The Future Is Whatever You Make It!

Cadaver Memorial

2009-05-12T17:52:00.000-07:00

As of yesterday I finished my Anatomy class. It came as a great relief to finally be over with it and not drag myself to the lab on weekends, only to smell for the rest of the day. The anatomy lab portion of medical school was probably my least favorite part of this experience so far but there's a funny thing that comes from forcing yourself to do something you really dislike, you grow from it. I can't pinpoint exactly when it happened, probably shortly after I finished dissecting myself, but I came to realize that dissection lab is actually a pretty amazing experience.

On the outside we almost all have 10 fingers, 10 toes, 2 eyes etc. but on the inside the individual differences are amazing. Arteries, veins and nerves branch at points where you wouldn't think to see them, make strange connections, may completely not exist in this person and yet somehow despite all this strange diversity we all continue to grow and develop. As I looked at our cadavers I would find myself studying their muscle structure, wondering what kind of life they had lead that gave them their particular build and at some point you realize that this is a person here.

As physicians in training we are taught to give ourselves entirely to our craft, in body, mind and spirit. It's a hard transition that few, if any, of us have really even begun to do. It's an inspiration to have our first patients be people that have gifted themselves to us and our education and continue to give even beyond their passing. Despite the ups and downs of anatomy lab, it was a humbling experience that I will never forget and as time goes on I know I will look back upon it fondly. To those who gave themselves to us, all I can say is "thank you."

Oh right ... I have a blog

2009-04-04T15:48:00.000-07:00

So my writing in this blog has become much less frequent in '09. I don't feel like I have too much to talk about these days. Now we're down to 7 classes left before we're finished with the M1 year so the scheduled has lightened up which is nice. We start at 9am on MWF of next week and 10am of TuTh so that is going to be pretty nice. Now that the weather has gotten better and our days are starting later I'm trying to walk to school. According to google maps it's about 2.7 miles away so it's a nice way to get off my duff, actually go outside and burn up some calories.

We have some tests in Renal (kidney) physiology and superficial head and neck coming up a week from Monday so those will be my last midterms of M1 year and then I will only have finals to go. I'm doing pretty well in classes but I still have plenty of doubts as to whether or not I'll be good at this whole medicine thing. I can't seem to spout off facts like many of my peers can about what nerve goes to what muscle but if you give me a multiple choice test I can deduce the answer with little problem. Since we've had so little (i.e. zero) patient exposure it's hard to tell how successful I will be. I'm excited to go into next year and learn how to take histories and physicals. I see that aspect of medicine as a game where the physician is a detective and how to solve the mysteur of what ails the patient. I think that's something I'll be good at but I definitely have lots of doubts about whether or not I will be. Only time will tell I suppose.

The most exciting thing about the future is also its most annoying and that is its uncertainty. I'm excited to move to a new city next year, move into a legit house and not live next to a slamming door, actually start all this medical business, get a chance to see what fields of medicine work for me, and continue to grow personally and professionally.

I've been very slowly writing in here taking my sweet time just to avoid studying but I can't think of anything else to say. So I leave you with some pictures of golfing with James, David and Johnny at Green River over spring break.

Not enough time

2009-02-26T16:52:00.000-08:00

I was going to write a blog entry about finishing dissecting the pelvis and how "fun" that was but now I have 8 tests in 10 days. Although I don't study nearly as much as many of my peers (and often wonder what they are studying so long for), I find writing to be a taxing experience so I'll just leave this entry at that. Couldn't let a month go by where I didn't write something! After March 9th, finals will be the only big set of exams left :)

Summer

2009-01-19T06:05:00.000-08:00

It seems I'm back into the habit of updating once/month or even less frequently. Winter break has come and gone. It was 3 weeks of pure relaxation and I had a lot of fun, even if I did get sick in the last few days and have an ear infection that is still bugging me almost a week later.

Since coming back this past week I've been under the weather and actually missed the first day of classes entirely and selectively missed classes throughout the week just to rest at home. But it seems that school is not pulling any punches since our return. We are back at a full schedule with labs everywhere and time-consuming activities that questionably increase our retention of material. I have to do a presentation on Thursday to a group of about 20 about gallstones and hepatitis A. It's more fun to work on that than to actually study but at the same time it feels like just another activity that's being piled upon us.

One of the most frustrating things that has come up recently is trying to plan what I'll do for summer. All the med students here are talking about it and, of course, stressing about it. The school has sent a few emails about opportunities for us to pursue if we're interested. Some annoying factors are that many have an application deadline that is somewhere around mid-February for a program that begins around June, a minimum time commitment (in terms of # of weeks) and certain days where attendance is required. To add to the frustration, I had no idea when my orientation in Peoria would start until recently.

I was originally looking towards doing this "Student Research and Training Program in Diabetes and Endocrinology" which is a national program but I was going to apply to do it at Vanderbilt since that seems to be the central location for it. It requires attendance on 8/5-8/6 in order to do presentations based on the research you did and is an 8-12 week commitment. So I emailed one of our Deans to see if he knew when Peoria started. Turns out they start orientation starts on 8/5 so that means the SRTP is out... Not only that but that means my summer (5/22-8/5) is just about 10 weeks long which is the minimum requirement for most programs.

So now in all honesty I'm leaning towards not doing anything resume-building over summer and just enjoying my time off. I already have my name on a couple of publications that are in the pipework so I don't really need more research on my resume. If you look on our school's website lots of people actually say they did nothing and enjoyed it or wish they did less than they did http://www.med.uiuc.edu/administration/CurricMgt/M2/preparation.php so that is on my mind as well. So I won't feel guilty if I end up not doing anything that makes me look better on paper. Now I just gotta try and survive having to spend all my time in anatomy lab in February. That's going to be brutal...

36,000

2008-12-02T17:00:00.000-08:00

During my senior year at UCI I worked on a project trying to make "virutal demonstrations" of biological concepts to show to students taking Cell Biology. Our real goal wasn't so much to produce viable videos for students to watch but to assess whether or not we would learn more about processes that we thought we already understood by making these videos. We put the videos on YouTube just so that they would be there for Dr. O'Dowd to show and speak about whenever she needed to.

