actually feasible -- now i have a whole week. then my Data Mining professor sent out an email that we didn't have to do any of the reading for this thursday's class. so in two emails, my weekend got moved up to tuesday night! as soon as we finish this group marketing project and present it tomorrow afternoon in class, i can breathe a little sigh of relief and start cleaning the house before people come over this weekend.
[edited]
also, my experiment with faux hemming my new pants by using medical tape worked, and my pants looked good all day. well the hems did... when i bought them i had to choose between a size and the petite version of that size which fits a little smaller. it really depended on whether they were going to shrink in the wash or stretch out the first time i wore them. i went for the larger size, because if the petites got any smaller they would just be uncomfortable. of course, my luck, the larger size did all stretch out when i wore them and now i have an extra couple of inches everywhere... they just look baggy. i need a belt. i guess it's better than too-tight pants, but i went shopping particularly so i'd have clothes that fit right. maybe i can purposefully shrink them in the wash. i washed a shirt that i fixed the hem on with medical tape, and the tape lasted through the wash, but i decided not to try the dryer... sounded melty. maybe i'll actually hem the pants with thread and everything... but then if they do shrink like i want them too, they might be too short. sigh.
i also got a wedding magazine in the mail today and that brightened my commute to school (thanks selene!).
now if it weren't going on 2am with the project only half finished, i could call this an A+ day.
Showing posts with label rants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rants. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Notes from my "light" year...
My life is too crazy right now -- hence the lack of posts. I've started taking Tuesdays off to get school work done and today I spent all day preparing to lead discussion of an "article pack" with Glen, and of course class went too long and we don't get to go until next week. This class is constantly like this... we spend all weekend preparing 4 projects and the professor decides that's too many to go over so he makes one due the following week -- after we already prepared it to hand in!
My silver lining all day was that at least Tuesdays are our early day and I would get to come home and have some time to do the laundry and work on this project for work that was technically due today (even though I DON'T WORK TUESDAYS). But I had forgotten that this week our Thursday night class got moved to Tuesday night, so we had class from 3:30 to 9:10pm! BOTH classes handed out take-home tests.
To make up for my lack of blogging, I'm sharing some things I've been reading online.
I actually think crows are pretty cool... here's the latest evidence:
Discover Channel
Crows Bend Twigs Into Tools
Randolph E. Schmid, Associated Press
Oct. 5, 2007 — Mounting tiny video cameras to the tail feathers of crows, researchers discovered that the birds use a variety of tools to seek food, and even make their own tools, plucking, smoothing and bending twigs and grass stems.
Squirrels are, of course awesome. I'm a little torn about the content of this article:
Regarding the following, we suck.
Medicare recipients have been victimized by private insurers that run the drug benefit program, according to a review of federal audits.
I just found out that it's not actually illegal to drink alcohol in New York if you're under 21, just to buy it. You can even drink out at a restaurant as long as your parents pour it from the bottle into the glass. If you're not in public, it doesn't matter. http://alcoholpolicy.niaaa.nih.gov/stateprofiles/StateProfie.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_drinking_age
Did you know that Dennis Kucinich is a vegan and recently married a red-haired girl from England who is 31 years younger than he? She's his third wife. I think he has a worse chance of getting elected President than Guiliani with his marital history.
http://vegnews.com/wedding_2006_ED.html
I'll end with on a funny note and then head to bed... or go work on my proposal for work. UGH!!!...
There's a digital billboard on our drive home from Widener on 95 -- basically a big TV screen. It automatically cycles through ads. I find it to be really distracting while driving. The last two night it's been especially distracting...
We looked up and there was a huge photo of a mean looking guy, with his name and WANTED FOR ATTEMPTED MURDER. As we stared, the billboard changed to: Philadelphia, Have a Pleasant Evening! Pretty funny.
The next night as we drove by, there was an even meaner looking guy with WANTED FOR MURDER. This promptly changed to: Philadelphia - The City of Brotherly Love. We almost crashed from laughing.
My silver lining all day was that at least Tuesdays are our early day and I would get to come home and have some time to do the laundry and work on this project for work that was technically due today (even though I DON'T WORK TUESDAYS). But I had forgotten that this week our Thursday night class got moved to Tuesday night, so we had class from 3:30 to 9:10pm! BOTH classes handed out take-home tests.
To make up for my lack of blogging, I'm sharing some things I've been reading online.
I actually think crows are pretty cool... here's the latest evidence:
Discover Channel
Crows Bend Twigs Into Tools
Randolph E. Schmid, Associated Press
Oct. 5, 2007 — Mounting tiny video cameras to the tail feathers of crows, researchers discovered that the birds use a variety of tools to seek food, and even make their own tools, plucking, smoothing and bending twigs and grass stems.
Squirrels are, of course awesome. I'm a little torn about the content of this article:
The red one is cute. The gray one is taking over. England is going nuts.
Regarding the following, we suck.
If Iraqi Mandeans are allowed to enter the United States in significant numbers, it may just be enough to save them and their ancient culture from destruction.
If you’re poor, if you don’t have health insurance, if you’re sick — well, today’s conservatives don’t think it’s a serious issue. In fact, they think it’s funny.
Medicare recipients have been victimized by private insurers that run the drug benefit program, according to a review of federal audits.
I just found out that it's not actually illegal to drink alcohol in New York if you're under 21, just to buy it. You can even drink out at a restaurant as long as your parents pour it from the bottle into the glass. If you're not in public, it doesn't matter. http://alcoholpolicy.niaaa.nih.gov/stateprofiles/StateProfie.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_drinking_age
Did you know that Dennis Kucinich is a vegan and recently married a red-haired girl from England who is 31 years younger than he? She's his third wife. I think he has a worse chance of getting elected President than Guiliani with his marital history.
http://vegnews.com/wedding_2006_ED.html
I'll end with on a funny note and then head to bed... or go work on my proposal for work. UGH!!!...
There's a digital billboard on our drive home from Widener on 95 -- basically a big TV screen. It automatically cycles through ads. I find it to be really distracting while driving. The last two night it's been especially distracting...
We looked up and there was a huge photo of a mean looking guy, with his name and WANTED FOR ATTEMPTED MURDER. As we stared, the billboard changed to: Philadelphia, Have a Pleasant Evening! Pretty funny.
The next night as we drove by, there was an even meaner looking guy with WANTED FOR MURDER. This promptly changed to: Philadelphia - The City of Brotherly Love. We almost crashed from laughing.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
CNN.com -- Deadly amoeba lurks in Florida lakes
By John Zarrella and Patrick Oppman
ORLANDO, Florida (CNN)-- Something in the lakes around Orlando, Florida, has claimed the lives of three boys this summer.
I had to post this because N. fowleri was one of the scarier things we learned about in med school, and everyone should know about it.
If you've talked to me in the past two days, I've complained about tonight's class and how we had three week's worth of reading and 5 written assignments due today. In class he realizes it's way too much to talk about in one class (yeah, duh, and too much to accomplish in 6 days) and he decides not to collect two of the assignments and cancels all of the reading for next week so we can catch up with discussion. You know this means that eventually weeks of reading are going to get scunched (a real word) together again.
I finished my awesome Health Policy Survey presentation (thanks to all, copies will be distributed) and now I'm going to search for an article to do my article summary on for Information Systems... we have several articles to read each week, but we have to find a unique one to read and analyze for our homework.
On the bright side, I'm not currently studying for a shelf exam (sorry guys).
Wedding stuff has gotten totally pushed to the side, except for a colossal to do list that I made up. Nonetheless, I've been extra excited about it lately -- it's nine months from Friday! I got to show a new co-worker my wedding dress pictures :)
I feel like I'm leaving something out, but it's impossible for it to be important.
I remember!
I'm buying this:
Cookie cutters for 3-D cookies! Awesome!
Monday, August 20, 2007
Whew. Done with the pediatrics rotation. It's very weird now that we've been in the clinic that we won't be donning our white coats and poking people while they sit naked in a paper robe for an entire year.
As an aside, when the doctor asks you to open your mouth, stick out your tongue, and say AAHH, please do ALL THREE of those things. It's not just a cutesy expression to get you to open your mouth wide like 90% of the kids seem to think. We need to see your tonsils and the back of your throat and sticking your tongue out gets it out of the way, and saying AHH lifts your soft palate and uvula to widen the view. All of the kids, 4-year-olds to 17-year-olds would just open their mouths. Then again I would ask, please say AHH, and they would just sit there. "Say AHH" doesn't mean, "open your mouth;" it means actually say AHH.
OK, I'm done ranting, until next year.
Glen, my mom, my sister and I are all on vacation in Chincoteague, VA right now, enjoying a crazy thunderstorm from our hotel rooms. I want to post some photos, but I haven't used my own camera yet.
Glen, Amy and I just finished another rousing game of Apples To Apples, a new favorite. We always end up making up rules to mix it up a little. This time we also discovered that the combination of cards thrown out can give you great inspiration for a screenplay or other such endeavor. We are going to start drafting the script for Spicy: John Travolta Goes to Bollywood; it's going to end in a dance-off, of course.
It's obviously time for me to head to bed. I'm exhausted from fighting the waves today, and we're waking up early so we can all rent scooters before lunch.
One more thing -- Glen and I finished Harry Potter 7 today! Everyone can start speaking freely to us again; I won't have to give the disclaimer that I haven't finished at the beginning of every conversation.
As an aside, when the doctor asks you to open your mouth, stick out your tongue, and say AAHH, please do ALL THREE of those things. It's not just a cutesy expression to get you to open your mouth wide like 90% of the kids seem to think. We need to see your tonsils and the back of your throat and sticking your tongue out gets it out of the way, and saying AHH lifts your soft palate and uvula to widen the view. All of the kids, 4-year-olds to 17-year-olds would just open their mouths. Then again I would ask, please say AHH, and they would just sit there. "Say AHH" doesn't mean, "open your mouth;" it means actually say AHH.
OK, I'm done ranting, until next year.
Glen, my mom, my sister and I are all on vacation in Chincoteague, VA right now, enjoying a crazy thunderstorm from our hotel rooms. I want to post some photos, but I haven't used my own camera yet.
Glen, Amy and I just finished another rousing game of Apples To Apples, a new favorite. We always end up making up rules to mix it up a little. This time we also discovered that the combination of cards thrown out can give you great inspiration for a screenplay or other such endeavor. We are going to start drafting the script for Spicy: John Travolta Goes to Bollywood; it's going to end in a dance-off, of course.
It's obviously time for me to head to bed. I'm exhausted from fighting the waves today, and we're waking up early so we can all rent scooters before lunch.
