GI Studying Fun Times

The past week has been utterly un-eventful. I went to class and went to the library and studied for my GI final. Then come the weekend I did nothing but study all day long. Then Monday and studied, took a break to go to the airport to finish my Global Entry application process (TSA Precheck and special customs lanes for the next 5 years woot!), and then went to the library and studied even more! This morning I woke and and guess what! I studied! I have finished going through all the lectures now and just need to go over the notes I took during my first pass studying and then I'll hopefully take the test sometime before 5pm. I then get to study for the pathology test. Isn't life just so exciting?! Only 4 more weeks of M2 year before Step 1 study period. Terrifying.

Flu

This last week hasn't been the best, as I'm sure you gathered by reading the title of this post. I went to practice on Monday night and felt a little weaker than usual, which I just read off as being tired from having two tournaments on two consecutive weekends. Tuesday we didn't have pool time and by Wednesday night I felt terrible. I ended up spiking a fever up to 103.4º which really sucked. Fevers always give me bizarre dreams and I just remember thinking about ski jumping literally all night which kept me half awake and really out of it most of the night. On Thursday I saw the doctor and she said that she thought I had the flu. Luckily I got a flu shot and its not too severe for me because of that. Just a really bad headache, fatigue, some sore throat, and a fever. It's getting better now which is good, but I had to miss my tournament at Purdue this weekend. At least the games are streamed live online so I get to watch my team play. They won both games today against Indiana and Ohio State! Go Blue!

If you hadn't noticed based on my bizarre fever thoughts, I am also majorly obsessed with the Olympics happening over in Sochi right now. The Olympics plus class is never a good combination. I just wish they happened at the end of January when I had a lot more free time. So needless to say between being sick and watching some Olympic coverage I am more behind than I would prefer to be going into this last week of the GI sequence. Hopefully this week gets everything back on track!

Way too busy!

Life has been insanely busy recently. Lots of class, freezing cold temperatures (actually WAY below freezing getting down to -30 with the windchill), water polo, etc. I took a big exam of physical exam and patient encounter skills on Friday and had my first water polo tournament of the season this weekend. We won all our games which was great, but I was so exhausted that I forgot I was meant to shadow this morning, ugh. Oh well. I have to finish my open book written exam and have one more low key chill day before starting up with the GI sequence. Only three sequences left of M2 year! I can't even believe it.

Done with MSK!! Woo Hoo!

I have officially finished the musculoskeletal and rheumatology sequence, yay!! Tomorrow it's off to Toronto for the weekend to hang out with Taylor and have some Canadian fun times! I love that driving to Toronto is possible. Just four more days of class until this semester is finished! I can't believe M2 year is halfway over, eek!

It's been a while!

The past couple weeks have been kind of crazy. I eventually finished my neuro exam and passed the class, yay!! I also cooked a full Thanksgiving dinner for my family which turned out pretty great! The Ohio State-Michigan game was very exciting and came down to the very end when we went for two and didn't get it. Was a very sad ending, but Michigan fought very hard!

After a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with my family I started the musculoskeletal/rheumatology sequence. I just took my quiz and the pathology final over the weekend and now we are into week two of the sequence, which is the final week! I'm going to Toronto this weekend, and I am very excited about that, and then just a week of dermatology before winter break! I am so excited to have a few weeks to spend in California, and I will be starting my proactive Zyrtec tonight so I don't get sick, woo!

This past weekend was also Tag Day, which is an annual fundraiser one of the student groups I am in does to raise money for Mott Childrens Hospital and various other children's charities and organizations in Washtenaw County. I had to solicit money on the street for many hours (11 in total actually), but it was mostly fun. Some people were very generous and some were rude, but at least I was with my classmates.

This post was hectic and unorganized, sorry!

A lovely singing quartet that donated to us and then serenaded us

Tagging with Bella and Allen during Midnight Madness

We met a synchronized skater on the street who want to apply to Michigan

Chuggin Along on the Neuro Train

Nothing much new here. I had a sleep study on Thursday night, and let me tell you, sleeping with a nose down my nose and throat was one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life. I didn't get very much sleep at all so we will have to wait and see what the study even saw (I'm really expecting mostly normal). Besides that I got my new car, woo!! I am in love with it. I also officially sold my sister's car, which ended up being quite dramatic as Molly neglected to notice that BOTH of her front tires were almost completely flat. I'm talking rims barely off the ground had to call AAA to get some air just to get the the gas station to pump them up flat. It was ridiculous. The sale ended up taking two and a half hours, but the family was really nice! I enjoyed hanging out with them for the afternoon at least and we sure had a LOT of time to bond.

It was also Big Game weekend, which went incredibly wonderful for me (sorry to all the Bear fans in the family). We won Big Splash and crushed it in Big Game, setting records for the most points scored by a team in the rivalry (63) and for the biggest margin of victory in Big Game (50). Arizona also joined the party by defeating Oregon and putting Stanford into the Pac-12 Championship game in two weeks. Basically all was good on Saturday (beside my study habits!).