Recently I got bored and checked the most popular one, the one I happened to be talking on, and saw that it has been viewed by 36,000 people. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iA-Gdkje6pg I have to turn the sound off every time I look at it because I can't stand the sound of my own voice!

I keep thinking about how cool it is that a little minute and a half project explaining a concept that people are often confused about has been seen so many times. I've been toying with the idea of trying to expand on this concept in my head. I've seen so many infomercials on TV where products and books are sold that play into misconceptions people have about medicine. They often claim to have found hidden cures which an author has discovered that the medical society has been keeping secret.

One of the main reasons I wanted to go to medical school was to be an educator. To teach patients how to take care of themselves and become a partner in their own healthcare. There are all kinds of books out there that physicians have written about living better lives and the such but I always find the audience of books to be more limited. Books are also written for some sort of monetary gain to either the author, publishing company or both.

I've been toying with the idea of continuing the series of videos using the knowledge I've gained in medical school to address interesting topics and misconceptions that people have regarding medicine. Why do most medicines require you to take one or more pills every single day? Is there really no money in the cure? Do vaccines cause autism? And various topics like that. There's a show called "The Doctors" which is a daytime TV show that attempts to do this but I'm turned off by how commercialized the program is. They have little segments sponsored by CVS and other companies so it's clear there's a secondary agenda to a lot of what is said. I believe that information should be distributed freely just for the sake of informing others.

As much as I've thought about doing this, it hasn't materialized to more than thoughts and ideas. Part of it is that I'd want it to be more professional than my little school project and I don't have the digital arts know-how to make it good. Yet even if I did have the know-how, I'd be going into the project alone. As a student I had a professor to bounce ideas off of and correct the incorrect science in my videos. Another part of the reason is time. It took somewhere on the order of 10 hours to create that first video so to create a ~10 minute video would take that much longer. So for now it'll have to remain just an idea that I toy around with in my free time but keep your eyes open because maybe in the future you'll see another video by me.

First Snow

2008-11-30T08:04:00.001-08:00

Before you read this post go warm up some hot chocolate, maybe get some Bing Crosby's White Christmas in the background and get in the spirit.

Ready?

Since it's still officially break and yesterday was my birthday I continued the streak of laziness and took my time getting ready this morning. I woke up and just played some more video games just to relax. It was still pretty dark around 7:30 and I had booted my computer up to check the weather forecast since my mom said it was supposed to snow. Weather.com said it was currently snowing so I looked outside my window and was greeted by this!

Of course it took me a few tries to get that picture right. Here's a couple of my more interesting looking mistakes.

Blue Christmas?

I could lie and say this was some weird effect from the sunrise but it was just a bright flash

Then I decided to go out for a walk and take a few pics just to take in the snow.

I was wandering down the street when I saw a snow covered park. I thought it was a good place to take a picture. It was surrounded by a light brush but I broke through and stepped in. I looked over and saw a sign that I thought would have the name of some trail or the park but as I brushed the snow away it turns out that it was the 7th tee! Hurray golf!

Sure I wasn't in full on snow gear but this was my first time where snow fell in a place that I was living. It was also one of the first times I can remember where the snow was still powdery. When I went to interview in Vermont, the snow was packed and dense. I tried to kick a block of snow there and it was rock-hard. I couldn't resist the temptation to try and make a snow angel on the golf course...

So it turned out ugly but it was cold!

On my way back I was staring at the ground and making sure I had my footing when I went face first into a low tree branch and got covered in snow. It was pretty funny but luckily no one was around to hear my "bwargafack!" (yes the actual sound I made) as snow went down my jacket. Either the snow or the cloud cover has killed my TV signal (direct TV in a place that snows doesn't seem like a good idea) so I'm going to curl back into bed and hide just like this squirrel was on his way to do.

Thanksgiving Break

2008-11-29T18:36:00.000-08:00

Well it appears that I’m pretty bad at updating this thing regularly. Writing just takes too much work mentally. By the end of the day I’m usually too tired to sit down and actually focus on writing an update to my blog. However, since Thanksgiving vacation came and went I figured that the pictures would help spur me into writing an entry (combined with the boredom of sitting on a dark train for a couple hours and wanting to write an update for my birthday). I am doing quite well academically now and have gotten used to the pace of medical school however there was definitely a slowdown in efficiency as Thanksgiving break drew nearer.

My parents had me decide early on whether or not I would go home for Thanksgiving break. Since I wasn’t so sure what the schedule would be like for school at this time, I decided to be cautious and have them come out to me. It turns out that at this time, the school is pretty laid back and we have a lot less to do between now and our semester finals, but having them come out to me was still a pretty good choice. For the first couple of days, I showed my parents around. My dad had seen everything several times before but it was the first time for my mom. So for Saturday and Sunday, we went around and looked at everything. It was nice to have a look at the school when no one was around as opposed to when the school’s 40,000+ students are all scurrying about.

The Student Union

A building opposite of the Union whose name I will never remember

On Monday we decided to head out to Peoria to see where I’ll be staying for the next three years. Unfortunately I forgot my camera so I have no pictures. Peoria is much more of a city when compared to Urbana. There is a distinct downtown area with taller buildings, most of which are owned by Caterpillar. I like Urbana but it is definitely a small-ish rural town while Peoria has the feeling of a bigger city without having all the people around. The medical school was really nice because it had facilities that were geared specifically towards medical education such as the simulation lab, whereas Urbana doesn’t really have that feeling. Peoria also has more golf courses J On Monday night we tried to go to this riverboat casino called Par-A-Dice (get it?) but it was so unbelievably crowded that there was a huge line just to get in! We never really did find out what the deal was with such a huge crowd but I guess I’ll have many more chances in the future.