One more thing -- Glen and I finished Harry Potter 7 today! Everyone can start speaking freely to us again; I won't have to give the disclaimer that I haven't finished at the beginning of every conversation.
Thursday, August 9, 2007
This headline is just so great, even though the article is pretty sad:
Britney Spears Accuses Her Mom Of Sleeping With Kevin Federline
In other news, a tornado went down my block in New York City, knocking down a tree and a telephone pole, blowing out windows, and ripping shingles off the rooves. roofs? We're not in Kansas anymore.. we are in Kansas? The tornadoes aren't in Kansas?
Today I had to be videotaped while interviewing one of the patients at the pediatrics clinic. The woman who agreed to be filmed had brought her son in regarding a delay in getting potty trained, a follow up of his constipation medication, and a new foul odor coming from his stools. So, if anyone is interested in watching a 20 minute tape of me discussing the frequency, texture, color, odor, and greasiness of someone else's poop, come on over this weekend.
My revelation for the day is that if you haven't looked in a mirror all day, you should really try to avoid going to the bathroom right before you leave work. I finally saw myself in the bathroom mirror and was faced with the fact that I had just tried to give parents of patients serious advice (on camera, no less) with my hair looking like THAT. ...imagine a crazy art teacher you had in high school and then make it bright red. I also had some of my lunch stuck to my butt. Only a little piece.
Every time I say or write "revelation" I say/write "relevation" first instead (not a word). I think it's because I use the word "elevation" much more frequently.
This is a pretty disjointed entry and it's way past my bed time so I'm signing off :)
Britney Spears Accuses Her Mom Of Sleeping With Kevin Federline
In other news, a tornado went down my block in New York City, knocking down a tree and a telephone pole, blowing out windows, and ripping shingles off the rooves. roofs? We're not in Kansas anymore.. we are in Kansas? The tornadoes aren't in Kansas?
Today I had to be videotaped while interviewing one of the patients at the pediatrics clinic. The woman who agreed to be filmed had brought her son in regarding a delay in getting potty trained, a follow up of his constipation medication, and a new foul odor coming from his stools. So, if anyone is interested in watching a 20 minute tape of me discussing the frequency, texture, color, odor, and greasiness of someone else's poop, come on over this weekend.
My revelation for the day is that if you haven't looked in a mirror all day, you should really try to avoid going to the bathroom right before you leave work. I finally saw myself in the bathroom mirror and was faced with the fact that I had just tried to give parents of patients serious advice (on camera, no less) with my hair looking like THAT. ...imagine a crazy art teacher you had in high school and then make it bright red. I also had some of my lunch stuck to my butt. Only a little piece.
Every time I say or write "revelation" I say/write "relevation" first instead (not a word). I think it's because I use the word "elevation" much more frequently.
This is a pretty disjointed entry and it's way past my bed time so I'm signing off :)
Sunday, July 29, 2007
My blogging has seriously been falling off lately. I just don't have the mental energy to be creative when I get home.
This past week in the well baby nursery was fun. It was nice to be surrounded by healthy babies and their excited parents. It's amazing how aware a 12 hour old baby is -- they would often calm right down as soon as one of their parents walked over to the crib, especially if the baby could hear their voice. I was holding one of the babies and she was looking at the window and when I turned a little she craned her neck to keep looking at the window, with that look of perplexion (not a word) on her face. She was like 20 hours old! I don't think they're even supposed to be able to see that far. It was so amazing to watch them start to turn into little people.
The sad cases I saw had to do with the mothers, not the babies. One of the moms was just having bad complications from her C-section -- a lot of internal bleeding. She was stuck in the ICU for the first few days of her son's life. Oh, and that boy looked exactly like his dad, somehow, even though he was only a few days old and looked like a baby. Dad was so excited, doing the stereotypical thing of shaking the hand of everyone who walked in the room.
The other sad case was a mom who had been diagnosed with metastatic melanoma during her pregnancy. She needed surgery as soon as possible so they had to weigh the risks of waiting to operate on her cancer with the risks of her baby being born pre-term; they waited until she was 34 weeks along, just late pre-term. We send babies to the NICU if they weigh less than 2200 grams and he weighed in at 2210 grams, so he could stay with his mom in her room until they went home a few days later (probably earlier than the doctor would have liked, but he wanted them to get home and have as much time together as possible).
One interesting thing about the nursery at Christiana that I don't think I've mentioned is that almost every baby stays in the room with Mom, and Mom and Dad are responsible for feeding it and changing its diapers from day 1. Mom can have the baby sleep in bed with her if she really wants, although we don't recommend it. My attending said that this is pretty new, around for only the past 5 years or so, and it was totally new to me. Every time I've gone to visit a new baby, up to my cousin who was born just six year ago, the set up has been that the mom is in her room and all the babies are in one big nursery with a big window where you can point and find yours and ogle at it. This new system seems really nice, and I think the parents liked it too. There still were nurseries where the nurses could take the baby if Mom needed to get a shower or something, so it wasn't like they were totally on their own. Oh, and as of like this year, dads are allowed to stay the night in the room too... in an empty hospital bed or a chair... but nonetheless.
Tomorrow we start our three weeks at an outpatient clinic in Wilmington. We don't have to be there until 8:30am!!!!!! We don't get out until 5pm, but still, this is like a normal person's job. We are going to be so refreshed. Maybe we can even go to Quizzo this week!
Lastly, Glen and I are addicted to Philly's 104.5FM. We first discovered this station when we got our car back from Glen's mom Kathee after she borrowed it for one night due to a debacle involving income taxes and a heavily armored parking garage; she had left the radio tuned to the station, although I don't think she particularly listens to it. We kept the radio tuned there and were amazed that every time we turned the car on, there was a good song on. Then with school and the boards, we hardly used our car for a few months. I tried to find the station in the house once, but I mistakenly thought it was 94.5FM. That's a Top 40 station out of Trenton, and as is requisite with getting older, I think pop music is getting worse and worse. So recently, Steve mentioned 104.5 and reminded me that (1) it existed and (2) what its real frequency was. So since we've been commuting in our car over this past week, we've needed a radio station as background noise and tuned in to this. It's all 90's alternative rock! It's amazing! These radio stations had slowly been getting canceled; it happened in Baltimore, Philly, and I've heard NY. There was almost nothing for people our age to listen to. On top of that, their DJs don't talk at all, even in the mornings - its all music. Their commercial breaks are only two commercials long. I wondered how they stayed in business, but I just found out they're run by ClearChannel, the super mega radio conglomerate. I don't really like supporting one of their stations, but you hardly have any choice these days anyway. (and it's a lot easier when they're playing what I like, haha).
Dave Matthews, Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stone Temple Pilots, Weezer, Green Day, Foo Fighters, Live, U2... and some new stuff like White Stripes and the Killers... yum!
This past week in the well baby nursery was fun. It was nice to be surrounded by healthy babies and their excited parents. It's amazing how aware a 12 hour old baby is -- they would often calm right down as soon as one of their parents walked over to the crib, especially if the baby could hear their voice. I was holding one of the babies and she was looking at the window and when I turned a little she craned her neck to keep looking at the window, with that look of perplexion (not a word) on her face. She was like 20 hours old! I don't think they're even supposed to be able to see that far. It was so amazing to watch them start to turn into little people.
The sad cases I saw had to do with the mothers, not the babies. One of the moms was just having bad complications from her C-section -- a lot of internal bleeding. She was stuck in the ICU for the first few days of her son's life. Oh, and that boy looked exactly like his dad, somehow, even though he was only a few days old and looked like a baby. Dad was so excited, doing the stereotypical thing of shaking the hand of everyone who walked in the room.
The other sad case was a mom who had been diagnosed with metastatic melanoma during her pregnancy. She needed surgery as soon as possible so they had to weigh the risks of waiting to operate on her cancer with the risks of her baby being born pre-term; they waited until she was 34 weeks along, just late pre-term. We send babies to the NICU if they weigh less than 2200 grams and he weighed in at 2210 grams, so he could stay with his mom in her room until they went home a few days later (probably earlier than the doctor would have liked, but he wanted them to get home and have as much time together as possible).
One interesting thing about the nursery at Christiana that I don't think I've mentioned is that almost every baby stays in the room with Mom, and Mom and Dad are responsible for feeding it and changing its diapers from day 1. Mom can have the baby sleep in bed with her if she really wants, although we don't recommend it. My attending said that this is pretty new, around for only the past 5 years or so, and it was totally new to me. Every time I've gone to visit a new baby, up to my cousin who was born just six year ago, the set up has been that the mom is in her room and all the babies are in one big nursery with a big window where you can point and find yours and ogle at it. This new system seems really nice, and I think the parents liked it too. There still were nurseries where the nurses could take the baby if Mom needed to get a shower or something, so it wasn't like they were totally on their own. Oh, and as of like this year, dads are allowed to stay the night in the room too... in an empty hospital bed or a chair... but nonetheless.
Tomorrow we start our three weeks at an outpatient clinic in Wilmington. We don't have to be there until 8:30am!!!!!! We don't get out until 5pm, but still, this is like a normal person's job. We are going to be so refreshed. Maybe we can even go to Quizzo this week!
Lastly, Glen and I are addicted to Philly's 104.5FM. We first discovered this station when we got our car back from Glen's mom Kathee after she borrowed it for one night due to a debacle involving income taxes and a heavily armored parking garage; she had left the radio tuned to the station, although I don't think she particularly listens to it. We kept the radio tuned there and were amazed that every time we turned the car on, there was a good song on. Then with school and the boards, we hardly used our car for a few months. I tried to find the station in the house once, but I mistakenly thought it was 94.5FM. That's a Top 40 station out of Trenton, and as is requisite with getting older, I think pop music is getting worse and worse. So recently, Steve mentioned 104.5 and reminded me that (1) it existed and (2) what its real frequency was. So since we've been commuting in our car over this past week, we've needed a radio station as background noise and tuned in to this. It's all 90's alternative rock! It's amazing! These radio stations had slowly been getting canceled; it happened in Baltimore, Philly, and I've heard NY. There was almost nothing for people our age to listen to. On top of that, their DJs don't talk at all, even in the mornings - its all music. Their commercial breaks are only two commercials long. I wondered how they stayed in business, but I just found out they're run by ClearChannel, the super mega radio conglomerate. I don't really like supporting one of their stations, but you hardly have any choice these days anyway. (and it's a lot easier when they're playing what I like, haha).
Dave Matthews, Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stone Temple Pilots, Weezer, Green Day, Foo Fighters, Live, U2... and some new stuff like White Stripes and the Killers... yum!