Speaking of studying, it's my Neuro final weekend (which goes until Wednesday). I'm chugging along trying to shove all of the information into my brain in order to take my exam. I am hoping to take it tomorrow, though I am not going to push it if I am not ready. I also went to the dentist today (yay clean teeth) and picked up the Thanksgiving turkey! I studied by the fireplace in the Ann Arbor Public Library afterwards and it quickly became my new favorite study location. I think I will be headed there a lot more often from now on. It also snowed a lot this weekend. So much fun. It was 18 degrees of awesome. Winter is really really here now. At least the weather of The Game (Ohio State-Michigan) on Saturday is "milder." Its high of 37º and low of 30º. Could be worse!!

Back to studying. Ive been rambling too long :)

Sleep study-ing

Go Stanford!

Lots of snow

White everywhere

Studying at the public library

Another week of Neuro in the books!

This weekend we had our second neuroscience quiz, which explains my utter lack of posting. I am so much busier this year than I was last year and it feels so crazy! The work load doesn't feel and less manageable, but for some reason the time just slips away. I think it may be because I am in class more. Today was a crazy 8 hours of lecture! That's way too long to be sitting in one place and listening to people talk about confusing things. We finished up with the nervous system and neuromuscular junction and muscle disorders and then moved onto the ear. Boy oh boy is the ear a complicated and confusing organ. Every day I am more amazed by how often everything goes according to plan in the human body (and in the body of all organisms on Earth really). It's crazy stuff! This week we are finishing up the ear and learning about the eye and vision and then it's time for the neuroscience and special senses final exam on all 1,106 pages of our syllabus. Sounds like fun times, doesn't it!

And Ann, I will send you that recipe soon. I haven't had a chance to scan it yet, but I'm going to try to remember this week!!

Best Brussels Sprouts!

So last night I made another meal from Plated. Monkfish with mashed potatoes and brussels sprouts with pancetta and hazelnuts. I must day the brussels sprouts were the best I have ever eaten and they were so easy! I will definitely be making them again! Thats all really. Still in neuro, did a TweetChat for admission tonight. Nothing else is really all that new or exciting. Just renewing my love of cooking plate by plate!

First Snow

November 11, 2013. That is the date of the first snow in Ann Arbor for the 2013-2014 winter season. Boy, did winter start earlier this year! There was snow in the forecast but no one actually thought it would snow, which made everything quite a surprise. I saw a few flakes falling amongst the raindrops just around sundown and thought that must be the snow they were talking about. A few hours later, however, I looked outside to find all the plants on the ground dusted in white and all the cars were essentially coated in snow. Molly's car even saw the snow for the first time! I guess we are in for a long winter out here. Maybe I should finally go downstairs and get all of my warmest clothes out of the storage unit so I have a nice warm jacket to wear when I have to walk outside! The snow is pretty much all gone now, leaving only a few patches behind to remind us all that winter has come. I am now extra ready for Christmas as I see the 70+ degree weather in California.

On a different note we are now in the Neuroscience sequence and have a 1,106 page course pack for three weeks of material. It is crazy! The first quiz went well though and the subject matter is mostly interesting, so it is one of the more enjoyable sequences thus far I must say. Our final is right before Thanksgiving so I get some time off for the holidays without any studying to do at all, yay! I also signed up for a weekly food delivery thing called Plated. Basically you order a few meals from the menu each week and they deliver you all of the fresh ingredients. You then follow the recipe and cook the delicious meal and its wonderful! Such a nice way to get some new ideas and have a few new things to eat. I'm going to have to use it sparingly because it's expensive, but boy is it delicious! I just got my second box today to try out some new yummy recipes! Woo hoo! It has also encouraged me to make some other new and creative dishes which is nice. I used some leftovers to create a delicious stuffed baked tomato the other night, and I also made some amazing sundried tomato and goat cheese stuff chicken roulades wrapped in prosciutto! Yay for eating delicious foods!

Another beautiful afternoon in the Big House vs. Nebraska… we lost :(

My chicken roulades (copied from MasterChef Junior)

My first meal from Plated: Polenta pizza crust with ricotta, brussel sprouts, and cremini mushrooms

Another Plated meal: Steak with homemade pilaf and Swiss chard

Molly's car dusted with snow

Snow this morning on my walk to class

Peds Pulmonary Clinic

Yesterday I "shadowed" in the pediatric pulmonary clinic at the children's hospital. I thought I would just be shadowing, but I ended up going to get the patient histories by myself before presenting it to the attending physician. It was actually a much better experience that I anticipated and I felt way more comfortable doing clinical work by the end of the afternoon. I even caught a physical exam before on one of the children finding the doctor listened to the patient! The parents of all the kids were also great and I had no problems yay. I love kids!