In terms of actually driving around and looking at stuff, most of Peoria can be seen in a day. So on Tuesday we headed back and hung out at my apartment for the night. Then on Wednesday we took a train out to Chicago. While waiting at the train station we noticed that there was a news camera looking around and taking pictures of the crowd. My dad said it was a lot more crowded compared to the usual traffic they see. Judging by the fact that my bottle of Diet Pepsi from Subway in the station was in front and expired on August 11^th of this year, I’d definitely believe that they don’t get much traffic. Then as we were standing in line the news anchor came up and said he was doing a story on Amtrak ridership during the Thanksgiving holiday and wanted to hear about us! So my dad and I were interviewed for the local news! Hollywood here I come!

A church that our train happened to stop in front of on the way up

After the train ride we arrived in Chicago. We ended up staying at the same hotel where Obama had given a few speeches over the previous week which was pretty cool. When we woke up on Thanksgiving morning we could hear all these bands practicing outside of our hotel for the parade. It was pretty cool and since it was just around the corner we went to check it out.

The bands playing outside of our hotel

Floats!

Proviso High School East marching towards me

The Budweiser Clydesdales are the biggest horses I have ever seen. They have to be like 8 feet tall

The Galloping Grannies complete with a Mini-Horse and loads of turds. The horses were followed by a group called POO but I forget what it stands for now.

The best float… Garfield!

We stayed in the area near our hotel during our trip and focused mostly on taking things easy. Our main sites included the Field Museum and the Alder Planetarium. The museum is gigantic but unfortunately they didn’t allow photography L At first I thought it was just flash photography but then someone stopped me and said no photography at all so boo to them! We saw Sue, the largest T-Rex skeleton, which wasn’t as big as I had imagined, an exhibit called Aztec World and an exhibit about Egypt.

The one picture I managed to take before getting caught. Aztec masks made from different stones

Then on Friday my parents and I parted ways. In the morning we visited the Planetarium. It was the first Planetarium I had ever been in and it was a pretty cool experience. We saw a show called “Cosmic Collisions” which talked about how the moon was formed, asteroids hitting the earth and stuff like that. On top of that they had some exhibits about space and my dad and I got to go on this thing where you can jump to the same height that you would on the moon.

The picture didn’t turn out well because you have to lay down and people can only see you on a monitor.

While we were doing that, my mom had gone and completed astronaut training!

That’s about it as far as pictures of my trip go. It was really nice on Thanksgiving cuz no one was outside. So I leave you with some more pictures.

A few views of the city:

Last but not least, happy birthday to me! 24 years old today!

27 days later

2008-10-31T13:44:00.001-07:00

Has it really been 27 days since I've updated my blog? I'm not even going to pretend that this is a real update because I'm so pressed for time. I thought I'd just write something in here quickly. I know I said I'd take pictures but it turns out that all the leaves don't change at once (which I thought they did) and only like 1/3 of the trees here have actually seemed to change. I don't pretend to have much of a knowledge of plants but these don't look like evergreen trees to me so what gives!?

I have had 6 tests over the past two weeks and have been doing fairly well academically. I think the lowest grade I have is a 75% and passing is 60% so I'm doing well in that respect but I have three BIG tests on Monday (two of them are worth more points than our finals for the semester). Unfortunately because of the other tests, it's been impossible to keep up with the lectures as they've come so the tests on Monday encompass something like 40 lectures! For our biochem test, I think I had a decent understand of the basics that let me answer like 1/3-1/2 the answers but then I just thought out the rest of the answers and did pretty damn well on the test so I'm hoping I can do the same for these tests. Man taking 9 classes at once sure is a bitch. Although there are still 3 tests before Thanksgiving break, things should calm down much more after Monday so send some good vibes my way and hopefully I'll be able to really update (about what, I don't know) sometime soon.

One Day at a Time

2008-10-04T13:27:00.001-07:00

I am slowly getting used to the amount that I have to study all the time in order to keep up with all of my classes. For whatever reason, at the beginning of the school year I felt that no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't retain anything that I studied which is quite unlike me. I'm a terrible reader but if I sit down and actually try and focus to retain information then it usually stays with me fairly well. I feel like now I'm starting to retain material much more like I used to. Although by no means do I come close to picking it all up in one go, I feel like it's floating around somewhere in my head at the very least.

Since school began I had been waking up at 5:45 every morning. I did this with some vain attempt to be productive every morning but I think it only happened once. So on Monday I just decided to say "fuck it" to being productive in the morning and decided to wake up at 6:20 instead. I don't know whether it was the relief of getting through the first set of exams, setting my alarm clock 35 minute ahead in the morning or maybe a combination of the two, but that's about when I felt like I was able to manage everything better.

Hopefully that feeling lasts. Starting on 10/20 we have exams every week for the following month until Thanksgiving break. That means there will be no time to stop and relax between but instead we'll just have to continue the grind of studying for a solid month. I try not to think about it too much because it's quite overwhelming. A sad reality about the situation is that it means it's impossible to get an sort of mastery on the material. Pretty much every TA has given us the advice that if we're stuck on something for a long time (and it's close to exams) we should just accept that we'll lose a point on it on the exams and move on. I feel like that's gotta be a big flaw of the system. Rather than having students learn as much as we can to appreciate the biological underpinnings of what we're studying, we should study to do as well as we can on exams. Perhaps in the end the two are related but I don't know.

I believe next week Autumn should really start to come around and the leaves on the trees will start to change colors. I hope to go out and gather some nice pictures when that happens and post them here. Until then it's back to finding ways to distract myself from studying now that updating my blog is off that list.

I'm Creeping Across Your Chest and Feeling for Thrills

2008-09-27T11:02:00.000-07:00

I have been meaning to update for the past few days but have had a hard time finding the time to do so. I guess I'll address the testing aspect first since a couple people have asked about it. I ended up passing all my tests (eventually). Our anatomy practical doesn't count towards our overall grade but I unfortunately failed our first one. I got a 12/20 and passing is 13/20 so I had to take a retake on Wednesday which is why I couldn't really update sooner. I ended up passing the retake with a 15/20 however they only bumped my score up to the minimum passing level (MPL) of 13/20.