Monday, July 9, 2007
That's my hand above.
I had previously announced that I am not going to ever have surgery and tonight I would like to add to that that I never plan on having an IV line inserted. It just feels weird.
I do feel 1000 times more confident about having to do it on a patient now that I successfully did it on Chuck. Let's home all of my future patients have such great veins.
I apparently have terrible veins (hence the above picture). The guy who was teaching us (who was actually just a first year but who had worked as a paramedic for something like 12 years),
said it's because I'm a redhead, but he didn't explain that statement at all (maybe that's why my old dermatologist had "RED" written on my file so he would know a redheaded patient was coming in that day. I doubt there was that valid of a reason). Our teacher tonight was also overly attracted to Selene's jugular veins. It was an interesting evening all around, and unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me.
Tomorrow we have orientation days for our respective rotations, so we'll be meeting the pediatricians in charge of our block and I believe we'll be seeing some kids to learn about the developmental milestones and practice some of the pediatric physical exam (hint from a fourth year: leave examining the mouth to the end because they'll already having it open, screaming).
Also, here's a quick reprint of my wedding color swatches taken with my good camera. I think the colors are a little truer:
Good night and good luck, especially to the people I know who have to report before sunrise!
Thursday, July 5, 2007
So today we had orientation for third year. Dean Nasca came and spoke to us, in the same auditorium actually. He was slightly less scary this time... partly because I neither walked in late nor had my cell phone go off while he was talking (Glen reminded me to turn it off first).
He always has really appropriate things to say. Like at Parents' Day in March, he told us the story of when his father dropped him off at his interview for medical school at Jefferson and said to him, "If you work hard, you could run this place one day, Son." And how when he was appointed Dean of the medical school, his father came to the ceremony, but his Alzheimer's Disease had progressed so much that he could hardly recognize his son, let alone appreciate the moment. I think half the room was misty-eyed.
At orientation first year, he gave us a talk on what it means to be entering a profession. This really touched me because I actually never completed my application to UMaryland for med school because they wanted me to write an essay on that very topic and I didn't really know what they meant. Dean Nasca explained to us that all of medicine relies on the fact that society implicitly trusts doctors to help and not hurt them, and without that trust the entire system would collapse. By entering medical school and putting on our white coats (however short they are for the time being) we were entering into that covenant and had the entire weight of the profession on our shoulders. We represent the medical profession as a whole to anyone who knows we are medical students, and any time we do something stupid or irresponsible, we weaken that person's opinion of the profession, thus hurting every other doctor's ability to perform their job.
Have I said he's pretty intimidating?
So when we came back today, he again had the perfect story to tell. He brought up the recent bombings and bombing-attempts in Great Britain, which were planned and carried out by medical professionals (CNN.com - Doctors at heart of UK terror probe). He told us that these doctors had broken the trust in a way that no one had ever imagined, and he assured us that their breach of professional responsibility (to say the least) would trickle down and affect our ability to help our patients. Sound far-fetched? Dean Nasca then told us how he did his nephrology fellowship during the Iranian hostage crisis. In an attempt to look more mature, he had grown out a beard, as it held his only grey hairs (at the time). One day he was called in for a consult on a patient checked-in to the hospital and that patient refused to talk to Dr. Nasca because the patient thought he was Iranian because of the beard (he's actually an Italian from Brooklyn). It's really unfortunate that there was any of this material for Dean Nasca to draw from, but he really managed to pull his two orientation speeches, separated by two years, together seamlessly. It was intense.
On a lighter note, as part of the dash of grammar-nazi that I have in me, I've been really conscious of my splitting of the word 'another.' Like if you want to take the phrase "another level of responsibility" and bring it up a notch, I find I'll say "a whole 'nother level of responsibility." Nother is not a word. I guess it should be "another whole level..." that would work just fine. But I never say that.
So today, much to my satisfaction, Dean Nasca himself used that very (incorrect) phrase himself!! "A whole 'nother level...."
I mean if you listen you can hear people use the word 'nother all the time, but that fact that Dean Nasca said it kind of excuses me. He runs this place, for crying out loud.
He always has really appropriate things to say. Like at Parents' Day in March, he told us the story of when his father dropped him off at his interview for medical school at Jefferson and said to him, "If you work hard, you could run this place one day, Son." And how when he was appointed Dean of the medical school, his father came to the ceremony, but his Alzheimer's Disease had progressed so much that he could hardly recognize his son, let alone appreciate the moment. I think half the room was misty-eyed.
At orientation first year, he gave us a talk on what it means to be entering a profession. This really touched me because I actually never completed my application to UMaryland for med school because they wanted me to write an essay on that very topic and I didn't really know what they meant. Dean Nasca explained to us that all of medicine relies on the fact that society implicitly trusts doctors to help and not hurt them, and without that trust the entire system would collapse. By entering medical school and putting on our white coats (however short they are for the time being) we were entering into that covenant and had the entire weight of the profession on our shoulders. We represent the medical profession as a whole to anyone who knows we are medical students, and any time we do something stupid or irresponsible, we weaken that person's opinion of the profession, thus hurting every other doctor's ability to perform their job.
Have I said he's pretty intimidating?
So when we came back today, he again had the perfect story to tell. He brought up the recent bombings and bombing-attempts in Great Britain, which were planned and carried out by medical professionals (CNN.com - Doctors at heart of UK terror probe). He told us that these doctors had broken the trust in a way that no one had ever imagined, and he assured us that their breach of professional responsibility (to say the least) would trickle down and affect our ability to help our patients. Sound far-fetched? Dean Nasca then told us how he did his nephrology fellowship during the Iranian hostage crisis. In an attempt to look more mature, he had grown out a beard, as it held his only grey hairs (at the time). One day he was called in for a consult on a patient checked-in to the hospital and that patient refused to talk to Dr. Nasca because the patient thought he was Iranian because of the beard (he's actually an Italian from Brooklyn). It's really unfortunate that there was any of this material for Dean Nasca to draw from, but he really managed to pull his two orientation speeches, separated by two years, together seamlessly. It was intense.
On a lighter note, as part of the dash of grammar-nazi that I have in me, I've been really conscious of my splitting of the word 'another.' Like if you want to take the phrase "another level of responsibility" and bring it up a notch, I find I'll say "a whole 'nother level of responsibility." Nother is not a word. I guess it should be "another whole level..." that would work just fine. But I never say that.
So today, much to my satisfaction, Dean Nasca himself used that very (incorrect) phrase himself!! "A whole 'nother level...."
I mean if you listen you can hear people use the word 'nother all the time, but that fact that Dean Nasca said it kind of excuses me. He runs this place, for crying out loud.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Happy 4th of July!!!
[I opened this window before midnight so it would post to July 4th ;-)]
There's something extra exciting about being in Philadelphia on Independence Day. And tonight I'm going to go back to reading 1776 and I'm starting the 'summer of 1776' section of the book so it's very appropriate!
Glen and I went up to the top floor of the Bluemle Life Sciences building tonight in hopes of getting a glimpse of the fireworks at the Art Museum (i.e. on the Rocky steps). When we got there we found out that there were several buildings blocking our view, including Orlowitz. Instead, we when over to the south side of the building where we could see all of south Philly -- there must have been fifteen different fireworks displays going off from all over the place! Some where just little, but it was an awesome sight to see fireworks in every which direction. Then towards the end, the lightning started up and made it even more spectacular! Mindy and Eugene met up with us, so when it ended at around 10pm the four of us just sat and talked until 11 hoping that maybe we would eventually see a little of the Art Museum show which we had found out was supposed to go from 10 to 11. Over the course of the evening we saw a dozen people from our class who had the same idea we did of using Bluemle's awesome windows, so it was kind of a little of an easing back in to the whole school thing.
Ahh school. We go back to start third year TOMORROW MORNING. ugh ugh ugh. It's actually four days of orientation before we even walk into a hospital, but it still stinks. I will be walking back into our first year lecture hall at 8:30 tomorrow morning. (They made the 4th of July a school night!!! -- don't you think you should really get the day after holidays off? Then you can actually enjoy that evening. Glen also adds that then when you go to a barbecue you can say you can't bring anything because you had to work all day!)
I am petrified of having what I do actually matter (although I know they put in as many safeguards as possible to make that only very slightly true). I've hardly spoken to any one other than Glen, let alone a real patient, over the past 6 weeks. And, almost all of our clothing is still in the laundry from our three separate vacations so I'm not even sure what I have to wear out in public tomorrow. I have a crop of pimples coming up on my chin and I really need a manicure and a haircut.
I'll talk about my vacations a little bit so I don't freak out. Florida was awesome, and I tried to write while I was there. It's so nice to be able to wake up and stumble out to the beach (after spending a half hour putting on sunblock). My only complaint is that instead of getting sunburn, this and the past summer, I just broke out in this terribly itchy ugly heat rash instead. If any one has any solution to this problem, please let me know. Covering my body in lidocaine takes care of the itch, but the blotchy redness took a week to clear up.
Here's the view from our hotel room:
That's one of the lagoons that last summer held an alligator, but this summer looked too shallow from the Florida drought to help much other than a few turtles.
Here are some of the shells we collected:
We threw about half of the them back on the last day and saved the best of them, including most of these tiny perfect spiral ones:
Going out early the last morning didn't help us find any better shells because the tide was in and it was shaking up too much sand to have any visibility with the snorkels (spell check told me I spelled snorkels wrong, and I should have known -- I had to spell snorkels backwards in Cranium with my family, and that time I also reversed the L and the E, helping my team lose. I guess I never learn). I will have to post some of the under water pictures we took as soon as we get that camera developed.
Then the day after we got back we headed out to camp for a few days at French Creek State Park with my mom. Here's our camp site:
It absolutely poured the first night so that we had to yell to talk to each other across the table. But we only got a little water in our tent from some side screened windows that weren't adequately covered by the rainfly, and everything was dry by the time we had to pack up which is all that really matters. The site was awesome -- back about 100 yards from the loop and our car down a rocky path so that we were completely isolated. It was quiet even the second night, Friday night, when the whole campground was full of weekenders. We found another awesome double site (two sites fused) also about 50 yards back from the loop down a much smoother and flatter trail that we might try to reserve for a larger family camping trip in August. Or, we might go back to Vermont. We should decide soon before we can't book the good sites.
Then, the day after we got back from that trip, we drove 5 hours to upstate New York to join the rest of my family at a big ski house that my grandparents rented for the month of July. With 5 bedrooms all of my aunts and uncles, cousins, and my grandparents could crash there. Here's the awesome view:
There were supposed to be fireworks tonight at that ski area you can see across the valley, but my mom said that a really heavy fog had set in in the afternoon so that you could hardly see that tree right in the foreground, so I hope it cleared up for them... or that they got an interesting light show through the fog at least.
