Weekend

This weekend was pretty great. I didn't have to do much of anything school related so I just had a good time. I watched some football and a lot of the Ryder Cup (I still can't believe the US lost today after being up by so much!). The 49ers wow, yay, so not all of my teams lost this weekend. Cal, Stanford, and the Raiders were not so fortunate. For the second weekend in a row my teams are 1 and 3 with one team being on a bye (Michigan didn't play this week and Stanford didn't play last weekend). I hoping that next weekend holds a better record.

Last night I went to a pizza party at one of my friend's places and we had a great time. I also went to a birthday party for two of my classmates, which was also quite fun. Today I made brunch with my Sunday brunch group and relaxed for the evening. I also had to write an essay that is due tomorrow but I finished that so woo hoo! Tomorrow starts our first Clinical Foundations of Medicine week, so we have a lot of doctoring type courses and field trips to different types of clinics. Should be great, especially since there is no outside studying involved! Only downside is the 8am start, boo. Ok off to bed! Night!

Our awesome homemade brunch. I made the fruit salad.

Cute bunny I saw on my walk home last night

Close up of the bunny. He was so small! Like the size of two fists :)

Bye bye Cells and Tissues

So I took my final exam for the Cells and Tissues sequence last night and I passed! It's so nice to have the exam done so early and to have the weekend to actually enjoy myself instead of worrying. I also took the anatomy practical exam today and also passed that woo! Basically I now have a totally studying free weekend. Next week is a CFM week (clinical foundations of medicine) so we don't have any homework and it's an open book quiz so I wont have to study next week either yay! Oh the joys of a little downtime. Tonight I'm going out to dinner with a few of my classmates who also finished early and we are celebrating being done with the sequence most frequently voted least favorite sequence (it really wasn't that bad though at all, it's just much more biochem heavy!). I know I had something else I wanted to blog about yesterday, but I forgot in the midst of clearing my brain so oh well. I booked my tickets home to CA for Thanksgiving and Christmas/New Years, so that's fun. Hope everyone is doing well!

Winners!

I didn't have a chance to post last night, but both my kickball and soccer teams were victorious last night! This was all, of course, immediately following an M1 outing to a Chinese buffet where we ate to our hearts content (and then a little bit more). There was even an eating contest where people weighed themselves before and after dinner. The male winner gained 8 dinner pounds and the female winner gained 5.5 dinner pounds. I wish I had participates because I think I could have done well haha.

So last night was generally really fun and then I got to come home and plop myself down and watch the new New Girl that premiered last night. This morning I was still struggling to get up like I have been for the last two weeks, so I let myself lay in bed a bit longer and had a streaming in my pajamas day. Luckily today's lecture talks kind of slow, so I watched all of the lectures at double speed and was able to learn all the material quickly. In a little less than an hour I am meeting up with my MedFamily at Dominick's and then a little studying before water polo practice tonight. I can't wait until these finals are done so I can sleep in and relax for a few days!

All the M1s who went to the Chinese buffet

Getting back in shape

My second polo practice felt infinitely better than my first did last week! I think I'm getting back into swimming shape quicker than I thought was possible after my arms literally were giving out last Wednesday during the swim set.

In other news I'm in my last week of the Cells and Tissues sequence so my final is this weekend. I also went to the suturing workshop put on by the emergency medicine interest group tonight where were learned how to suture using bananas. Fun times. I also squeezed in a 20 minute power nap today which was awesome. Tomorrow is IM kickball and soccer and I desperately need to get to the grocery store. Night!

Fun weekend times!

Today was a pretty awesome day. I slept in and went to my friends place for a group brunch, went to another friend's place to watch some football, and then played some sand volleyball. Basically I was gone all day, but I had such a great time. I have the best classmates ever pretty much! Tomorrow begins the last week of our Cells and Tissues sequence so we are almost done with all this biochem stuff (for now at least). Just rented to Katy Perry movie now and Im going to watch it while I relax and do a little cleaning before bed time! 

Hello Weekend!

