Mumford & Sons is the new SotM

These guys are currently my favorite band out there, and this (the song of the moment) is one of my favorite songs by them.  It builds very nicely and deserves a few minutes of your time.  Give it a listen!

In other news, I have finished my first year of medical school.  This is a happy thing.  The summer involves enjoying time with Jess, playing video games, catching up on tv shows and movies, and doing research at the children's hospital.  I don't know that it will involve much blogging (beyond the Chick-fil-a post that I promised everyone), but we'll see.

Happy Monday!

Nedroid (because I'm lazy and it made me laugh)

The blog is still here, friends, but my time to attend to it is not.  In the meantime, enjoy this wonderful comic.

As always, a billion thanks to Nedroid for making my night last night.

The Hush Sound!

Surprise, school is busy.  Due to preparing for an exam remediation and a bit of rejiggering of priorities (still working on that), the blog has taken a bit of a back seat.  But here's some music to enjoy!

All three tracks are by one of my current favorite bands, The Hush Sound.  I have to thank my sister, Mandy, for introducing me to this group.  Heavy use of piano, male and female vocalists, and a very peppy sound--what's not to love?  The female lead is Greta Salpeter, and I love her semi-smoky voice, which is why these particular three tracks made it in.  Break the Sky, the 3rd track, is probably the best of the bunch--if you just listen to one of the songs, make it that one.

Sadly, the group is currently on hiatus while Greta and the male lead (Bob Morris) pursue their own solo projects: Gold Motel and Debate Team.  I will investigate them both to see what I think.  Rumor has it that there will be one last reunion show in Chicago in December.  Seeing as Illinois is no longer as far away as it used to be, do I smell a road trip?

Happy Sunday

Happy Sunday, friends.  It's been a good day--church, 3 hour nap, and a yummy dinner with friends (more to come on that).  I leave you with this as I go to bed and get ready for another exam week.  It more or less approximates what I looked like when I started dating Jess.

H/t derp.com

Inception picture

So this picture has been making me laugh a lot, both today and a few weeks ago when I first saw it.  Please enjoy.  FYI, it actually doesn't have anything to do with Inception, but the screen captures are from the movie.

Things We Saw at the Pumpkin Show

• A pumpkin weighing over 1600 lbs.
• A replica of the world's largest pumpkin pie.
• More food vendor stands than things to see and do (aside from people-watching).
• Some friends from our ward.
• A fat guy saying, "I want sum' funnel cake."
• Some scary looking carnies (and some normal looking ones, too)
• Girls dancing to Irish music.  Either they had all slept with tight curlers the night before, or their teacher went wig-happy.
• A castle house.
• A handful of spaces in mouths where teeth should have been, but weren't.
• Pumpkin chili and pumpkin sloppy joes burgers.  And pumpkin waffles, and pumpkin bread, cookies, cake, pie, etc.
• Delicious mini pumpkin donuts, only $3.50 a bag (heaven, especially when fresh from the oil)
• A nice lady running the mini donut stand, who recognized me when I came back an hour later for another back.  Yes, they are just that good.
• A 3-mile long line of traffic waiting to get off the freeway to attend the Pumpkin Show--fortunately we noticed these as we were headed the opposite direction on our way home.

Celebration!

Last week was my 150th blog post (yay.), and to celebrate, I provide you with this most excellent picture.

Yep, it's Darth Vader on a chipmunk.  That about sums it up.

(Thanks, Giz, and good work Powerpig on Flickr)

It's bedtime

Well friends, the test went well and I had a nice relaxing weekend.  Time to hit it again this week, and I'm gonna go to bed now because I was up studying until 2:30 on Thursday night.  So I leave you with this.

Thanks, Derp.com!

In lieu of a longer post

Because I have an anatomy exam on Friday and I want to pass this one, I will be using this time to study rather than composing a longer post.  Please enjoy the video--these folks are pretty amazing.



Special thanks to Up Next In Sports

New SotM!

Just recently, one of my favorite bands released a new album--that's right, Guster has a new release after four years! The album is called Easy Wonderful, and the new SotM is called Do You Love Me (track 2, for those interested).  Check it out, and revel is their returned glory!

Sad to say, Guster was here in Columbus last weekend, just across the street from campus.  Because we had previously-made plans I was unable to attend.  I hope this is not the case next time they come 'round.

Excellent moment in testimony meeting

One of the guys who shared his testimony today said something very clever.  He likened medical school to the mortal portion of the plan of salvation:

"We come to Earth, receive a body, and get tested.  We come to medical school, receive a body, and get tested."

I let out what was probably the loudest laugh that I've ever produced in a chapel, and apparently (Jess said) about half the congregation turned to look.  I hadn't noticed, because I was too busy being entertained.  An excellent Sunday today.  I only wish I had been clever enough to think of it first.

How Do You Learn?

As I mentioned previously, medical school often feels like drinking from the firehose.  The whole process basically involves absorbing large amounts of information at a quick pace.  This is easier in some subjects for me (concept-based ones) than others (memorization-based ones).  Anatomy just happens to be one of those memorization-based subjects, and that is what we're slogging through right now.

I've found that flash cards tend to be a helpful way for me to memorize things, partially because they are very portable (I can go through them on the bus!), and partially because for my brain to memorize things, I have to beat them into it repeatedly.  And then some more.  Occasionally I'll try to come up with mnemonics to help things stick a little better.  Discussing things with other people and reviewing together also helps, as does drawing things out.

But as I am always looking for a better way of doing things, what do you do, dear (5) readers, to make things that you learn stick?

Costco Trips

I love Costco--they have great stuff in bulk for cheap.  They give food samples.  They have a tasty food court.  And where else can you buy a package of toilet paper that weighs more than you do?

We went there on Friday for date night (how romantic!) and picked up all of those aforementioned things.  We got a delicious pizza for ten bucks that's much bigger and much tastier than the Hot and Readys at Little Caesar's.  We also got a yummy tub of cookie dough, ostensibly for baking, but really just for snacking on out of the fridge (yum).

So here's two more things about Costco that I wanted to share with you.

1. Costco milk in Ohio comes in a different shaped jug.  Totally weirded me out the first time I saw it.  But hey, they're stackable!

H/t The Brown's Sanitarium

2. "Pat".  At our local Costco gas station, there is one attendant that we have seen every. single. time. we've filled up.  Like the SNL character, "Pat" (not the real name, so as to protect the innocent and ambiguous) is of indeterminate gender.  Pat's name is one that is usually a female name, but spelling would allow it to be a male's name, too.  Pat's build is completely ambiguous, but skinnily so rather than SNL's fatty.  Hair? Ponytail.  Voice?  Sounds like Shawn from the early seasons of Boy Meets World.  Most of this wouldn't bother me so much if Pat weren't so chatty.  At least half of my visits to the pump consist of awkwardly conversing with a person that wants to come across as a woman, but all of my senses are screaming to me is a man.  And the pump just doesn't seem to pump fast enough.

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.