Speaking of light show, check out this incredible rainbow that appeared during dinner the first night we were there:
It was a full arc, and we could see exactly where it landed in the valley... we were tempted to drive down to find our pot of gold, but dinner was already on the table and no body likes a cold steak.
Here's Glen getting some help from my cousin Erin building a second grill for us (there were 12 at dinner the second night and we needed some more space to cook). She's going to be my junior bridesmaid.
I wish this picture had come out, but of course I always screw up the good ones.
I like to play with all the manual settings on my camera, but then I always forget to change them back when I go to take my next shot.
Here's my cousin JoeJoe building a mini book/CD shelf with a "little" help from my PopPop.
Obviously some serious business. JoeJoe is going to be our ring bearer. Here he is throwing himself down a flight of 3 stairs for fun and to get some... laughs? gasps? general attention?
Clearly he did this often enough that I was able to get a picture of it. The hallway was three steps up from the living room/dining room so he treated that wooden part as a stage. I think this was after he serenaded us with "Who Let the Dogs Out?" for 20 minutes.
Well that sums up the last two weeks for me. Now that Glen and I have managed to get the PELS (patient encounter log system) program onto our Palm Pilots, it's time for bed (it's actually closer to 2:30am now).
I think I'm going to keep up my blog because I have a feeling I still won't have much time to talk to or see my friends over the next six weeks of my Pediatrics rotation, and I may have some funny stories to keep you entertained :) ...funny or completely embarrassing... whatever.
[I opened this window before midnight so it would post to July 4th ;-)]
There's something extra exciting about being in Philadelphia on Independence Day. And tonight I'm going to go back to reading 1776 and I'm starting the 'summer of 1776' section of the book so it's very appropriate!
Glen and I went up to the top floor of the Bluemle Life Sciences building tonight in hopes of getting a glimpse of the fireworks at the Art Museum (i.e. on the Rocky steps). When we got there we found out that there were several buildings blocking our view, including Orlowitz. Instead, we when over to the south side of the building where we could see all of south Philly -- there must have been fifteen different fireworks displays going off from all over the place! Some where just little, but it was an awesome sight to see fireworks in every which direction. Then towards the end, the lightning started up and made it even more spectacular! Mindy and Eugene met up with us, so when it ended at around 10pm the four of us just sat and talked until 11 hoping that maybe we would eventually see a little of the Art Museum show which we had found out was supposed to go from 10 to 11. Over the course of the evening we saw a dozen people from our class who had the same idea we did of using Bluemle's awesome windows, so it was kind of a little of an easing back in to the whole school thing.
Ahh school. We go back to start third year TOMORROW MORNING. ugh ugh ugh. It's actually four days of orientation before we even walk into a hospital, but it still stinks. I will be walking back into our first year lecture hall at 8:30 tomorrow morning. (They made the 4th of July a school night!!! -- don't you think you should really get the day after holidays off? Then you can actually enjoy that evening. Glen also adds that then when you go to a barbecue you can say you can't bring anything because you had to work all day!)
I am petrified of having what I do actually matter (although I know they put in as many safeguards as possible to make that only very slightly true). I've hardly spoken to any one other than Glen, let alone a real patient, over the past 6 weeks. And, almost all of our clothing is still in the laundry from our three separate vacations so I'm not even sure what I have to wear out in public tomorrow. I have a crop of pimples coming up on my chin and I really need a manicure and a haircut.
I'll talk about my vacations a little bit so I don't freak out. Florida was awesome, and I tried to write while I was there. It's so nice to be able to wake up and stumble out to the beach (after spending a half hour putting on sunblock). My only complaint is that instead of getting sunburn, this and the past summer, I just broke out in this terribly itchy ugly heat rash instead. If any one has any solution to this problem, please let me know. Covering my body in lidocaine takes care of the itch, but the blotchy redness took a week to clear up.
Here's the view from our hotel room:
That's one of the lagoons that last summer held an alligator, but this summer looked too shallow from the Florida drought to help much other than a few turtles.Here are some of the shells we collected:
We threw about half of the them back on the last day and saved the best of them, including most of these tiny perfect spiral ones:
Going out early the last morning didn't help us find any better shells because the tide was in and it was shaking up too much sand to have any visibility with the snorkels (spell check told me I spelled snorkels wrong, and I should have known -- I had to spell snorkels backwards in Cranium with my family, and that time I also reversed the L and the E, helping my team lose. I guess I never learn). I will have to post some of the under water pictures we took as soon as we get that camera developed.Then the day after we got back we headed out to camp for a few days at French Creek State Park with my mom. Here's our camp site:
It absolutely poured the first night so that we had to yell to talk to each other across the table. But we only got a little water in our tent from some side screened windows that weren't adequately covered by the rainfly, and everything was dry by the time we had to pack up which is all that really matters. The site was awesome -- back about 100 yards from the loop and our car down a rocky path so that we were completely isolated. It was quiet even the second night, Friday night, when the whole campground was full of weekenders. We found another awesome double site (two sites fused) also about 50 yards back from the loop down a much smoother and flatter trail that we might try to reserve for a larger family camping trip in August. Or, we might go back to Vermont. We should decide soon before we can't book the good sites.Then, the day after we got back from that trip, we drove 5 hours to upstate New York to join the rest of my family at a big ski house that my grandparents rented for the month of July. With 5 bedrooms all of my aunts and uncles, cousins, and my grandparents could crash there. Here's the awesome view:
There were supposed to be fireworks tonight at that ski area you can see across the valley, but my mom said that a really heavy fog had set in in the afternoon so that you could hardly see that tree right in the foreground, so I hope it cleared up for them... or that they got an interesting light show through the fog at least.
Speaking of light show, check out this incredible rainbow that appeared during dinner the first night we were there:
It was a full arc, and we could see exactly where it landed in the valley... we were tempted to drive down to find our pot of gold, but dinner was already on the table and no body likes a cold steak.
Here's Glen getting some help from my cousin Erin building a second grill for us (there were 12 at dinner the second night and we needed some more space to cook). She's going to be my junior bridesmaid.
I wish this picture had come out, but of course I always screw up the good ones.
I like to play with all the manual settings on my camera, but then I always forget to change them back when I go to take my next shot.Here's my cousin JoeJoe building a mini book/CD shelf with a "little" help from my PopPop.
Obviously some serious business. JoeJoe is going to be our ring bearer. Here he is throwing himself down a flight of 3 stairs for fun and to get some... laughs? gasps? general attention?
Clearly he did this often enough that I was able to get a picture of it. The hallway was three steps up from the living room/dining room so he treated that wooden part as a stage. I think this was after he serenaded us with "Who Let the Dogs Out?" for 20 minutes.
Well that sums up the last two weeks for me. Now that Glen and I have managed to get the PELS (patient encounter log system) program onto our Palm Pilots, it's time for bed (it's actually closer to 2:30am now).
I think I'm going to keep up my blog because I have a feeling I still won't have much time to talk to or see my friends over the next six weeks of my Pediatrics rotation, and I may have some funny stories to keep you entertained :) ...funny or completely embarrassing... whatever.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
AAHHHH!
I had to pluck out my first white eyebrow hair this morning. It's all downhill from here.
I've been noticing a lot more white hairs lately too. I used to always have one or two from when I was young, but now there are a dozen. A few are just about six inches long, meaning they started growing out white during the first year of med school. I noticed Glen get his first bunch of white hairs while we were applying for med school. The stress literally made us go white!
Other than that, it was nice to finally have a chance to do some primping this morning. My eyebrows were the last thing on my mind for the past few weeks. I cut all my nails all the way down because the beach has a way of destroying them. It was slightly heartbreaking because before that they were the longest they had ever been. That's what 5 weeks of doing nothing but turning pages will do for you. (I'm pretty girly about my nails.)
I think we're going to head out for a late brunch now at this diner we found last time we were on Sanibel. I'm afraid to head down to the tiki bar right at lunch time -- the hotel is so much more crowded than it was when we were hear this past August! I think there are two reasons.
Oh maybe I didn't explain the tiki bar -- it's an open air bar next to the pool, on the way to the beach that also serves snacks, hamburgers/hot dogs, and sandwiches including an awesome chicken salad on a croissant. We found out that it's actually one of only two open air bars on the whole island so we're so lucky it's at our hotel. It only seats like ten people so it's not like a huge loud scene, just someplace you can have lunch while you enjoy the breeze. And you can bring your food/drinks out to the beach which is just the awesomest.
Good luck to everyone studying -- you'll be done soon and being done really is amazing.
I had to pluck out my first white eyebrow hair this morning. It's all downhill from here.
I've been noticing a lot more white hairs lately too. I used to always have one or two from when I was young, but now there are a dozen. A few are just about six inches long, meaning they started growing out white during the first year of med school. I noticed Glen get his first bunch of white hairs while we were applying for med school. The stress literally made us go white!
Other than that, it was nice to finally have a chance to do some primping this morning. My eyebrows were the last thing on my mind for the past few weeks. I cut all my nails all the way down because the beach has a way of destroying them. It was slightly heartbreaking because before that they were the longest they had ever been. That's what 5 weeks of doing nothing but turning pages will do for you. (I'm pretty girly about my nails.)
I think we're going to head out for a late brunch now at this diner we found last time we were on Sanibel. I'm afraid to head down to the tiki bar right at lunch time -- the hotel is so much more crowded than it was when we were hear this past August! I think there are two reasons.
- Last time we were hear, we checked in Sunday night and left early Saturday morning. We hardly saw the weekend crowd at all, which is what we're experiencing now.
- My neighbor on the plane mentioned that August and September are the real off months (i.e. when we were hear last time). I thought that June's heat would keep people away just as much as in August, but I guess there's a lower chance of hurricanes earlier in the summer.
Oh maybe I didn't explain the tiki bar -- it's an open air bar next to the pool, on the way to the beach that also serves snacks, hamburgers/hot dogs, and sandwiches including an awesome chicken salad on a croissant. We found out that it's actually one of only two open air bars on the whole island so we're so lucky it's at our hotel. It only seats like ten people so it's not like a huge loud scene, just someplace you can have lunch while you enjoy the breeze. And you can bring your food/drinks out to the beach which is just the awesomest.
Good luck to everyone studying -- you'll be done soon and being done really is amazing.
