Zombie hiatus...

Yes, in the eternity of excitement that *IS* Internal Medicine, I took a minute to find out how kickass Zombieland is after the good part of a day was spent with the roommate scarfing Indian food, costume-shopping, tea-drinking, and Times-Square-smack-talking.

Friday was kind of a crappy day at work, made better by having Daniel come home about 30 minutes after I did and suggest Maria's Happy Hour. Hells yes.

Saturday was shopping day; I have new clothes, shoes, and smiles. Then Saturday night with the Maenad and her fair god of wine at the Slipper Room (hosted by a Sealboy) followed by a wine bar. Good times.

Sunday, hit a travel expo with my mom after taking her to an awesome lunch in Nolita. The distinguishing part of the day after that was trying to zipline while keeping my dress "family friendly". That took some doing, and I'm sure there's some youtube videos showing where I failed.

Now, to undo the debauchery of the weekend!

Steampunk Taxidermy

Hallo all!

After my brain imploded from an hour and a half of reviewing antivirals. "Reviewing" means "seeing for the first time ever because you skipped those lectures in both micro and pharm because the names had a minimum of five syllables, a mishmash of Qs and Zs, and all end in 'vir'. Damn you, drug companies!), I got to Stumbling as my break, which like all random-find internet engines, introduces you to a subsubniche of weird just when you thought you'd grown jaded from every bizarre fetish Japan had to offer. And there's a lot of them!

As a result of my newfound tour into sub-subcultures, I discovered my new "if I wash out of medicine career": steampunk taxidermist!

I mentally ventured into being an Alaskan crab fisherwoman because I like the ocean and they make serious bank, but the last election left me less enamored with Alaska, plus I get seasick and am a giant chicken. Plus, living in the Caribbean has destroyed my years of nerve-numbing ice skating talent, so now I shiver when there's a cool breeze. I'm told all of these traits would affect my earning potential as an Alaskan crabfisherwoman. So that's out.

I've also played with being a Tahitian pearl diver, but I've kind of had my fill of living on small islands for a while, and see above about being a green-gill coward. So probably not. Oh, and I'm not wild about pearls.

But with steampunk taxidermy, using only the family dog and parts from a rusted out car engine, you can be a master.

I was uncertain about what "steampunk" was, since Grenada doesn't exactly have a huge variety of subcultures, I'm guessing due to the small population, huge price of importing anything, and the climate's proclivity to make wearing anything more interesting than "shorts and a t-shirt, possibly not the t-shirt" ill advised.

Fortunately, google prevailed:



For some reason, probably due to intense bouts of cabin fever wrapped insomnia, I find this all absolutely fascinating.

So what's new? Uhhh... let's see... I started having sleep problems again, though fortunately not psycho ones, which have been alleviated by a nice doctor in Aurora as a bonus to my mandatory physical/titers/TB test/anal probe (just kidding, or AM I?? yeah, I am... maybe)/questionnaire that the school makes us do so they won't be releasing foam-dripping consumptive suicidal typhoid marys on the unsuspecting patient population. Nope, just scared, book-smart, experience-dumb twelve-thumbed medical students. Mwa ha ha ha.

Anyway, Aurora is a town which is dropped in the middle of scenic nothingness, thus I was confused as to *why* there is a town there, until the phlebotomist informed me that there's a phosphorus mine where they dig up tons and tons of fossils.

So my dork-radar fully turned on, and as I jabbered about bones, she directed me back to the nurse who had done my vitals who has an extremely extensive fossil collection, which she gently explained to me in idiot mode because as an anthro major, I am to her what archeologists are to physical anthro people. "Oh... you like NEW stuff. Well...", and she showed me all the pictures and a few of the real deal that she has at work, AND gave me a sand tiger shark tooth to make into a necklace.

Yeah, so I'll definitely be going back to Aurora. Nice! Oh, and they were all very colleague professional cool, with the doc (who had actually taken the USMLE versus the one I went to before who apparently got certed back in the days of state boards, and genuinely asked "well, why would you be stressed about taking that?"), who gave me the time honored advice: "After you take the test, you'll feel like you failed, so try to stay away from sharp objects".