It took a bit longer than usual this week, but the quiz is finally complete. I got a 100% and then My Maria by Brooks and Dunn came on the radio as soon as I got back in the car, so I would say it was a pretty great stretch of around 10 minutes. Now I can finally enjoy the rest of my weekend with football and food and relaxation! Yay.

Rain

The baseball game ended up being rained out, so we sat for a few hours at the stadium and then went home once we decided they probably weren't going to start playing. I think we can go back Sunday for a make up game. Chelsea, Matt and I went to Starbucks on the way home for some Carmel Apple Spice and then went home and now I'm watching Top Model before I go to bed. Night all!

Tours, Radiology, and Baseball

Today we had 40 more applicants interviewing here! It's always fun to see everyone who's interviewing and to talk to people. This afternoon I was one of the tour guides from them as well, so hopefully the people in my group enjoyed us and our awesome tour! We also had a radiology lecture this morning and the lecturer was quite amazing. She was funny and enjoyable to listen to and I actually had a great time! Tonight a bunch of M1s are going to the Detroit Tigers baseball game so that should be fun! Thats all :)

It's Wednesday :)

First of all a big giant HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my super super awesome grandma! Love you tons and hope you had the best birthday yet!

So, today was yet another long day. It seems there's really no shortage of those these days. Had lecture in the morning and histology in the afternoon. Learned some things about the cell cycle and nervous tissue.

We also had a memorial service for the families of those who have donated their bodies to the anatomical donations program for our anatomy course and other medical research. It was quite a nice event. A bunch of students spoke, played music, and the student acapella group sang. there was a little reception after with some food too.

After the memorial service I went home and had a quick dinner and then went to water polo practice. After two years out of the pool I severely regret not staying in swimming shape because I pretty much died today. It was still fun and I think it will be good for me. Apparently there was a med student who played with the team for years who graduated in the last year or so, so being on the team is definitely possible. Oh and there's nothing like dying in the pool with a bunch of speedy 18 years olds to make me feel old (I know I'm not but my body thought otherwise tonight). So now it's time to relax and then go to bed! Night!

IM Sports

Tonight was the first IM kickball game and the first IM soccer game, so man I am TIRED! I should have taken my inhaler before the soccer game, but I didn't even think about it. Running is so much easier though when you are doing it for a purpose and not just running to run! We won our kickball game by default because the other team didn't have enough girls (has to be 50/50 in the coed league), but we still scrimmaged anyways, and we lost our soccer game, but it was still pretty fun. Hopefully I will sleep really well tonight after getting some exercise for the first time in a long time. Tomorrow I'm going to a club water polo workout (mostly swimming though right now) so I'll be back in the water which will be weird. I'm so out of shape in the water it's not even funny. At least thats how I felt at the one NYAC practice I went to in July. This post is pretty boring, but I'm officially pooped! Night!

Very busy week!

This past week has been crazy busy and I spent most of my free time feeling utterly exhausted! We had our second anatomy dissection, our first histology lab, a bunch of evening activities and stuff like that. Basically I didn't have a ton of free time and when I did I just wanted to sit around and not move!

Yesterday was also a long day, but a fun one! Our class had a tailgate on the golf course for the game and the. We watches a dominant Michigan win over UMass. I walked the hour home with a bunch of people and stopped for some ice cream along the way.

I got home just as the Stanford USC game was starting and got to watch the first half before I had to head out to a BBQ someone in our class was hosting. The first half was indexing stressful and my heart rate got really high from jumping up and down when things went well for Stanford.

We were down by 7 at the half but I had to leave for the BBQ and game tracked the rest of the game on the espn mobile app while my mom sent a play by play. Anyways, jumping to the end Stanford won and it was so so so exciting! 4-0 vs USC in the last four years is awesome! Such a long way since I was in college and Stanford struggled against everyone (except my senior year when we beat USC the last time they were ranked #2). Anyways, it was a good day and I was happy.

Today I'm watching football and relaxing. Went to Kroger and got random stuff and going to play IM sand volleyball later. I could use a few more days of sleeping! Lions-Niners play tonight and I think I'm rooting against everyone here. Go Niners!!

(UPDATE) The Niners WON!!! Woo!