I had a really hard time emotionally these past few weeks. Feeling so far from home really started getting to me, the fact that everyone seemed to have a better idea what was going on than I did, particularly in anatomy, and the fact that I felt distant from most, if not all of my classmates really made me feel terrible. I was not too far from packing up and going home in all honesty. So on Wednesday my dad decided to drop everything and come visit me. I greatly appreciate that move and feel incredibly blessed to have such a supportive family. Between that and passing all my exams despite being unable to motivate myself to study very much has made me feel a lot better. I had been talking to the Dean of Testing and Curriculum over the past week or so and she noticed how big of a change I had made once I was done with everything. She also said I was actually slightly above the mean in terms of overall test scores given the 7 tests that actually have a score that stays with us. I am pretty shocked about that but also happy to know that despite the fact that I still feel quite clueless, I can pass tests.

As far as making friends goes things are getting better. It was really rough in the beginning. Normally I'm quite shy and reserved when first meeting new people but this time around I tried to put myself out there more and introduce myself to pretty much anyone around me that I didn't know. Despite this people pretty much continued to ignore me. There would often be people that would literally talk to everyone around me and just ignore the fact that I'm even there. I'm not sure why it seems like I'm always the one that has to initiate conversations and at times it can be quite tiring that I am but for the most part I just have to accept that that's the way it is. This weekend was pretty nice. I went to the driving range with my friend Jason and it was such a nice day. Between hanging out with friends some more and seeing my dad I feel a lot better in that regard.

This morning I had training for the Clinical Practice Preceptorship program at our school. It's basically a doctor shadowing program with a fairly small time commitment. This morning we spent some time learning the basics of doing a physical, not so that we can do it ourselves, but so that we can understand what the doctor is doing when we observe. It was pretty cool to do percussion to find the border of the heart and liver, play with the various scopes and listen to the Chief of Medicine at the local hopsital (who happened to be the instructor for the three of us in my group) talk about how all these different tests worked. They said that this program should sorta help remind us about what we want to do in medicine while we're suffering through all this pre-clinical stuff. It was pretty cool to do and it makes me feel that I really do want to continue this as much as I sometimes (or often) feel like quitting.

There is definitely a lot of personal growth I feel like I have done and need to continue to do as I continue this pursuit of medicine. I really need to accept that mistakes are acceptable as long as you learn from them. I often feel bad and tend to beat myself up about them but that is just foolish because mistakes present the best opportunity to learn. I myself hold to the belief that the smartest people are the ones that have made the most mistakes but still need to accept that for myself. I also need to accept that there will be plenty that I don't know. It is very tough to listen to people talk about anatomy and just sit there clueless as they discuss random things. I was very paranoid earlier since we hadn't had any tests I thought that I might not do so well but now that I did okay on anatomy I'm starting to get more comfortable that they know their stuff and I know mine.

I'm still giving myself a bit of a break until I go back into study mode once again so if I don't update for a while that's why but I will try to update sometime in the not too distant future. Lastly, the title of this entry is actually a medical term. Creeping is basically slowly moving across a surface and a thrill is defined in that link. The med student who talked to the class about the physical exam said that was something you shouldn't say to a female patient so naturally I found its inappropriateness funny.

Doubts

2008-09-12T14:21:00.000-07:00

Today marks the one-week countdown until our first set of tests and the end of our third week of medical school. Thinking about the amount of material that will be on these tests feels completely overwhelming. I think for the first week I underestimated the challenge of school. During orientation we had loads of people come and tell us how hard it will be but then the med students said it wasn't bad. I have had plenty of "this class is hard" speeches in undergrad so I thought that this would be the same. For the most part the material was pretty easy to pick up and not too difficult to remember. I put most of my focus into getting used to my new surroundings and the fact that I'm a long long way from home.

When the second week came I put all of my energy into dissecting and was in absolutely no mood to study when I got home. This third week was the time I actually started sitting down to do some long-term formal studying. The amount of material that we are expected to know is tremendous. Every lecture here feels like 3 undergrad lectures and with most of our tests covering 7 lectures of material, that would mean that every one of our tests feels like a cumulative final. I have 3 tests a week from today and 6 tests on 9/22 and at the moment I'm really not expecting to do well at all. The thing that irritates me the most is that most of these tests are somewhere on the order of 20 questions and about 10% of our grade for year-long courses and maybe 20% for semester-long courses. This means that we have to know SO MUCH information in order to hope we know the right thing to answer what they test us on and in some cases knowing isn't enough, you have to be able to apply it as well.

People tend to think of me as a pretty calm and collected guy and for the most part it's true but there are times when I have strong doubts. For the most part I try to keep them to myself but the amount of doubts I've had has increased exponentially since school has started. I will hear people talking about things that I know we covered in class but are still completely foreign to me. I'll study for 8 hours in a day and then wake up the morning and try to think about what I've learned only to completely blank out. I was really hoping that once I got into medical school things would be easier. I've always heard that the hardest part of medical school is getting in but if that was the case I should be coasting right now.

It is definitely comforting to know that I'm not the only one that feels this way. Pretty much everyone I've talked to has major doubts and I suspect that those that don't are the ones that still haven't really sat down to study yet. I'm trying to take things one day at a time because thinking much further ahead is really scary. I'm glad I have this weekend to sit down and study without having to go to more lectures but I have to wonder what can really be accomplished in 2 days. I've surprised myself with what I've been able to pick up before tests in the past so hopefully this coming week will prove to be no exception. No matter what happens I know that I have lots of love back home that I can count on and that is probably the only thing keeping me from majorly panicking. I'll probably update this again either after my tests on Friday or after my tests on the 22nd so as you read this just hope that the next update is a happy one!

Some Lovers Try Positions That They Can't Handle

2008-08-27T18:10:00.000-07:00

Today was my third day of classes for med school. The first day wasn't too bad. A lot of the material was review and some of our class time was spent doing introductions. The second day wasn't too bad either because it was more of the same. The only thing was that the classes on the second day weren't the same as the classes on the first day! In all, I (as most people are) am taking 9 classes this first semester. Those classes are: Anatomy, Embryology, Biochemistry, Histology, Intro. to Human Disease, Physiology, Medical Statistics, Medical Genetics and Immunology/Microbiology (the school counts this as one course).