Hmm, expert medical care, short wait times, fossil museum adjacent, and appreciative of irony? Oh, Aurora.

Oh, but speaking of that whole make you or break you test, what have I been doing? I'm still embedded in micro, but on the last night of it, FINALLY, which has honestly been hanging on me for so long that I'm looking forward to immuno. I've been doing USMLE World practice questions, and am finally getting good at the micro area, since apparently phoning it in during fourth term to focus on path didn't really score me a lot on the "long term recall" scale. Whoda thought?

That, and of course, googling "steampunk". Cuz you gotta prioritize.

Remember kids, if I don't pass the boards, come right back here for your own modded out family pet. The longtime readers will get a half off special.

Comedic hiatus

Woo hoo! Day off! Due to skipping last week's day off and being really really industrious studying my ass off, this puts me (drumroll) only a week behind schedule! Yee ha!!

So as I'm off to bed at this delicate hour, I leave you with this hilarious description someone wrote who was apparently spying on me while I was in college, which carries over some of its nasty habits to USMLE study:

Enjoy.

Gila Monster Spit

So I started studying again tonight after essentially taking a two week bender minus the OSCE and the BSCE2, which are two exams that matter but don't matter but the first one matters more but is still Clinical Skills but the second one is 7 hours and makes you feel like a complete moron that has wasted the last two years, so blah.

But tonight I finally broke down and dug into the antidiabetes lectures for pharm, since that class requires three times the study of pathophys while being half the units because words I'm unfamiliar with (like thiazolidinediones, and no, I didn't make that one up) go straight in one ear and out the other.

But what did stick, and will probably be the *only* thing that sticks from pharm before I'm forced to cram it all back in for the USMLE, is that there's a diabetes drug made from the salivary gland of Gila monsters, which is one of the most random things I can imagine other than that whole "don't freeze your polar bear meat" from parasit.

It also leaves a number of questions... such as... what on earth was the scientist smoking when he decided to try that one out? How many other lizards got screened. Did he go straight to lizards or was there a whole move up the phylogenetic tree before he honed in on that *specific lizard*.

Also... if I get bitten by a Gila monster, and I'm diabetic, will I be half-okay?

Also... this kind of makes a weird conservation argument. Never drive anything to extinction that might treat a disease with some improbable part of its anatomy. Next up... wombat gonads cure struma ovarii. You heard it here first.

Oh yeah, those test things and the whole birthday thing...

Pathophys, despite woefully understudying it this time around, turned out well. That nice busty curve helps a lot.

Pharm would be discouraging in studying twice as hard for this exam as I did for the last one and only boosting my grade by four points until I realized that they threw out 15 questions on the last exam, so I actually boosted my grade by 19 points... that makes me feel better at night.

OSCE: No results, and I suck at reading chest X-rays that don't have anything glaringly obviously wrong with them. I'm also bad at reporting EKGs when the diagnosis seems to be "Patient's heart exploded". "Oh good, ST elevation in 6 leads, ST depression in two leads, one lead is inexplicably missing from this read out, dicrotic R waves, spiking T waves, sawtooth P waves... I mean, did this guy's thorax crack open and an alien spewed out of there? WTF? And 10 minutes to read it and report it."

This is when the more practical types ask me what I'd do when I'm a real doctor, and this is when I even MORE practically answer "panic and page the attending".

The OSCE was well run though, I have to admit. The patients were also super nice. You get feedback from them after 7 minutes (during which I ran out of time on... oh, all of them), and while the clinical tutors were more "Um, you completely neglected to do X" (appropriately), the patients were like "I would feel very comfortable with you as my doctor, and I really felt like you empathized with what I was telling you" etc, so wahoo to fake patients.

Actually, most of the fake patients (and real ones) we've gotten since first term have been really cool. The OSCE chick that was doing rotator cuff syndrome actually locked her muscles when you hit a certain point on the rotation, such that I could feel it tense, so she's not only kind, but a decent actor.

We also had a really good actor last term that had aches and pains related to her husband's recent death, and she was recalling the story well enough, that it half choked me up.