Monday, June 18, 2007
So if you've ever met me, you probably know that I hiccup all the time. Mostly they're just single hiccups, but they come more and more frequently until I finally get an attack of the hiccups that can last 5 minutes or come and go for two days. (It's not so bad -- when I was a junior in high school and we were all Big Sibs for 7th and 8th grade classes, someone's little sib had to be hospitalized because she hadn't stopped hiccuping for a week. Mindy, was she yours?)
Over the past year, I've realized that the hiccups must be stress-related in some way because I usually get one of these attacks the day before, of, or after an exam. And so as you would expect, the days up to the exam I get a hiccup increasingly often.
Now I've got the exam of all exams coming up in just two days. I hiccup about every hour, and really loud. I got a mini attack a few days ago, but they didn't go away after that. I'm not super worried about getting an attack during the exam, but I know I will at least hiccup a few times. Usually I don't try to hold them in because that's kind of painful and it usually doesn't matter. I promise I will try during the exam, but sometimes they catch me by surprise. Anyway, I just wanted to apologize in advance to anyone who is in the same room as I am on Wednesday.
Over the past year, I've realized that the hiccups must be stress-related in some way because I usually get one of these attacks the day before, of, or after an exam. And so as you would expect, the days up to the exam I get a hiccup increasingly often.
Now I've got the exam of all exams coming up in just two days. I hiccup about every hour, and really loud. I got a mini attack a few days ago, but they didn't go away after that. I'm not super worried about getting an attack during the exam, but I know I will at least hiccup a few times. Usually I don't try to hold them in because that's kind of painful and it usually doesn't matter. I promise I will try during the exam, but sometimes they catch me by surprise. Anyway, I just wanted to apologize in advance to anyone who is in the same room as I am on Wednesday.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
OK only a few more days of this, I promise. The 21st is now set to be sunny with a high of 84 degrees, so it's actually getting nicer. Although it's so late now that that might be tomorrow's forecast for Thursday. I hope this is how it turns out next year :)
I'm not sure why I'm so obsessed with the weather. This 21st thing is a little different, but I generally open up weather.com several times per day. Maybe because it's a good procrastination tool -- it's always changing but only a little so it doesn't distract you very much. Also, I'm always planning several days ahead and I like to know the weather so I have a complete idea of what that day is going to be like.
I'm also a little obsessed with checking the headlines throughout the day and especially when I get up in the morning, but I know why that is. The morning of September 11th it was my first week at college and I was just barely getting into my schedule so I woke up at around 10am for an 11am class and never heard anything until I was starting to walk across (a very weirdly empty) campus. By the time I found out, it was completely over. So now 6 years later I still check the news as soon as I get up to see if anything happened while I was sleeping, and then again throughout the day because just sitting and studying I am so cut off from the real world.
I did get out into the real world a little bit today -- went back to study on the front steps. Had to come in the first time right after lunch because it was actually too hot in the sun (and I was worried I was going to burn) but at around 5pm it was perfect out in the shade. I have an hour long mp3 of the sounds of waves crashing, so I listened to that on my iPod for some white noise and to up the relaxation if at all possible. What would also make it more relaxing is if the city could hang a One Way arrow at the intersection of 9th and Lombard... I guess the fact that the north-south street alternate directions isn't enough for people because every day I see someone turn left from Lombard into the oncoming traffic on 9th street. Usually there is a lot of honking and then the person has to back into the intersection. I'm amazed that I haven't actually witnessed a crash from this problem yet, but if I do enough more studying out there I'm sure I will eventually.
Oh that reminds me that last week I also watched a 10-wheeler trunk back up 9th street. He was technically going the right way, but he was facing backwards. I don't remember what I was doing at the time that I couldn't watch to see how this issue was resolved, but I really can't imagine where or how he got himself turned back around. I guess if he backed past an intersection he could then turn onto that intersection, hopefully in the right direction this time? But there was a cop kind of directing him so he didn't side swipe any cars (read: my car) and he had been backing up since about South Street and had already crossed Rodman and Lombard, headed towards Pine so I don't know what the plan was. He was breaking all of the branches of the trees that line my block because nothing that huge ever drives up our street forward, let alone backwards!!
Lastly, today opened a fifth week in the little 'archive' list to the left, so that means this is my fifth Sunday of studying, as well as blogging. That's a little too much studying if you ask me. Almost there.
I'm not sure why I'm so obsessed with the weather. This 21st thing is a little different, but I generally open up weather.com several times per day. Maybe because it's a good procrastination tool -- it's always changing but only a little so it doesn't distract you very much. Also, I'm always planning several days ahead and I like to know the weather so I have a complete idea of what that day is going to be like.
I'm also a little obsessed with checking the headlines throughout the day and especially when I get up in the morning, but I know why that is. The morning of September 11th it was my first week at college and I was just barely getting into my schedule so I woke up at around 10am for an 11am class and never heard anything until I was starting to walk across (a very weirdly empty) campus. By the time I found out, it was completely over. So now 6 years later I still check the news as soon as I get up to see if anything happened while I was sleeping, and then again throughout the day because just sitting and studying I am so cut off from the real world.
I did get out into the real world a little bit today -- went back to study on the front steps. Had to come in the first time right after lunch because it was actually too hot in the sun (and I was worried I was going to burn) but at around 5pm it was perfect out in the shade. I have an hour long mp3 of the sounds of waves crashing, so I listened to that on my iPod for some white noise and to up the relaxation if at all possible. What would also make it more relaxing is if the city could hang a One Way arrow at the intersection of 9th and Lombard... I guess the fact that the north-south street alternate directions isn't enough for people because every day I see someone turn left from Lombard into the oncoming traffic on 9th street. Usually there is a lot of honking and then the person has to back into the intersection. I'm amazed that I haven't actually witnessed a crash from this problem yet, but if I do enough more studying out there I'm sure I will eventually.
Oh that reminds me that last week I also watched a 10-wheeler trunk back up 9th street. He was technically going the right way, but he was facing backwards. I don't remember what I was doing at the time that I couldn't watch to see how this issue was resolved, but I really can't imagine where or how he got himself turned back around. I guess if he backed past an intersection he could then turn onto that intersection, hopefully in the right direction this time? But there was a cop kind of directing him so he didn't side swipe any cars (read: my car) and he had been backing up since about South Street and had already crossed Rodman and Lombard, headed towards Pine so I don't know what the plan was. He was breaking all of the branches of the trees that line my block because nothing that huge ever drives up our street forward, let alone backwards!!
Lastly, today opened a fifth week in the little 'archive' list to the left, so that means this is my fifth Sunday of studying, as well as blogging. That's a little too much studying if you ask me. Almost there.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
We just toasted hamburger buns in our toaster oven!!!
This is very exciting because two months ago our toaster oven caught on fire. I called up Black&Decker and it turns out they have a great warranty policy and they offered to send a replacement and a shipping label so we could send the old one back for free.
The new toaster oven came within a week but when we went to our package store (I'll get to them later) they brought out this box that looked like it had been thrown down several flights of stairs. Black&Decker had shipped it in the display box with no cardboard shipping box; it looked so bad that the people who signed for it made the delivery man write on the box that this was how it arrived and sign his name. It didn't look like there was any way that it would work. But when we got it home we didn't even care about that -- it was a totally different toaster oven and it was tiny! So I called back and the guy said that apparently I didn't understand the warranty and they could send me any model of equal or greater value than my old one. It took quite a bit of convincing to get him to believe that they were not of equal value because the two toasters were both "four slice toasters"... but I had price comparisons from online stores and the calculated percent difference in toaster rack size and so on. So he put me on hold. He comes back several minutes later (I didn't hang up! HA!) and says that my original model is out of stock until the middle of May, but if I didn't mind waiting until then they could send out the exact model. And, he would send me another return shipping label so we could mail this second toaster back.
So several weeks later our third toaster oven comes. Of course, it's not our original model. Also, they shipped in the display box again and although it wasn't destroyed, the pictures on it were so faded that only the blue and black ink were left -- mmm blue lasagne. It looked like it had been sitting in a window for 15 years. So we opened this one, and although it wasn't the same it was just as big and we really couldn't call and complain if the warranty only guaranteed equal value (although the guy said... nevermind).
So now we've got three toaster ovens and one shipping label so I make a third call to request the second shipping label that never came. We'd started using the third toaster over and it was working but there was this odd smell of burning plastic that we were sure would burn off. After using it for a week, the smell was just getting worse and was burning Glen's lungs. Of course, we'd started studying for the boards by then so we just unplugged it and went on with our lives... although they were lives without a functional toaster oven.
So on our first boards studying break day I made my fourth phone call. This lady was super nice and explained that although they couldn't guarantee any particular model (I had gotten that point by then) that she would make note of which model we had started with. We were running out of room to store broken toaster ovens in our apartment, so we went to the package store and shipped back the first two for which we had shipping labels. I think they had fun covering that very broken box in many layers of packing tape in some hope of it getting back in one piece.
Apparently our fourth toaster oven came in just a few days -- usually our package store sends us a text message when we get a box but we hadn't heard anything and with all the studying we hadn't had time to walk over and see. A few days ago though we made a big purchase of snorkling equipment for our upcoming vacation in Sanibel, practically the sea shell capital of Florida. We have AmazonPrime (which is awesome) so to get stuff to us faster, they packed every item (two pairs of flippers, two snorkles, two pairs of water shoes) each in its own huge box. So I think just our packages were taking up half the store room at this little package store and they actually called us yesterday to ask us to come get our stuff. Along with all of our snorkling equipment was our new toaster oven! In an intact brown shipping box! With the model number of our original toaster oven on the outside!!!
We opened it up at home and it was packed in official new styrofoam and everything. It's gorgeous! And it works and doesn't smell like burning carcinogens!
I got my first toaster oven sophomore year of college because my suite had a range but no oven. After you get one you can never live without one again! It's the best for reheating things and baking when you don't want your apartment to be 400 degrees and toasting big things like frozen hamburger buns. As I've said before, it's obvious that my threshold for excitement had declined over the past few weeks, but still it's very exciting to have a functional toaster oven again. Four toaster ovens I can live without, however; and, we still have one broken one in the corner waiting for a shipping label, but that's on them.
Also I want to give a shout out to our package store -- South Street Mailbox Plus. It's this little store on South between 8th and 9th run by a family. They sign for all of our packages and can ship stuff through the post office, UPS, FedEx, or DHL. On top of all sorts of packaging stuff, they also have gift wrap and bags and cards and they do copying and faxing and stuff. They're super nice and the store is super clean. We buy almost everything online now but we would always miss our deliveries to our apartment and then have to drive down to the 19147 post office which is like 25 blocks away and that only worked if the box was shipped through USPS. So then we got a PO Box up at the post office on Chestnut but half of the stores won't ship to PO boxes! And when we went we'd have to wait on a 20 minute line to claim one package and they lost several items! So when we found this little store a block and half from our house, it was perfect. We just renewed our yearly membership. If you have any issues with package deliveries, get a mailbox there.