The band during the pregame show

Denard (#16) getting ready to make a play

Anastasia and me at the game

Block M written in the sky. You can even see the plane that wrote it!

Just another Monday

Nothing of much note really happened today. I had lecture on enzymes and the cytoskeleton from 10am-3pm with an hour break for lunch and then had a meeting until about 4:30 where we had a really good speaker on public speaking. I met a fourth year who is from CA and went to Stanford and took four years off which was crazy because we basically took the exact same path here. I finally got home and did a little work before making one of my Sicilian pasta dishes (yes Christine, I dug up your email from 2006! Still have all three!) and brought it to a potluck for my friends birthday which was really on August 20th. We had a great time with a big group of classmates and now it's time to finishing preparing for Anatomy lab tomorrow.  

The Big House

Today was my first game inside Michigan Stadium aka the Big House and it was awesome. My friend and I didn't feel like figuring out where our friends were tailgating so we found a random group and joined in. The stadium itself was awesome, though I can't say I love standing for the whole game. It doesn't feel that much bigger than Memorial Stadium at Cal, but it clearly is because today's attendance was 112,522!!

After the game I went out to dinner with a group of med students and it was delicious. I'm still hungry now but I brushed my teeth so I'm not eating. Today was pretty fun but exhausting so I am in bed watching the UCLA Nebraska game. I also quizzed this am and passed again woo! Tomorrow were having med school girls brunch and girls night so should be fun!

The field at the Big House

The student section and huge media score boards

Bloody fat

Today was a really long day. We had small group for two hours, a lecture, a lunch talk, and four hours of anatomy. Anatomy this time around is a lot less difficult to deal with because I already got the emotional things out five years ago. Everything went okay with the first dissection (superficial back today) do that was great. One of the professors was helping us with something and he flug a huge chunk of bloody back fat onto my LIP! Eww that was so gross. I handled it extremely well though and didn't freak out at all, yay me! Anyways, after that I was pretty ready to be done with lab for the day to say the least. My lab group is awesome though and now I have a good story. After lab there was an info session for the student fun free clinic, and now I am finally home. I'm hosting an applicant for our first interview day tomorrow and I'm pretty excited for that, and even more excited for the weekend!

Cells and Tissues

Today we started our second sequence, which is Cells and Tissues. From what I gather its a bunch of biochem, but I dont really know what's for sure on the agenda since I haven't tried to look that hard yet. We also had our intro to anatomy and we got to meet (I guess for lack of a better word) our cadaver. It is a lot easier the second time around to be around a cadaver, but still very strange to think about the life that the cadaver once had. I don't want to write a ton about it out of respect for our cadaver and the family who were gracious enough to make the donation that will allow us the learn about the human body and give us a basis for our future medical knowledge. I guess throughout anatomy I will try to keep it to my feelings rather than the specific findings.

Anyways, after class I ran home for less than an hour to meet with the closet people for a third time and everything in the closets are finally done. The basket is now at the bottom and all rungs are useful. I had to go back to school to meet with a portion of my small group for class on Thursday and then had two student group meetings. One was an orientation for volunteering at the Delonis Clinic (a homeless shelter clinic in Ann Arbor) and the other was for an amazing organization called Galen's. The meetings were great and I learned my first actual clinical skill, taking a blood pressure (even though I learned that in Brownie's in elementary school I haven't done it for real in a crazy long time, but i got to finally use my stethoscope my parents got me). Galen's was a fun and funny meeting and I think it's going to be fun to be a part of the group. I got home well after 9pm and gave myself a little relaxing time before attempting to get some work in, not that I have been super successful with that. That's about it for today!

Fun weekend up north

I finished out this lovely labor day weekend in northern Michigan with a bunch of classmates. We drove probably around 600 miles total which was a lot, but we had great weather and went on some awesome hikes. The sand dune hike was super hard, and it's never happening again haha. Anyways, I'm home now and getting ready to start a new sequence tomorrow morning. I need a few days to recover from the weekend!!

End of the Dunes Hike

Sun over Lake Michigan

The group I drove up with and hiked the dunes with

View of some of the dunes.