Prior, as mentioned, was the BSCE2. Whoda thought the Carnitine transporter was so important? Not me! I have *no* idea how I did on that one. I needed a 52 to pass, and don't really need to pass, so the fact that I was actually pushing to know the answers rather than bailing after half an hour out of 8 is a testament to just how anal retentive I am. Huzzah.

So we had the whole "drag ishie out to Stuart's Wednesday night as the clock hits midnight on when her birthday starts" that I mentioned (and loved) and the wrestling ON my birthday that still has my arms covered in bruises.

Friday was my birthday at Prickly Bay and it was absolutely spectacular. All hail the Barbie Cake!



Christine found the candle at IGA and built the rest of the cake around it to create me an absolute Anti-Ishie cake that was not only delicious in taste but delicious in irony. A bunch of people showed at Prickly Bay, we had pizza, the band came on and they were great, I have awesome friends, and I got to dance in the rain. Dave's coming to visit me in the US next term, which is my (very awesome) birthday poster, and Krash made me a big poster that she got a bunch of people in the BSFCR class to sign, so it's all been good. People have still been wishing me a happy birthday a week later, which is highly cool, and I've been getting well wishes from my Annex Peeps rolling in, so I feel very and completely loved.

Then it was Banana's, then, I believe, a night swim at the beach, because I don't learn. And plus night time shark jokes never get old.

Next morning was the Sauteurs hash! Woot! And total mudhash it was, and more cuts and bruises to add to my wrestling injuries. I've been wanting to go to Sauteurs forever, and I finally got to see that beautiful beach. Hung out with Grace and Dem for it and managed to score some cheap and great BBQ chicken, nutmeg ice cream, and beer before booking it back onto the bus... for the Unity Ball, which I was needed for pouring wine and champagne, which I pictured as occurring behind some sort of a bar with a shelf behind me. Ha.

I got home, climbed into the shower with my clothes on (again) to avoid carnage, and quickly realized I would not be able to wear a skirt because my legs and arms were torn up, so I figured, nice long sleeved shirt and slacks, no worries, just working.

Whoa. Not only was everyone dressed up like senior prom, but everyone was getting drunk and fast. While there were a ton of nice people who were giving me no problem, and Grace was dropping me homemade gingerbread over the tops of people's heads like she was feeding a fish, there were also a ton of people YELLING that we're too slow, that we're out of the wrong wines, that we generally suck, one great guy grabbing me and squawking "Don't you wish your boyfriend was a freak like me!!!" approximately 6 feet away from my *actual* boyfriend, and then barring that, they just ran into the back to grab our dwindling wine bottles.

Oh, and someone threw a beer bottle down the stairs, and the bar areas were so soaked in alcohol it was hard to walk. I dunno, I wasn't up for the mood of it and was underdressed, so I felt the majority feeling irritated, a little embarrassed, and toward the end where it started turning ugly, like I wanted to chew my arm off to get out of there. But I saw some of my friends and they all looked great.

So it's *definitely* studying time. Or sleeping time, as the case may be. Night!

What exams?

Yeah, I'm just not able to work up any enthusiasm for this next set, per the norm for this term. Mainly, I just want to go diving.

Oh, for those who didn't make it through the whole pumpkin video, that band is Beasts and Superbeasts. I found the video just by typing "Spooky Halloween" or something into YouTube on a procrastination break, but that song grew on me so I looked them up. Not bad. Definitely not bad.

Incidentally, males castrated before puberty never develop benign prostatic hyperplasia in later life, so I guess the message is, uh... have your kids spayed or neutered?

Ambivalence

in the flesh.

This term has me on an emotional roller coaster that's hard to adequately express because my mood towards it is changing so rapidly as are my approaches to attempt to stave off a bad attitude.

While my nature is generally sarcastic and cynical (as is anyone who read over a hundred issues of the Babysitter's Club as a child), my overall attitude is one I try to generally be happy (being sarcastic makes me happy), try not to let little things get to me beyond the surface irritation, thus I enjoy making fun of things without being too hard-hit by them, with a few notable exceptions that are pretty dramatically splashed onto this blog.

I've also let myself get cases of the deep-blue-funks which made the overall decently-run second term a complete misery for me while I enjoyed the "rabid monkeys made my schedule" fourth term largely by avoiding anything that wasn't mandatory and keeping chipper that this would be the hardest term in basic sciences and I was enjoying most of the material.

