Tales of a Brown-Haired Freak

Wow! Didn't I just get here? It's strange to be heading home already, but good - I miss my cat. So here's the lowdown on first term:

On studying: Definitely not necessary to study 24/7, even around midterms, and I'm glad I didn't. I found 3-5 hours a day to be more than enough, and I'm happy I managed to get out of True Blue and see some more of the island every once in awhile. As a 6th termer said to me yesterday, "I don't look back and regret missing a day of studying to go out and have fun, even in the classes I didn't do as well in. I do regret not getting out more." Luckily, I can remedy this part next term.

On classes: they were about what I expected. Nothing too terribly interesting, and a lot of rote memorization. I definitely won't miss the days of 4 hours anatomy lab followed by 4 hours of anatomy classes. I'm looking forward to having a nicer schedule next term - classes right after lunch suck! Nothing was any harder than in undergrad, they just moved faster. But to incoming students - don't worry. You'll do fine.

On the people: the usual mix of students. There's dumb people, smart people, the lazy, the partyers, and the rest. Don't expect that people here will be any smarter, or more determined, or more interesting or adult or more anything than at home. If anything, people ere are more generic and boring than those I left behind, but that might just be me. There's a lot of people that I can't imagine will ever be successful doctors, and it frightens me that they might be. There's people here that are so bright I have no idea what they're doing here in the first place. And there's a lot of in-between.

On doctor stuff: well, I learned phlebotamy (badly). And how to test cranial nerve and eye muscle function. I now own a completely useless long white coat. I got to play with my stethoscope, and I can name all of your body parts. Other than that, I'm not really any more doctory yet. Sorry!

On Grenada stuff: Rum? check. Oil down? Check. Hash run? Check. (the last two last night!) diving? check check check. La Sagesse? Check. Rum factory? tomorrow. Other stuff? Turtle watching, seeing other islands, monkey walks, waterfall hikes, carnivale, all next term, with luck.

On the island: Still liking it, not too jaded yet. Getting a bit rock-crazy now, but that's just knowing I get to go home in a few days. there are people here who quite literally never left true blue - their parents shipped them all of their food, and they were afraid to get on the bus (or so I assume). I pity them, and hope they realize that there's more to this place than campus next term.

Other stuff? I really really miss beef, japanese food, and good chinese. Today is a beach day. Bye Bye first term!

It's days like this that make me wish I was stupid/dishonest enough to fake ADHD. Some Ritalin would really have helped.

Slept in, but not too late. Went to study. An hour later, falling asleep. Coffee!

An hour later, falling alseep/bored. Energy drink!

An hour later, still sleepy, plus distracted. 45 min nap time.

Wake up. Try studying. 1 hour - distracted. M&M's will help!

An hour later, can't concentrate. Walk around campus. Go back to studying.

Now - hungry - make grilled cheese sandwich. Write LJ post. Debate trying to score some Ritalin.

I keep waiting for the "Ack! Finals!" switch to go off in my brain (you know, the one that enables you to study for 14 hours straight and then wonder where the day went), but it hasn't happened yet. Either I'm burnt out, or I've over-studied to the point where even the stuff I don't know is boring me. But I'm doing better on practice Q's now than I was before midterms, so maybe I should just go with it and not worry?

I think the security guard at the library is messing with me. Several times over the week now, even. Here's the story:

me: Walking up to the door, flashing my ID to prove that I'm not some chick off the street, sneaking in for some illicit journal-reading. No really, I am a legitimate student here. You can tell by the surgery-club t-shirt and dazed look on my face.

him: "something long, convoluted, and heavy in slang" (polite voice)

me: pause, look around (no one else nearby). "Pardon?" (or "sorry?" "Excuse me" or occasionally and most clever: "what?") Confused look on face.

him: "no no, go ahead." Says something to other security guard.

me: walking into library, trying to sort out what he said. Fail. Continue with day.

I'm confused but not really particularly perturbed. Mostly just curious. Is this some sort of weird Grenadian hazing-ritual for 1st termers?