Finally you might notice in the photo that we finally got Cranium! Several of my 20-something friends have been amazed that we've never played and yelled at us to get it. So now it's first on the To Do list when we're finally done in 6 days!! We'll try to fit it in the suitcase for Florida :)
OK that definitely exhausted all my chattiness for the day. Hopefully I can focus on my books for my LAST DAY of studying new material. I take a long practice test and start reviewing tomorrow!
This is very exciting because two months ago our toaster oven caught on fire. I called up Black&Decker and it turns out they have a great warranty policy and they offered to send a replacement and a shipping label so we could send the old one back for free.
The new toaster oven came within a week but when we went to our package store (I'll get to them later) they brought out this box that looked like it had been thrown down several flights of stairs. Black&Decker had shipped it in the display box with no cardboard shipping box; it looked so bad that the people who signed for it made the delivery man write on the box that this was how it arrived and sign his name. It didn't look like there was any way that it would work. But when we got it home we didn't even care about that -- it was a totally different toaster oven and it was tiny! So I called back and the guy said that apparently I didn't understand the warranty and they could send me any model of equal or greater value than my old one. It took quite a bit of convincing to get him to believe that they were not of equal value because the two toasters were both "four slice toasters"... but I had price comparisons from online stores and the calculated percent difference in toaster rack size and so on. So he put me on hold. He comes back several minutes later (I didn't hang up! HA!) and says that my original model is out of stock until the middle of May, but if I didn't mind waiting until then they could send out the exact model. And, he would send me another return shipping label so we could mail this second toaster back.
So several weeks later our third toaster oven comes. Of course, it's not our original model. Also, they shipped in the display box again and although it wasn't destroyed, the pictures on it were so faded that only the blue and black ink were left -- mmm blue lasagne. It looked like it had been sitting in a window for 15 years. So we opened this one, and although it wasn't the same it was just as big and we really couldn't call and complain if the warranty only guaranteed equal value (although the guy said... nevermind).
So now we've got three toaster ovens and one shipping label so I make a third call to request the second shipping label that never came. We'd started using the third toaster over and it was working but there was this odd smell of burning plastic that we were sure would burn off. After using it for a week, the smell was just getting worse and was burning Glen's lungs. Of course, we'd started studying for the boards by then so we just unplugged it and went on with our lives... although they were lives without a functional toaster oven.
So on our first boards studying break day I made my fourth phone call. This lady was super nice and explained that although they couldn't guarantee any particular model (I had gotten that point by then) that she would make note of which model we had started with. We were running out of room to store broken toaster ovens in our apartment, so we went to the package store and shipped back the first two for which we had shipping labels. I think they had fun covering that very broken box in many layers of packing tape in some hope of it getting back in one piece.
Apparently our fourth toaster oven came in just a few days -- usually our package store sends us a text message when we get a box but we hadn't heard anything and with all the studying we hadn't had time to walk over and see. A few days ago though we made a big purchase of snorkling equipment for our upcoming vacation in Sanibel, practically the sea shell capital of Florida. We have AmazonPrime (which is awesome) so to get stuff to us faster, they packed every item (two pairs of flippers, two snorkles, two pairs of water shoes) each in its own huge box. So I think just our packages were taking up half the store room at this little package store and they actually called us yesterday to ask us to come get our stuff. Along with all of our snorkling equipment was our new toaster oven! In an intact brown shipping box! With the model number of our original toaster oven on the outside!!!
We opened it up at home and it was packed in official new styrofoam and everything. It's gorgeous! And it works and doesn't smell like burning carcinogens!
I got my first toaster oven sophomore year of college because my suite had a range but no oven. After you get one you can never live without one again! It's the best for reheating things and baking when you don't want your apartment to be 400 degrees and toasting big things like frozen hamburger buns. As I've said before, it's obvious that my threshold for excitement had declined over the past few weeks, but still it's very exciting to have a functional toaster oven again. Four toaster ovens I can live without, however; and, we still have one broken one in the corner waiting for a shipping label, but that's on them.Also I want to give a shout out to our package store -- South Street Mailbox Plus. It's this little store on South between 8th and 9th run by a family. They sign for all of our packages and can ship stuff through the post office, UPS, FedEx, or DHL. On top of all sorts of packaging stuff, they also have gift wrap and bags and cards and they do copying and faxing and stuff. They're super nice and the store is super clean. We buy almost everything online now but we would always miss our deliveries to our apartment and then have to drive down to the 19147 post office which is like 25 blocks away and that only worked if the box was shipped through USPS. So then we got a PO Box up at the post office on Chestnut but half of the stores won't ship to PO boxes! And when we went we'd have to wait on a 20 minute line to claim one package and they lost several items! So when we found this little store a block and half from our house, it was perfect. We just renewed our yearly membership. If you have any issues with package deliveries, get a mailbox there.
Finally you might notice in the photo that we finally got Cranium! Several of my 20-something friends have been amazed that we've never played and yelled at us to get it. So now it's first on the To Do list when we're finally done in 6 days!! We'll try to fit it in the suitcase for Florida :)
OK that definitely exhausted all my chattiness for the day. Hopefully I can focus on my books for my LAST DAY of studying new material. I take a long practice test and start reviewing tomorrow!
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
I hope those crazy thunderstorms washed away that terrible smell outside. It was worse today! There's a manhole cover across the street with some new spray paint symbols around it -- maybe they're going to do some work on the sewer or something. I couldn't even go out there and sit on the steps!
Also, I don't think I mentioned that on my last day off, I stopped in at the mini-police station down on South Street and asked them what I should do about the bike that's been chained to the street sign in front of my house for two years. They told me I could definitely get rid of it; it has technically been abandoned. So I tried to be subtle and asked if I should just get a hacksaw and cut it off... trying to make it a little more clear that if it were as easy as just getting rid of it, some one would have done it long ago. So eventually one of the officers remembered he had something called a pipe cutter and that there was another abandoned bike chained in front of Whole Foods and that he would go out later and cut both of them off!
Of course, 5 days later, the bike is still in front of my house and I've now exhausted that resource. But at least we know we're not breaking any laws by getting rid of it, however and whenever that eventually happens.
I'll have to hope this posts because lately we've been losing our internet whenever it starts thundering, not even raining. It goes in and out -- so annoying. Sometimes I'm actually trying to do productive study-related things online! Sometimes.
Also, I don't think I mentioned that on my last day off, I stopped in at the mini-police station down on South Street and asked them what I should do about the bike that's been chained to the street sign in front of my house for two years. They told me I could definitely get rid of it; it has technically been abandoned. So I tried to be subtle and asked if I should just get a hacksaw and cut it off... trying to make it a little more clear that if it were as easy as just getting rid of it, some one would have done it long ago. So eventually one of the officers remembered he had something called a pipe cutter and that there was another abandoned bike chained in front of Whole Foods and that he would go out later and cut both of them off!
Of course, 5 days later, the bike is still in front of my house and I've now exhausted that resource. But at least we know we're not breaking any laws by getting rid of it, however and whenever that eventually happens.
I'll have to hope this posts because lately we've been losing our internet whenever it starts thundering, not even raining. It goes in and out -- so annoying. Sometimes I'm actually trying to do productive study-related things online! Sometimes.
Monday, June 11, 2007
My posting has been kind of slow because it's really coming down to crunch time. I should be finished studying on Friday and then I can review Saturday - Monday, try not to panic on Tuesday, and take the damn thing next Wednesday. I took a few days off from doing practice questions because they were depressing me so much, and I don't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
I studied out on the front steps today; I did the same thing on Saturday I guess. They keep threatening afternoon thunderstorms so we can't pack up and head out to study in the park, so it's an OK way to get some fresh air and some sunshine. Today was the first day that those afternoon storms actually came through, so I was glad that I was two feet from my front door.
One thing that I just couldn't get over -- it really smells strongly of homeless person outside. I didn't see a homeless person. After much pondering, my conclusion is that some one's apartment smells really really bad and they are leaving their windows open during the warm weather. I'm worried for this person. I makes sense to smell like a homeless person if you are homeless; it's sad, but it makes sense. If your home smells like a homeless person, you really don't have an excuse. Maybe their nose is broken. I should be able to come up with some disease that gives you that symptom, but I am drawing a blank.
I called up the Jury people today and found out that as a full time student, even living in Philly, I am exempt from jury duty :) Although I know how horrible it is supposed to be, some part of me is curious about what being on the jury would be like, and I think this coming fall when I'm working a simple 9-5 would be the most convenient time for me to serve until I'm retired. If I take the exemption until I graduate, they're just going to summon me again within six months of not being exempt anymore -- I'll be starting my internship and I'm pretty sure you don't have a lot of flexibility with what days you work then. So maybe I shouldn't take the exemption and just get it out of the way now so I'm in the clear for the next how ever many years?
Also, how could you resist this convincing blurb on the back of the summons?
That didn't appear to your sense of ethics? How about this?
No, I didn't believe that either. What about this part?
That just reminds me of all the things I could be doing if I didn't have jury duty.
So I'm not sure what to do. If I don't take the exemption and just postpone it until October, I am sure I will be kicking myself once October rolls around.
Unless my job really really sucks, and even jury duty sounds like a better way to spend a day. But let's cross our fingers that I'm not headed down that path.
I studied out on the front steps today; I did the same thing on Saturday I guess. They keep threatening afternoon thunderstorms so we can't pack up and head out to study in the park, so it's an OK way to get some fresh air and some sunshine. Today was the first day that those afternoon storms actually came through, so I was glad that I was two feet from my front door.
One thing that I just couldn't get over -- it really smells strongly of homeless person outside. I didn't see a homeless person. After much pondering, my conclusion is that some one's apartment smells really really bad and they are leaving their windows open during the warm weather. I'm worried for this person. I makes sense to smell like a homeless person if you are homeless; it's sad, but it makes sense. If your home smells like a homeless person, you really don't have an excuse. Maybe their nose is broken. I should be able to come up with some disease that gives you that symptom, but I am drawing a blank.