We usually have four hours of lecture per day and spend random half hours in anatomy lab along with a 3-4 hour lab from histology, microbiology or immunology per week. Taking nine classes at once is so much. I try not to think about it because in all honesty it's overwhelming. However I do believe it is manageable. In order to pass our classes you need a 60% or above and a 90% to honor. I think the overwhelming feeling comes the experience in college of always being able to do pretty well but now I have to accept that there is nothing wrong with a 60%. Easier said than done but with our first test less than a month away (9/19) I'm sure my attitude will quickly change.

It's been a little bit of a tough time adjusting to having taken a year off to getting back into a rigorous curriculum. I pretty much have to get into the mindset that medicine is all I think about. That is also a bit of a tough adjustment. I never had anything that I was that passionate about before and devoted every waking moment to but that is what medical school demands. Realistically I think I can devote about 12 hours every weekday to medical school: 8am-8pm. I hope to be able to balance a little time to myself on the weekends along with some study time but I will think about that more depending on how much I feel is necessary. This weekend is a three-day weekend however I have to go in on my own time for anatomy dissection. I will be dissecting the pectoral and axillary regions (chest/armpit) as well as the palm of the hand. From my classmates I gather that this is somewhere around a 20 hour time commitment. We shall see how it goes. I guess it's good that I have a three-day weekend so I have more time to devote to that.

By the way, the title of my post is a mnemonic to remember the bones of the wrist: Scaphoid, Lunate, Triquetrum, Pisiform, Trapezium, Trapezoid, Capitate, Hamate. At least I'm learning a little!

From California to Illinois

2008-08-18T17:39:00.000-07:00

What a whirlwind week it has been. On Tuesday I met up with my parents and my brother for lunch together at Denny's near my parents' work. Afterwards my dad and I headed for Vegas! We stayed at the Stratosphere and for 10 bucks more, we got our room moved up from the 9th floor to the 18th floor. We were supposed to have a view of the strip but it wasn't very spectacular. A lot of the foreground was taken up by air conditioning systems but I think I cut it out decently well in this picture. (If you click on any of these pictures you can get really detailed pictures, some of the landscapes are really amazing)

Then I tried to take a picture of it at night and the flash came on! Unfortunately a picture with no flash was way too dark. It wasn't too memorable anyway...
Day 2 was a lonnnng trip from Vegas, through a few miles of Arizona, up into Utah and then ending up in Vale Colorado. In all, the trip took like 11 hours. Unfortunately I forget exactly which states the following pictures came from.

I do remember these last two are from Colorado

We tried to stop at a little town called Joseph but it had pretty much nothing (sorry Joe!)...

Vale is a really cold city. It was in the 60s in the middle of August and I believe the day after we were leaving, the high was only supposed to be 58!! Day three was another really long day. We headed from Vale to Omaha Nebraska. Unfortunately the sights along the drive were pretty boring. Pretty much all Nebraska has to offer is corn and cows! Omaha itself was a really nice city though (except the neighborhood that we took to get to the hotel was shady) and it had a really nice downtown area. Just so you don't think I'm lying ... cows and corn...
Then I got really excited because I finally saw something that wasn't a cow or corn and it turned out to be...
And we took a break by a pretty little river.
Day four was a shorter trip through Iowa into Illinois. Iowa also had a lot of corn to look at!

After 2060 miles of driving over four days we had arrived! I managed to start quite a bug collection over the course of our trip (click the picture for a more thorough view of my collection!)
I wanted to take more pictures of the campus but for now this one will have to do. It's a picture of me in front of where I will be taking pretty much every class over the next four years. The campus seems to be pretty poorly labeled although I finally found a directory outside today.
Then I moved in to my place yesterday. It was both fun and a chore to get everything set up. The biggest chore definitely came in getting the TV we got mounted onto my wall. We got a cheap stud finder and well ... let's just say it didn't work (definitely look at the close up picture on this one). Luckily the landlord won't be able to see behind the TV mount until we leave.

Then this morning I cleaned some things up and dropped Dad off at the train station. I took some pictures of my place. Still waiting for my roommate...

Living room

Kitchen

Bedroom

Orientation starts tomorrow! I'm pretty nervous but excited as well.

Road Trip

2008-08-12T08:12:00.000-07:00

Today is the day I've been dreading and looking forward too. After a great semi-surprise bowling party on Saturday thanks to Tammy, I'm taking off to Illinois today. I'm excited to finally start medical school but saying good bye to Tammy was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. The plan my dad and I have is to drive to...

Tuesday: Vegas (Stratosphere!)
Wednesday: From Nevada to Utah to somewhere in Colorado, Grand Junction or Denver.
Thursday: From Colorado to Mid/Eastern Nebraska
Friday: Go through Iowa, stop in Peoria (where I'll be for M2-M4) and end up in Urbana/Champaign.
Saturday: Explore the cities. There is a small gathering of the future class at 3pm that I may or may not go to.
Sunday: Move in to my place at The Pointe! (2 bed).
Monday: Get settled, take my dad to the train so he can go to Chicago and fly back home.
Tuesday: Orientation day 1. From there, who knows?

We might arrive on Saturday if we're slowed due to weather. There was golf ball sized hail in Colorado and Nebraska yesterday so hopefully all will be for the best. I will try and take pictures and update either when I move in or when I get to Illinois (I think our hotel has free internet).

Anniversary

2008-07-15T14:50:00.000-07:00

Saturday, July 12th, was mine and Tammy's fifth anniversary. We're not too big on doing anything extravagant but we just wanted to do something new. We've driven by the Discovery Science Center many different times and always talked about going in but we never went! We finally went for a couple hrs on Saturday and took some pictures. The first exhibit we went into was called "Grossology" and it talked about various kinds of gross stuff.

There was a toilet on the wall of an exhibit that talked about tapeworms. We lifted the lid and found ...

