Happy birthday, Kelli!

In honor of Kelli (my sister)'s b-day yesterday, and mostly because I think it will make her and Mandy laugh, I present you tonight's blog post.

I love Nedroid

Thanks Nedroid!

Picture post

Well, it's been a crazy day.  My brain feels like this cat's face looks.  And picture makes me laugh.  Enjoy

Another week, another test

First off, thanks everyone for their kind words on the last post.  I'll be remediating the exam the week after Thanksgiving, and I'll be spending half an hour per day going over stuff from that particular block to make sure I'm ready for it.

At OSU we have the option of two different pathways for our learning to take during our first two (pre-clinical) years.  We face the choice in a few months, and in the meantime we get to sample both.  We have 3 blocks of anatomy that each take about 4 weeks--these are set up with daily lectures and a packet of lecture learning objectives.  On Friday we finished up our independent study pathway sample, which was a week of epidemiology and biostatistics.  There were no lectures to attend, we were simply bought a book, were given a packet of information, and were expected to learn it all for the test at the end of the week (it's a short unit).

This most recent test went much better than the first.  I passed easily, which is nice.  Tomorrow we jump back into anatomy, and I'm going to be careful to not fall behind like last time.  If I had to choose between the two pathways right now, I would probably go with the independent study (because of the better experience).  We'll see how that opinion is affected by the next few weeks.

Wish me luck.

Epic fail

'Tis a sad story indeed that I share with you tonight.  Our first exam was last Friday, and it went well for many people.  Alas, I am not included in the privileged group of "many people."  That's right, I have failed my first test ever.  While I'm not proud of the fact, I am glad that it was only by 4 point (got 66%), and I can't say that it was totally unexpected.

My study habits were not up to snuff--in fact, I hardly studied at all during my first two weeks of class.  This resulted in four days of crazy cramming, which (obviously) did not do the job.  So I had to meet with an academic advisor today and we made a game plan (or rather, she wrote down the plan that I had already formulated before I knew about said meeting).  I have already been doing much better this week with the new unit, and will continue to implement my improved study skills and discipline for next week and onwards.  I also plan to spend about half an hour per day studying stuff from that first unit so that I'll be ready for the remediation after Thanksgiving weekend.

So, word to the wise: give your course material the time that it needs, even if you don't think it needs it.

Catchall

So, first exam is finished.  I learned a lesson the hard way that if you fall behind in medical school, there is no catching up.  The few days leading up to the exam were pretty awful, full of study, study, and more study.  Despite these efforts, I was still not as prepared as I should have been for the test.  Fortunately, at my school there is no official class rank, and all tests are simply pass / fail.  This means that I just had to clear 70% in order to pass.  The exam had two parts, a written portion that we took on our computers in the lecture hall (this was multiple choice and covered anatomy, histology (tissue biology--mostly pictures of cells), and embryology), and the lab practical, which involved going to the cadaver lab and identifying structures on the bodies that had been pinned by the professor and TAs.  I got 75% on the written portion, which means I could miss up to 20 of the 50 practical questions.  I'll get those results later this week.  While normally I would be disappointed with this kind of performance, I did learn a valuable lesson, and the clock essentially resets after each exam.  As long as I pass, I'll be pleased.  And then I'll do better on the next exams.  But enough of that.

In other news, I discovered a way to bring back the song of the moment.  Grooveshark, a very cool music-streaming service, can make widgets for you for free.  They host the music file, and I get to share it on my blog.  And if anyone has concerns about copyright issues, they speak to Grooveshark instead of me.  This is a good thing.  So song of the moment is back from hiatus, and it's back with a song by The Black Keys.  Turns out these guys are from Ohio, which is cool.  It's just two guys, one on guitar and one on drums.  They sound kinda like the White Stripes, and I really like this song.  It probably helps that I found the video entertaining.  Here's the link.

What else... Still on track for 100 books this year.  I'm excited to reach this goal, but don't foresee a specific numerical goal for the next couple of years.  I think this will help me be more willing to read some of the lengthier tomes I've been wanting to get to (Rough Stone Rolling and The Lady in White come to mind).

Also, we played a game last night called "Killer Bunnies", and while it was pretty strange, I thought it was a lot of fun.  Jess even played, which is a pretty big deal.

EDIT: Jess so gently reminded me that she in fact not only played Killer Bunnies (a pretty big feat in and of itself), she also won Killer Bunnies.  Congrats to her, and hopefully this helps her be more excited about playing in the future. :)

First exam!

Well, med school is moving right along.  Our first test is on Friday, and I'm not ready yet.  So I'm going to continue studying instead of making a longer blog post, and I leave you with this video metaphor for the past couple of weeks.



I'm a lucky lucky lucky little boy.

Parasitology Flashback

During my undergrad, I took a course in parasitology, or the study of parasites.  While this class didn't provide me with a lot of information I can use (outside of cool small talk, unless I visit third world countries), it was hands down one of the most interesting classes I have ever taken.  One of the creepy critters we learned about was called Dicrocoelium dentriticum, and it has one of the craziest life-cycles of any organism ever.  The comedic genius at The Oatmeal has illustrated said life-cycle.  Please enjoy.

And that pretty much sums up one of the coolest pieces of knowledge in my head.  Special thanks to The Oatmeal for helping spread (hehe) something so crazy awesome.  Well played, Captain, indeed.

The Little Walk That Turned Into a Big Walk

So tonight we decided to take a little walk to the nearest branch of our public library.  This is the approximate route we planned to take (approximate because the starting point isn't actually our home address, but it gives a good enough idea of routes and distances):


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So yeah, 1.7 miles and half an hour each way.  However, it turns out that we don't know those neighborhoods very well (especially on foot), and we didn't have a GPS with us, nor did we print out a map or write out any sort of directions.  So this is the the route we actually took to get there (scroll up a little so that the whole blue line is visible--it's not wanting to default to a good view):


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Yup, 3.9 miles and almost an hour and a half.  After we had walked so far south, we called the library to ask for directions.  And then turned around and walked the other way for a while.  We finally made it to the library with the DVDs we had checked out last week.  We had 15 minutes until the library closed to browse the shelves for more stuff to watch, and then began our trek home.  Rather than taking the direct route (whoops), this is how we came home:


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Yup, 2.2 miles.  And that was .5 miles more than it would have been if we had followed Jess' suggestion to turn left on Greensview instead of right.  Alas, my directional sense failed me tonight (where are you, mountains?) and I lengthened our expedition.  In order to pass the time, Jess had me tell her scary stories (because we were walking through dark neighborhoods without streetlights--what??).  The first was about large amounts of student loan debt.  The second was based on a story told around the campfire at scout camp by a good buddy of mine.  It was about a creepy dude named Stubbs, who lost his limbs from being run over by a train, then grew extremely long nails / claws out of those stubs.  He runs around on all fours and is just in general a scary character.

So our trip that was supposed to be about 3.4 miles total and a little over an hour and a half turned into a 6 mile journey that took three and a half hours.  Yikes.