After being trapped in yet another SGA meeting (this one only first term reps) where I was forced to endure *2 hours* of people complaining that "med school is too hard," (what did you think it was going to be like?) and that "Dr. X was mean to me" (that's because you're a dumbass), I decided to sit down and write out a list of pros and cons for staying on SGA. Here's what I discovered:

Cons
-long, pointless meetings taking up my study time
-having to deal with close-minded idiots who were raised to believe that they're "special," actually believe it, and consequently have a greater-than-usual sense of their own entitlement.
-Having to deal with the kind of people that complain about a mildly-sexist joke in class, "Not because I'm offended, but because I'm worried that other people might be." (have you ever noticed that PC is just another extreme form of close-mindedness?)
-having to pretend I actually believe that the decision over whether or not to approve a new club is worth a half-hour debate
-being forced to doubt my own sanity when somebody cries during their presidential-campaign speech and, instead of scoffing and walking away, people are actually moved ("SGA is more than just a club to me...you're my family...I've laughed with you, cried with you...").
-being so pissed off with the bullshit that surrounds SGA that I have to go to the store and buy pop tarts to make myself feel better...and they don't. (I don't even like pop tarts--I just get the urge to buy them whenever I see them. I think it's the sprinkles)

Pros
-occasional free stuff
-the chance (slim) that I might actually do something worthwhile if I stick around long enough
-CV padding

Can you think of anything I may have missed? I had thought that being an alternate next term would save me from a lot of the nonsense, but now I'm thinking it's just not worth it. There's a good chance that my head just might actually explode if I continue to expose myself to this sort of banality much longer.

I'm trapped in the longest SGA meeting ever. This is ridiculous - we hit 3 hours a few minutes ago. It's even longer than the first meeting of term, when we got to introduce all the new people and voted the chairs for each of the 15 committees (speeches, discussion, broken voting system) . What are we doing, you ask? We're voting our executive committee for next term. That's right - we've been sitting here for 3 hours, listening to people who take this whole thing WAY too seriously try to convince us that they really care about this school and really want to help people. Some of them are twits enough that they probably do - who am I to judge? It just feels like a long masturbation-fest where we're so busy congratulating ourselves on how wonderful we are that no one's noticed yet that the rest of the school wouldn't notice for 6 months if we dissolved, and then only because Sandblast would be even more poorly-organized. Honestly, med-school government is a joke, much like any other school government. It looks decent on CV's, which is the big reason I'm here, but the big reality of things is that we DO NOT make a difference, and no one cares that much if we manage to get signs put on buildings, or add a bus to the schedule, or approve a new obscure club on campus. It's just not that important, in the scheme of things. More realistically, WE'RE not that important. This whole business is shear vanity.

Angry? Hell yes. I could be studying right now. I need to be studying right now. Does anyone really care why you think you'd be the perfect treasurer? No. Stop talking - it's not going to change anyone's opinion of you. Really.

I know it's not really a very admirable trait, but I can't help it. Feel free to blame my mom. And I really need to boost my morale right now with the end of term looming and the idea that I really should have done SOME embryo by now rearing its ugly head. So can you really blame me for being just a teensy-bit self-congratulatory after watching 3 girls spend an hour arguing in the wet lab arguing about just where, precisely, the nasal bones are (hint: your nose), and later hi-fiving over their discovery that the H-shaped suture in the side of the cranium is the pterygoid canal (actually, it's the pterion)?

I didn't think so.

And before you get mad at me for not helping them, I was busily completing my own PT fossa scavenger hunt at the time, and there were 3 unoccupied student tutors in the lab the whole time. Besides, I've been wrong before when I was certain I was correct, and nobody likes a busybody.

I have developed an almost-unbeatable 3-part strategy for using the wet lab.

Part 1 - go early in the morning about half an hour before it's technically "open," and bat my eyes at the janitor until he lets me in. This usually guarantees me at least an hour of uninterrupted time before someone else shows up.

Part 2 - go before lunch. This is generally the preferred time of keeners, and typically has one or 2 tutors at most present. Why does it work? The keeners swarm the tutors, who generally stake out 2 of the better cadavers, leaving most of the room functionally unoccupied for me to do my own thing.

Part 3 - whenever I go, scowl ferociously at anyone who wanders too near, thereby intimidating everyone out of my presence until I've finished working.

Unfortunately...

my strategy does have a few flaws.

Part 1 - only works if the janitor is, in fact, there and willing to let me in. Otherwise, I've just wasted valuable sleeping time.

Part 2 - works well, except in two situations. The first is when there only IS one or two good cadavers, and I can't learn anything useful from my secondary choices. The second is when the crowd of keeners around the profs swells past critical mass and smaller groups of keeners break off to find new hunting grounds, Forcing me to defend my chosen dead body (this can get messy).

Part 3 - is only a defense against the least persistent. Somehow I still attract the more irritating to me. Is it my fault that I tend to lash out nastily when random strangers say things like "would you mind, like, you know, thinking out loud as you do that?" and "you look like you know what you're doing. Can you, like, teach it to me in, like, 10 minutes?"

Tonight, part 2 was in error. I'll try again tomorrow. Sigh.