A tapeworm can grow to be up to 60 feet long! They had this gizmo on the wall where you could pull a rope and it'd measure how many feet you've pulled. I just got to 60

They had this thing where you could put your hand in, feel some random plastic object and guess what it is. It was pretty lame since they'd have something like a rubber ball as a jelly fish and some a piece of scaly plastic to be fish scales. Here I am feeling the jelly fish

They also had a trivia game where they would test you on the knowledge that you learned at the different exhibits. Tammy tested her knowledge against some tough competition but luckily she's really bright (get it?)

Tammy was in the yellow position and ended up in the final position of...
Tied for first!

They have different themes for their upper floor depending on the time of year. This time was about Bob the Builder!

And here's Tammy riding Roley the green steamroller (thank you Wikipedia)

They had a few things that were fun to mess around with. They had a wind tunnel where you hold out these foam wings and feel like you get pushed around. At least I think that's the concept but I didn't feel anything.

There was also this little game where you could see how long you could keep your balance on this plank. On my 3rd try I got up to 2 seconds and then the next time I was at .5 seconds. Tammy said "Aww what happened?" and then proceeded to score a max of .4 seconds :)

They had a few other cool things that we didn't take any pictures of, like this device that changes the sound of your voice. I think it was stuck on super high but that was all I needed. I spoke into it and I sounded EXACTLY like Tammy. It was quite freaky but quite funny as well. When Tammy spoke she sounded ... EXACTLY like Tammy too! After we were done, we left and headed over to the Main Place mall. I'm surprised we made it since a space shuttle tried to run over Tammy in the parking lot

At the mall we went to Popcornopolis and got some delicious popcorn! Afterwards we hung out at home for a bit and then it was off to dinner at the Melting Pot.

I didn't take a picture of the first course which is foundue. We got a swiss cheese foundue that came with apples, bread and some carrots for dipping. It tasted a bit too heavily of wine but as you can see the food was quite delicious!

A picture of my house salad

Tammy's Caesar salad

Our main course was called the Pacific Rim. Steak, Chicken, Pork, Duck and Veggie spring rolls to be cooked in the Coq au Vin broth. It is sooooooo good!

Before dessert came, our waitress, who served us before and asked if we were married when we said it was our anniversary, took our picture. I sure have rosey red cheeks haha.

Our dessert was a S'more inspired chocolate foundue, it was milk chocolate with marshmallow cream and graham crackers on top. To dip we had Rice Krispies treats, pound cake, strawberries, bananas (blech!), brownies, cheesecake, and marshmallow. Sorry the first picture is so dark.

That concluded our day! It was a really good time and I look forward to yet another year together, even if most of it will be spent apart :( I love you Tammy!

Lake Havasu

2008-06-24T18:36:00.000-07:00

From 6/20-6/22 James, David, Jose and I went to my parents' house in Lake Havasu, Arizona. I wanted to go one more time before I went off to med school. We left around 9pm on Thursday, and drove about 4.5 hrs to get to Havasu. When we arrived we were greeted by a scorpion in the bathroom. It wasn't a very big one, maybe an inch or two. I looked at it and wasn't sure what I was looking at. I thought it was a leaf at first but upon closer inspection, the leaf had claws! I wish I took a picture. We were wondering what to do about it but our ultimate solution was to have Jose stomp on it. I'm not even sure if it was alive in the first place because it wasn't moving but if it wasn't already, it was dead under Jose's foot!

Despite that everyone was ready to relax:James chilling out on the luxurious chairs

Jose calling his lady friends

David coming out of the other bathroom after hiding from the scorpion

I'm behind the camera but this was my lovely, very comfortable, inflatable bed (taken the morning we were leaving)

We didn't do all that much that first night since we got there so late. We just played some Ultimate Alliance and then turned in for the night at about 3:45am. I automatically woke up at 6:30 but forced myself to sleep until 8:30am. On Friday morning we hung around for a bit and then went to grab some food at Denny's. Afterward we went to Albertson's and stocked up on some alcohol. Jose's and David's eyes were obviously much bigger than their livers. They wanted to buy so much stuff but I kept asking if we'd really get to it. I believe we ultimately settled on an 18-pack of miller light (for beer pong), a 6 pack of XX, a 6 pack of blue moon and 2 bottles of Arrogant Bastard Ale (which I honestly think must taste worse than piss).

By then the heat of the day was killer. It got up to 120 or so which was pretty damn crazy. It felt fine when you left the house/building/car and then after 2 seconds it'd just hit you in the face. In the middle of the day we took it easy to avoid the heat. We hung at home, played some darts and pool as well as the Simpson's game which James' brother got. At 6pm we went to Red Robin because David didn't want to go to Chili's although all I said in the car was "The only thing I want to do for sure is go to Chili's." Then it was off to Laughlin! A 90 minute drive to some gambling fun.

As per our usual tradition with gambling we had to go to the Tropicana (Express). They have these cool video blackjack machines that have virtual dealers (the women have gigantic chests) who talk to the players and look around. It was 2 dollars/hand and I put in a 20. I got as high as 37 bucks before losing it all down to 4. The other guys came in and lost at various points but I was still struggling. On that hand I was dealt two Aces and the dealer showed a six. I had to split! We pooled together 4 one-dollar bills so that I could split the aces. I don't remember what I had but the dealer busted so I ended up with 16 bucks! In the end I left with 24. I made 4 bucks in about an hour ... good stuff. After that we went to the Wheel of Fortune slot machines. Normally these are easy money for me and my friends but this time I lost 34 (my 24 plus another 10!) in two or three minutes. Then David sits down, loses 16 bucks and then wins 50! So he won the 34 that I had lost right before him. What the freak. Then David and I played roulette. I only played 20 bucks because I think the game is a blackhole for cash. I won on one spin but lost my money in yet another 2-3 minutes. David, being the baller he is, played with 60 bucks. He hit 11 on the inside playing four corners so that means he made 9-times whatever he put down. He ended up making 44 bucks on roulette. I think we're good luck for him.

After that we got back home at about midnight and handled a little more Ultimate Alliance before turning in for the night at like 2am. Our plan for Sunday morning ... fishing.