I called up the Jury people today and found out that as a full time student, even living in Philly, I am exempt from jury duty :) Although I know how horrible it is supposed to be, some part of me is curious about what being on the jury would be like, and I think this coming fall when I'm working a simple 9-5 would be the most convenient time for me to serve until I'm retired. If I take the exemption until I graduate, they're just going to summon me again within six months of not being exempt anymore -- I'll be starting my internship and I'm pretty sure you don't have a lot of flexibility with what days you work then. So maybe I shouldn't take the exemption and just get it out of the way now so I'm in the clear for the next how ever many years?
Also, how could you resist this convincing blurb on the back of the summons?
Now, you have the opportunity to experience our judicial system first hand. Jury service is an honor and a privilege, and ensures the fairness of our judicial system.
That didn't appear to your sense of ethics? How about this?
Our Criminal Justice Center jury assembly room has been designed for your comfort and convenience.
No, I didn't believe that either. What about this part?
REDISCOVER CENTER CITY! While in Center City, why not visit some of our nearby attractions? Take a tour of City Hall and its remarkable architecture. Visit Reading Terminal and sample fabulous foods. Stroll the Avenue of the Arts and see the new Kimmel Center and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Arts. Or shop 'til you drop at the Gallery at Market East and on Rittenhouse Row. Enjoy your City!
That just reminds me of all the things I could be doing if I didn't have jury duty.
So I'm not sure what to do. If I don't take the exemption and just postpone it until October, I am sure I will be kicking myself once October rolls around.
Unless my job really really sucks, and even jury duty sounds like a better way to spend a day. But let's cross our fingers that I'm not headed down that path.
Friday, June 8, 2007
I've realized that I've been complaining about studying a lot lately. I don't mind sharing annoying, silly, or ridiculous things from my studying, but every one knows studying sucks so I will try to stay away from that side of it -- it makes for boring reading, kind of like studying itself!
Yesterday I went for my first jog in quite a long time, and boy am I aching today! I thought I had sort of conditioned myself on our exercise bike, but I guess running is a whole different story. My quads!!! But having an achy muscle does open your eyes to all the times you use that muscle that you never would have thought of. Your quads are at the front of your thigh and straighten your leg by pulling on the front of your shin via your knee cap. But one of the things that hurts me the most today is sitting down into a chair -- gradually bending my knee. It's the gradual part that is the issue. Sitting down really shouldn't take any muscles -- if you just went limp, you could just fall into the chair. So your quads tense up as your start to sit down and then gradually relax so that the flexing of your knee is a controlled process. Every muscle's role is really dependent on which way gravity is pulling at that moment. OK, yeah, the fact that I think that this is cool is probably why I'm in med school.
Also, I realize that gravity technically always pulls down towards the ground.
I wanted to sleep in today (break day!) but amazingly I have apparently acheived a regular person's sleep schedule. I woke up at around 8:30am without an alarm! I made myself sleep in anyway and just slept lightly until a little after noon. I have the weirdest dreams when I do that. I had this really long one featuring House MD (we've been watching a lot of House during dinner lately -- it's funny and great to help you remember all those really obscure diseases that QBank loves to test on) that really came out like a really creepy nightmare even though I don't think I was particularly scared during the dream. I'll spare you my trying to describe it. I'm always in a daze for like a half hour when I wake up from a nightmare. I'm glad it happened today when I had the time to be dazed!
A new copy of Brides just arrived in the mail and this is the cover:
Doesn't that make you want a puppy in your wedding?
How about this cutie?
Well, the cutie on the left is already in the wedding, but what about the one on the right? That's Glen's mom's puppy, Griffey.
Sounds like a good idea unless you've ever actually met a puppy.
This is Griffey at one of his calmer moments, trying to eat my face:
With so many people with fingers to chew in the pews, he'd never make it down the aisle.
Yesterday I went for my first jog in quite a long time, and boy am I aching today! I thought I had sort of conditioned myself on our exercise bike, but I guess running is a whole different story. My quads!!! But having an achy muscle does open your eyes to all the times you use that muscle that you never would have thought of. Your quads are at the front of your thigh and straighten your leg by pulling on the front of your shin via your knee cap. But one of the things that hurts me the most today is sitting down into a chair -- gradually bending my knee. It's the gradual part that is the issue. Sitting down really shouldn't take any muscles -- if you just went limp, you could just fall into the chair. So your quads tense up as your start to sit down and then gradually relax so that the flexing of your knee is a controlled process. Every muscle's role is really dependent on which way gravity is pulling at that moment. OK, yeah, the fact that I think that this is cool is probably why I'm in med school.
Also, I realize that gravity technically always pulls down towards the ground.
I wanted to sleep in today (break day!) but amazingly I have apparently acheived a regular person's sleep schedule. I woke up at around 8:30am without an alarm! I made myself sleep in anyway and just slept lightly until a little after noon. I have the weirdest dreams when I do that. I had this really long one featuring House MD (we've been watching a lot of House during dinner lately -- it's funny and great to help you remember all those really obscure diseases that QBank loves to test on) that really came out like a really creepy nightmare even though I don't think I was particularly scared during the dream. I'll spare you my trying to describe it. I'm always in a daze for like a half hour when I wake up from a nightmare. I'm glad it happened today when I had the time to be dazed!
A new copy of Brides just arrived in the mail and this is the cover:
Doesn't that make you want a puppy in your wedding?
How about this cutie?
Well, the cutie on the left is already in the wedding, but what about the one on the right? That's Glen's mom's puppy, Griffey.Sounds like a good idea unless you've ever actually met a puppy.
This is Griffey at one of his calmer moments, trying to eat my face:
With so many people with fingers to chew in the pews, he'd never make it down the aisle.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
So tomorrow is actually another break day for me and Glen. I guess it hasn't quite hit me because I haven't been working really hard for the past couple of days, so I don't feel like I deserve a break. I probably could have used one on Tuesday when I kind of mentally crashed, but I'm sort of back on top of things now and the fact that we have tomorrow off feels like a surprise.
Separate from the studying aspect, I am really excited about it because Mindy takes her last final of first year tomorrow morning and that means tomorrow afternoon we will both actually be free to PAR-TAY. Also, it's supposed to be really really hot tomorrow and I think one day of sticky hot is fun because it makes it feel like summer.
Yesterday was two weeks until we take our test. I'm not panicked because I know I'm going to get through everything -- that's the benefit of the ridiculously detailed schedule I took two days to plan out before we began. But I am a little sick to my stomach over it because my practice test scores aren't making me happy. I spent a little while analyzing them with a spreadsheet (which does make me happy) and I can see that I have improved a little bit from the beginning... slightly higher scores, slightly more consistent, slightly closer to the Kaplan user average. But it's so subtle that it took fricking data analysis to show. Sigh.
So I'll end on something dumb just to try to balance out all of that whining. Yesterday I went to Starbucks down the street for a snack, and on the chalk board by the door they advertised a raspberry-citrus-caramel-mango-melon green tea... maybe I just added in one extra ingredient or so, but that was seriously the gist of it. So I can't resist trying new flavors, so I ordered one (and the girl put me down for a large even though I think I forgot to specify the size). She yells it back to the other girl who is like, "what??" She didn't know what this drink was that they were offering; apparently it wasn't an official Starbucks seasonal drink, just something that somebody thought up. So they have syrups not only for their coffee drinks, but I guess fruit flavors for these tea drinks. So she had to come out to the front and look at the chalk board, and then she went back and squirted random amounts of those random flavors into a cup and filled the rest with iced green tea. She was really apologetic and made me try it before I left saying she would make me something else if it had come out too weird (it was bright pink). But surprisingly, it was really good -- not too much of any one flavor and not too sweet (by my standards anyway). And as I drank it, a new flavor would stand out among the rest so it was interesting to drink too.
So in conclusion, my advice is to go to Starbucks and have them put a squirt of every single flavor they have into a cup with some iced tea and you will have come up with the new summer sensation.
Separate from the studying aspect, I am really excited about it because Mindy takes her last final of first year tomorrow morning and that means tomorrow afternoon we will both actually be free to PAR-TAY. Also, it's supposed to be really really hot tomorrow and I think one day of sticky hot is fun because it makes it feel like summer.
Yesterday was two weeks until we take our test. I'm not panicked because I know I'm going to get through everything -- that's the benefit of the ridiculously detailed schedule I took two days to plan out before we began. But I am a little sick to my stomach over it because my practice test scores aren't making me happy. I spent a little while analyzing them with a spreadsheet (which does make me happy) and I can see that I have improved a little bit from the beginning... slightly higher scores, slightly more consistent, slightly closer to the Kaplan user average. But it's so subtle that it took fricking data analysis to show. Sigh.
So I'll end on something dumb just to try to balance out all of that whining. Yesterday I went to Starbucks down the street for a snack, and on the chalk board by the door they advertised a raspberry-citrus-caramel-mango-melon green tea... maybe I just added in one extra ingredient or so, but that was seriously the gist of it. So I can't resist trying new flavors, so I ordered one (and the girl put me down for a large even though I think I forgot to specify the size). She yells it back to the other girl who is like, "what??" She didn't know what this drink was that they were offering; apparently it wasn't an official Starbucks seasonal drink, just something that somebody thought up. So they have syrups not only for their coffee drinks, but I guess fruit flavors for these tea drinks. So she had to come out to the front and look at the chalk board, and then she went back and squirted random amounts of those random flavors into a cup and filled the rest with iced green tea. She was really apologetic and made me try it before I left saying she would make me something else if it had come out too weird (it was bright pink). But surprisingly, it was really good -- not too much of any one flavor and not too sweet (by my standards anyway). And as I drank it, a new flavor would stand out among the rest so it was interesting to drink too.
So in conclusion, my advice is to go to Starbucks and have them put a squirt of every single flavor they have into a cup with some iced tea and you will have come up with the new summer sensation.
Saturday, June 2, 2007
AHHHH I didn't post for over 24 hours! it's been almost 29 hours! What happened? Am I alive???
I hope so, because it's too hot for Heaven.
I hadn't been sleeping well the previous few nights so last night I finally slept like a rock and hit the snooze button until the alarm stopped going off two hours later. So I've been playing catch up all day.
I did take a break and walk up to the Old Navy on Market Street... oh Market Street in the summertime, a sight to be seen! I finally got a few pairs of study pants that aren't quite pajamas so I can feel like I'm actually getting dressed in the morning. I really hate when they intersperse sale items with regularly priced items. I really thought these pants were $10.. or 25% off or something, because every thing around them was. I found out at the register that they weren't but I had already spent so much of my precious time picking them out of the post-Memorial-Day-Sale rubble and trying them on that I just paid the full price.
I also got some 0.3mm point rollerball pens at Staples! I'm so excited. I love superfine pens. And 4 different colors! I'm going to be taking the most microscopic notes ever!