My dad bought three fishing poles from my neighbor at a yard-sale for 5 bucks. My mom bought some tackle and line later for fishing int he lake. None of us had really fished before and in the end none of us really fished then either. We saw four fish in the docks as we were walking to a less-crowded place to do some fishing. They were pretty big, about 2 footers but when we got away from the docks we couldn't really see any fish. We spent about 2 1/2 hrs in the blazing heat trying to teach ourselves how to cast and dealing with a shitty line that kept tangling! Even at 8am it was 95 degrees!

The guys trying to figure out how these damn things work.

A view of the lake.

These cool motorized glider things were flying around the lake. I couldn't get a very good pic because they were flying so fast!

In the end, the only thing that got on the hook were Jose's jeans. As you can see, he's quite the catch.

After fishing we went to get some Bob's Big Boy. The food there was unhealthily delicious. Our waitress had a son who died when he was about our age, four years ago. She was definitely still disturbed by it and it was sort of a creepy meal. I think we were all in a rush to get out. Again we decided to hang out at the house in the heat of the day. We ended up beating the Simpson's game ... wow that was fast! The whole game was only about 3 hrs of playing. At night we ended up eating at Chili's (yay!) and then watching some Borat while we waited to digest our food. After that it was time for some beer pong.

The only use for a ping pong table in this heat

We played two games and rotated teams. The final scores: Jose 2, Tom 1, James 1 and David 0. We were gonna wait off the alcohol and play a third game but that never happened. We all just kicked back and played some more pool and ultimate alliance. For some reason I couldn't save and my game became corrupted but luckily it was our last night so it was no major loss. In the morning we went geocaching and tried to find 3 caches. We only found one but it was a lot of fun. I was glad to introduce it to James and David since it was their first time going. I took this picture of the view we saw when trying to find the the first cache.

After that we packed up, went to IHOP and then took off on the road. Here's a picture of the fun that the weekend had.

The alcohol tally: 3 Mikes, 1 Smirnoff, 3 blue moons, 3 XX, 12 miller lights and 1 bottle of arrogant bastard.

There are many retirees in Lake Havasu and at the end of this trip there will be one more. The gamecube that has entertained my friends and me for many years has a new permanent home in Havasu.

On the way home we stopped at a gas station/dairy queen 30 miles or so out of Barstow when Jose accidentally locked his keys in the van! Since it was 110+ outside, it wasn't very cool. Luckily the gas station also sold t-shirts (random) so I went in and stole a clothes hanger. I know you can pop a lock on a door with one but we tried and it didn't work. Jose tried breaking the hanger and making a hook to grab the lock and pull it. After THAT didn't work, I told Jose to make it into a loop instead of a hook and that worked! I'm glad my quick thinking saved us some suffering.

The trip was a great time and was over to fast. I hope I'll have another 3-day weekend where I can hang out with my friends and enjoy another adventure in Havasu.

NY Times Article

2008-06-12T13:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a pretty slow day in lab. I sit by an old mac that is only good for surfing the web (and barely even good enough for that) so I use it occasionally during downtime. I generally read news sites about health and medicine. I came across this article in the NY Times. It's pretty cool to see that studies like that are being done because I spoke about the importances of a culturally competent physician in my personal statement.

Still waiting to see if I get off the waitlist at Duke but I've gotten all my immunizations ready for UIUC (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) and just sent my transcript to them a few hours ago. For a few months I was disappointed that I didn't get into a more prestigious school but now I'm more and more excited to go to Illinois. After my first year, when I do the remaining three years of my schooling in Peoria, I'll be in a class of only 50 students. I think that's pretty cool. We'll see though. There's still over a month in which I can get accepted to Duke. Just more waiting...

Persistence

2008-05-31T19:21:00.000-07:00

I haven't felt much like updating lately. I just couldn't seem to motivate myself to write. This happened almost a week ago but I thought it'd be kinda cool to share. As you know by my previous posts, my mom had gotten some parakeets which she usually keeps outside on a table. However their food, most notably sunflower seeds, has become a popular target for two squirrels. The squirrel has figured out how to pop open the containers of food, to push over big weights to get into it and to chew threw lids that it can't open. If you try and scare it away it'll try and stare u down and flick its tail at you. I like sunflower seeds too but damn.

I can admire the persistence of that little bugger. I find myself in awe of how difficult the medical school admissions process has been. Even when told at my Vanderbilt interview that I would be a great fit for a school and the director of admissions noted and admired my "keen sense of enthusiasm" I was still rejected. However I'm still trying. Now that I'm only wait listed and two schools I'd really want to go to, UCI and Duke, I'm ramping up my efforts to get into Duke. I would love to go there and really hope I get in. I've gotten more support lately and will be having references send in letters throughout the next couple of weeks. Though the fight has been long it is far from over.

Critters

2008-05-17T17:16:00.000-07:00

Sorry Tammy, not THOSE critters.

Over the course of two weeks my house has gotten eight pets! On Mother's Day my mom decided that she would get four parakeets. We used to have (I think) five parakeets but a dropped cage meant that mother nature got those parakeets back. The four parakeets squawked a lot. My mom said that two of them were picking on the others so she decided to get two more. Making the total number six now.

Of course that's only 6 pets so where are the other two? My parents also got two bunnies! They're pretty cute but a bitch to try and pet. They were cool with being picked up and petted for the first 30 min or so but now they just bolt if you stick your hand out at them.

Cetylpyridinium Chloride

2008-05-12T20:37:00.000-07:00

I recently bought Crest Pro-Health mouthwash. I bought it once before but forgot that for whatever reason its active ingredient, Cetylpyridinium Chloride (CPC), "can contribute to a temporary aftertaste, or change in the taste of food, in some people." I don't have a temporary aftertaste, nor do i have a change in the taste of food, I have a complete elimination in the sense of taste. After using it, I can very faintly taste some foods but I pretty much just feel the texture of the food in my mouth. This only happens in less than .01% of people that have purchased the product. The side effects are temporary and go away after I stop using it. If I had to give up one of my senses it'd definitely be taste but man it's not very pleasant.

Work

2008-05-12T06:26:00.000-07:00

Well it's Monday morning and that means another 30 hours of work coming for me in the upcoming week. I don't think anyone can really say exactly what I do at work, not even my bosses. I have two different bosses and even on journal articles, I will be listed as having come from two different departments. Simply put, I spend 20 hours a week in the lab and 10 hours a week "teaching."

I first took the job because I had no concrete plans as to what to do during my time applying to medical school. I didn't have any lab experience outside of my classes, which didn't really teach me much. I wanted to work in the lab in order to get an understanding of a different side of science. Lab work is critically important in developing drug therapies and disease modeling. I knew it was something that I could potentially do after medical school but had no idea whether or not I would like it.

From 8-5 on Monday and Tuesday, and 1-5 on Wednesdays I work at the Smith lab in Irvine Hall. The Smith lab is primarily concerned with the regulation of excitable cells (neurons and muscle cells). These cells hold a charge, like a battery, at a basal level. When neurons are excited to a certain level (that is their charge increases), they send a message to either other neurons or muscles. When muscles are excited to a certain level they contract. Our lab studies a protein called agrin which has the ability to modulate the basal level of these cells. The lab has previously discovered that agrin acts as an on/off switch with neurons. When it binds to its target on neurons, it causes a decrease in the basal level of charge of these cells. This makes it harder for the to communicate to surrounding cells. Uncontrolled neuronal communication is the cause behind several diseases, namely epilepsy. Our work may ultimately lay the foundation for a treatment for epilepsy. The target for agrin has also been found in the heart. The lab itself has been working on a project for something like two and half years studying its effects in the heart. Without going into too much info about details, we've found that by removing the natural amount of agrin in the heart, cultured cells from mouse hearts can beat up to twice as fast! It's pretty cool to see. We are hoping that a final submission of our work to journals will occur at the end of this month.

The "teaching" side of my job is something I spend about 10 hours a week doing. 8-12 on Wednesdays and 8-2 on Thursdays. For my teaching I work with Dr. O'Dowd. She received a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to help reform undergrad biology classes at UCI, which can hopefully serve as a model for other large, research universities. My particular project is helping to write an essay that serves as a call to instructors to use "Garage Demonstrations" in lecture. Demonstrations have a fundamental presence in physics instruction. In a similar way, Dr. O'Dowd has incorporated demonstrations into her lecture. However, unlike physics, there is no easy way to directly show biological concepts. Dr. O'Dowd uses simple things she finds in her home and her lab (hence the "garage" in the name) to demonstrate biological principles. This allows students to make associations with common objects and also to go home and recreate these demos at home on their own. Along with the paper, we are going to submit supplemental videos of these demos in action, coupled with commentary on what we're doing and general considerations when performing demos using VCASMO. This is what takes the bulk of my time and something I'll hopefully be done with in 2-3 weeks.

I'm scheduled to work for less than two more months. My last day of work should be on 7/1. I'm excited to finish but I really like what I do so I know I'll miss it when the time comes. I've learned a lot about science during my time with my job but more importantly, I've learned a lot about myself. Those are the lessons that I'll never forget.

Randy Pausch

2008-05-06T21:07:00.000-07:00

About two months ago Dr. O'Dowd told me about this video that was on YouTube featuring Randy Pausch, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Melon. We were talking about how the videos that we are creating for my job (which I'll talk about some other time) should be between 5 and 7 minutes in length otherwise people get bored. However if you type in Randy Pausch's name on YouTube you will get back the only video on the site that is over an hour long.

Randy Pausch's lecture is part of a series of lectures known as "Journeys" in which faculty members at Carnegie Melon University "share their reflections on their journeys -- the everyday actions, decisions, challenges and joys that make a life." Faculty members are instructed to think of this as if it were the "last lecture" of their lives and their final chance to pass on their accumulated wisdom to the world. Yet for Dr. Pausch, the title of "Last Lecture" is all too fitting. In August of 2007 Dr. Pausch found out that the pancreatic cancer that he was previously diagnosed with in September 2006 had metastasized to his liver and spleen. At the time of his lecture he was told he only had a few more months to live so this would truly be his last lecture, entitled "Really Living Your Childhood Dreams."

I was originally told to watch this video because it was a rare lecture that was over an hour long yet still kept the viewer's attention. This was definitely true. Any time my attention began to wane, I would give the video a minuter or two to recapture my interest. The next thing I knew, 10 minutes had passed. It was fascinating to hear how someone accomplished all of their life's goals. There were two lessons that I got from the video that I think I always knew but never really heard spoken before: 1) Brickwalls are there to prevent the people who really want something from achieving it and 2) People only critique you if they care enough to see you improve, if they stop critiquing then it's time to get worried.

These lessons are definitely important to me now as I apply to medical school, writing letters in attempts to get off some waitlists and at work as I receive feedback on my projects. These are lessons that are constantly on my mind and that I hope to take with me into medical school and throughout the rest of my life as I run into walls and receive critique.

Despite Randy Pausch's terminal diagnosis, and having only been given a few months to live, he continues to raise awareness about pancreatic cancer. However his health has been declining as of late. You can actually follow his progress here. In all the iterations of his lecture, his message has reached a combined total of 6 million people. Hopefully I've inspired at least one other person to take a look. I think the impact of his message is pretty damn cool. Something I would like to aspire to before my time comes.

Blogging Again

2008-05-03T17:33:00.000-07:00

In 5 days (5/8) it would have been a year since I typed up a blog entry. Since medical school is coming up and I will most likely be separated from friends and family I've decided to start up again. My main reason for keeping a blog is just to keep my parents, Tammy and anyone else who is interested in what I'm doing, up to date about my life. That being said I don't really have much to say now! It annoys me that the inspiration for me to write usually comes to me either in the early morning when I'm too busy or too tired to actually type anything or when I'm going to bed and my computer is already off! Maybe I'll have to keep some writer's notebook next to my bed just to get past that hurdle.

That being said ... I don't have much to say at the moment! Waitlists for medical school officially start moving on the 15th. Since I'm on waitlists for five different schools that I would rather go to at the moment, I'm both excited and nervous. There will definitely be an updated once I know where I'm going. Until then, there is much waiting to be done!