My other complaint for the day is paperback books... especially thin ones. It's impossible to keep them open to the page you want. I know hardcover is expensive and spiral bound gets caught on everything but there must be another option... maybe this is where I can make my millions!
Cool find of the day: Loch Ness monster video.
On Reuters and on Discovery Channel
Everybody knows it's really a kelpie ;)
Oh and I had to turn off my google talk because it was way too distracting. If anyone is still making it to this blog I'll be surprised.
I hope so, because it's too hot for Heaven.
I hadn't been sleeping well the previous few nights so last night I finally slept like a rock and hit the snooze button until the alarm stopped going off two hours later. So I've been playing catch up all day.
I did take a break and walk up to the Old Navy on Market Street... oh Market Street in the summertime, a sight to be seen! I finally got a few pairs of study pants that aren't quite pajamas so I can feel like I'm actually getting dressed in the morning. I really hate when they intersperse sale items with regularly priced items. I really thought these pants were $10.. or 25% off or something, because every thing around them was. I found out at the register that they weren't but I had already spent so much of my precious time picking them out of the post-Memorial-Day-Sale rubble and trying them on that I just paid the full price.
I also got some 0.3mm point rollerball pens at Staples! I'm so excited. I love superfine pens. And 4 different colors! I'm going to be taking the most microscopic notes ever!
My other complaint for the day is paperback books... especially thin ones. It's impossible to keep them open to the page you want. I know hardcover is expensive and spiral bound gets caught on everything but there must be another option... maybe this is where I can make my millions!
Cool find of the day: Loch Ness monster video.
On Reuters and on Discovery Channel
Everybody knows it's really a kelpie ;)
Oh and I had to turn off my google talk because it was way too distracting. If anyone is still making it to this blog I'll be surprised.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
I had totally forgotten it's Memorial Day Weekend. That explains why there were so many tourists in Washington Square yesterday, and paying especially close attention to the tomb of the unknown soldier. And why our upstairs neighbors have all been gone for a couple of days. And why my doctor is on vacation. I guess that means that all of that mailing I was going to do tomorrow isn't going to happen... (what a difference a day makes... [if not our first dance song, I want it played some time at our wedding]).
Nesting parentheses -- more evidence that my mother is a math teacher. Last week I had to explain that to Selene after I repeatedly used 'X' to stand for an unknown/variable in a hypothetical situation I was talking about. And yesterday in the park I read that 10% of African Americans have the X-linked disorder Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency, so I spent fifteen minutes seeing if I could calculate the carrier rate among women (28%!).
We're headed back to the park, and I'm glad we bought these plastic lined picnic blankets at CVS because I'm sure the ground is soaked from last night's storm. Maybe we'll have the park to ourselves :) It's supposed to rain again today, earlier this time, so I hope we make it home without getting (our books) drenched. I dry off well, my review books not so much. I think the reason that Pathology is so much harder than I expected is because what we called Path in our FCM class was just strictly what a pathologist does -- looks at biopsies, slides, whole organs and makes a diagnosis. In boards studying, pathology means disease, anything that can go wrong with the body. It's all of FCM, all 5 months, that we're supposed to review in 4 days. I think I was just in gear to be looking at pictures and describing cellular changes, not learning all of the meat of the boards. It's gonna be OK, especially when we take a break on Tuesday and then I study Behavioral Science next week :-D
Lastly, woohoo Blue Jays! Hopkins crushed Delaware in the semi-finals in front of a record crowd of 52,000 at Baltimore's own M&T stadium yesterday and now they'll play Duke in the Lacrosse championship game tomorrow. It should be a really good game -- ESPN, 1pm... I wish we could watch!
Nesting parentheses -- more evidence that my mother is a math teacher. Last week I had to explain that to Selene after I repeatedly used 'X' to stand for an unknown/variable in a hypothetical situation I was talking about. And yesterday in the park I read that 10% of African Americans have the X-linked disorder Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency, so I spent fifteen minutes seeing if I could calculate the carrier rate among women (28%!).
We're headed back to the park, and I'm glad we bought these plastic lined picnic blankets at CVS because I'm sure the ground is soaked from last night's storm. Maybe we'll have the park to ourselves :) It's supposed to rain again today, earlier this time, so I hope we make it home without getting (our books) drenched. I dry off well, my review books not so much. I think the reason that Pathology is so much harder than I expected is because what we called Path in our FCM class was just strictly what a pathologist does -- looks at biopsies, slides, whole organs and makes a diagnosis. In boards studying, pathology means disease, anything that can go wrong with the body. It's all of FCM, all 5 months, that we're supposed to review in 4 days. I think I was just in gear to be looking at pictures and describing cellular changes, not learning all of the meat of the boards. It's gonna be OK, especially when we take a break on Tuesday and then I study Behavioral Science next week :-D
Lastly, woohoo Blue Jays! Hopkins crushed Delaware in the semi-finals in front of a record crowd of 52,000 at Baltimore's own M&T stadium yesterday and now they'll play Duke in the Lacrosse championship game tomorrow. It should be a really good game -- ESPN, 1pm... I wish we could watch!
Thursday, May 24, 2007
I didn't write much today because yesterday's pharmacology cards debacle kind of put me into panic mode and made me actually productive. We went and studied in Washington Square this afternoon, so I was also physically away from my computer, which is always helpful.
It was so good to be outside. The puppies, squirrels, and kids are amusing. We also got to see how different boys and girls are -- these two boys, maybe 4 and 5 were playing around a tree and in the process they accidentally (I believe) broke off the lowest branch, which was still much bigger than either of them. They kept saying, "wow!! did you see that?!" Their moms were sitting on a bench and couldn't see them, but then even when the boys brought the huge branch over, it didn't seem like the moms were too upset. The boys came back with the branch and were trying to figure out how they could break another one off so they could both have one. Finally two old ladies walked by with their little dogs and scolded the two boys and told them they shouldn't break the trees. So they stopped trying, but kept playing with their branch.
Then like a half hour later, a little 4-year-old girl came and saw the broken branch. She wanted to find the tree that it broke off of, and then had her dad try to stick it back on! When that didn't work, she brought it over to the fountain in the center of Washington Square and stood it up in there, I guess to help it grow? I don't know, it was really cute. Only when her dad told her that wasn't going to work either did she start to play with the branch a little bit.
All this time, a new little boy was watching. Just like the boys before, he started talking about breaking a branch off so he would have one too!
....Obviously, I wasn't studying the whole time we were there.
To give you a taste of what Lost geeks Glen and I really are, during lunch we listened to the producers' podcast about the last two episodes. A few months back, a taxi cab drove by us and we thought we heard the smoke monster from Lost. It was the noise of the cab printing out its receipt. After a few more episodes and a few more cabs, we were convinced that it was the same noise. But, everytime we told someone this in a conversation about Lost (that the noise the smoke monster makes is the sound of a taxi printing a receipt) it sounded like the dumbest idea ever. On this podcast, however, the producers read a fan question making the same claim and they confirmed that yes, they did actually get in a taxi cab and record that exact noise to be the sound of the monster!!!!!!! We were so proud of ourselves.
No, we did not submit the fan question. We're not that bad.
(But now I so wish I had!!!)
Finally, we just made reservations to go to Florida!!! I'm so excited. We're both taking our boards June 20th, so that on June 21st, one year before our wedding we can relax and be happy. And, I want to walk around Old City and see where the best photo ops will be around that time of the year to decide where to take our formal portraits and all that fun stuff. Then the next morning we'll be on a plane!! We're going back to the same hotel and beach where we got engaged in August :-) I feel a little silly going back to the same place when there are so many places I want to travel to, but this vacation is all about total relaxation, and not only is Sanibel perfect for that, but it will be nice to be comfortable and already know our way around. We're staying 5 nights and will be back on the 27th. YAY.
Oh, and USA3000.com is amazing! $74 for the flight down and $59 for the flight back. awesome.
Time to do some path even though it's gotten so late already.
It was so good to be outside. The puppies, squirrels, and kids are amusing. We also got to see how different boys and girls are -- these two boys, maybe 4 and 5 were playing around a tree and in the process they accidentally (I believe) broke off the lowest branch, which was still much bigger than either of them. They kept saying, "wow!! did you see that?!" Their moms were sitting on a bench and couldn't see them, but then even when the boys brought the huge branch over, it didn't seem like the moms were too upset. The boys came back with the branch and were trying to figure out how they could break another one off so they could both have one. Finally two old ladies walked by with their little dogs and scolded the two boys and told them they shouldn't break the trees. So they stopped trying, but kept playing with their branch.
Then like a half hour later, a little 4-year-old girl came and saw the broken branch. She wanted to find the tree that it broke off of, and then had her dad try to stick it back on! When that didn't work, she brought it over to the fountain in the center of Washington Square and stood it up in there, I guess to help it grow? I don't know, it was really cute. Only when her dad told her that wasn't going to work either did she start to play with the branch a little bit.
All this time, a new little boy was watching. Just like the boys before, he started talking about breaking a branch off so he would have one too!
....Obviously, I wasn't studying the whole time we were there.
To give you a taste of what Lost geeks Glen and I really are, during lunch we listened to the producers' podcast about the last two episodes. A few months back, a taxi cab drove by us and we thought we heard the smoke monster from Lost. It was the noise of the cab printing out its receipt. After a few more episodes and a few more cabs, we were convinced that it was the same noise. But, everytime we told someone this in a conversation about Lost (that the noise the smoke monster makes is the sound of a taxi printing a receipt) it sounded like the dumbest idea ever. On this podcast, however, the producers read a fan question making the same claim and they confirmed that yes, they did actually get in a taxi cab and record that exact noise to be the sound of the monster!!!!!!! We were so proud of ourselves.
No, we did not submit the fan question. We're not that bad.
(But now I so wish I had!!!)
Finally, we just made reservations to go to Florida!!! I'm so excited. We're both taking our boards June 20th, so that on June 21st, one year before our wedding we can relax and be happy. And, I want to walk around Old City and see where the best photo ops will be around that time of the year to decide where to take our formal portraits and all that fun stuff. Then the next morning we'll be on a plane!! We're going back to the same hotel and beach where we got engaged in August :-) I feel a little silly going back to the same place when there are so many places I want to travel to, but this vacation is all about total relaxation, and not only is Sanibel perfect for that, but it will be nice to be comfortable and already know our way around. We're staying 5 nights and will be back on the 27th. YAY.
Oh, and USA3000.com is amazing! $74 for the flight down and $59 for the flight back. awesome.
Time to do some path even though it's gotten so late already.
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