Flash forward to my current state of affairs where I am desperately seeking a positive attitude so that I do not waste my last couple months on this tropical island wallowing around feeling sorry for myself. This is difficult because there are a number of negative factors that are making the term a bit of a hell, while not allowing me to sink too deeply because there are a bunch of goods, and the goods are frequently rather spectacular goods, which just gives me that whole unstable bipolar feeling that I never know if I'm going to cry or dance around.

This is all being exacerbated by my having an absolutely *galloping* case of senioritis, thus I don't feel like doing anything, go for long periods of doing absolutely nothing but procrastinating, then followed by marathon study sessions, all the while kind of resenting that they're making me do this whole med school thing when I'm supposed to be relaxing on the beach, doing hashes, going scuba diving, playing guitar, seeing monkeys, island hopping, and all the other impossible goals I hoped to get in before leaving for good. Like it's third term or something.

Oh, to get onto the good... I've been chronicling this little battle with the pathophys department for a while, which was constituting a lot of the "bad". Long story short: chancellor letter, huge and surprising response, big open forum where we got listened to by all the department heads and the deans, some initial changes made that were promising, and continue to look promising, but cautious optimism.

This took a slight down-swing with hearing the reports to the fourth termers, though their 5/6th might be worse than ours, in that they were told a couple of times that they'd need to bring back all their books and notes (unrealistic and sucktastic, but at least announced), but that the current term (ours) had a bunch of complaints because no one told us we would have to think critically so they should be prepared for that for the next term.

So that was kind of pissy. "Well, we can't tell the 5/6th termers this because they'd completely destroy us in a debate over it by citing our lack of organization and preparation while citing the past pathology course as requiring integration and the BSCE1 as being a test of our recall from other classes, but we just wanted to let you fourthies know that unlike your special-ed upperclassmen, who have made it to the near-end of their second year of medical school without being able to arrive at any conclusion that wasn't drawn out in capital letters on something shiny for them, you're actually going to have to use your brains next term, so be prepared."

BUT

Lest I withhold credit where credit is due, they are reinstituting a curve based on the actual class averages and standard deviations, per an announcement on Angel! Woo hoo!!!! And though NONE of the renal Sonic Foundry lectures have been posted, the notes for heme, GI and renal were on time, and they changed up the way the BSFCR was run, as they indicated they would while getting the objectives up in advance, as they also said they would, so while I have no idea how this is going to play out on the upcoming exam, I'm going to go ahead and give the administration credit for following through on this one, and make it generally known that if you do feel like your education is taking an inexcusable hit, politely express that, and you never know what can happen. While I'm not wildly appreciative of the announcement to fourth term, it was made to fourth term, and so long as they're fixing the problems that are plaguing this term and are aware of the problem, I'm going to go ahead and give them a pass on saying anything they like. I mean, I'm going to completely make fun of it, but that's all part of the "not a deep hurt" part of above.

In Clinical Skills, they continue to demonstrate that though there is a ton of disorganization, you generally don't have to go any higher than the department heads (or sometimes the tutors) to get a response, and the disorganization seems regretted and inadvertent. And as I've said all along, attitude goes a *long* way with me. If you point out a problem and someones says "I'm really sorry for the inconvenience and we're working to do _________ to fix it.", I will readily let a whole lot of stuff go. Today, during our morning session, one of the students in my group pointed out that our patient write up grades hadn't been posted yet, which is important so we know what we can fix for the next ones, and they were up by this afternoon, and the reception of the request was apologetic and active rather than defensive. Pretty impressive.

The department is also fairly accommodating to students in situations that are directly the student's fault (totally guilty), and I haven't really seen any of their instructors or directors be overtly nasty, gripey, or unprofessional. Usually they're extremely friendly, helpful, and eager to add on stuff that'll benefit us. I'm not giving a pass on the organization, because it is a problem, but knowing you can actually talk to them and they'll respond nicely is honestly one of the high points of my experience with the school. I'm not sure what that says about me or the school, but there you go.

Pharm. Pharm is the definition of ambivalence for me, as I've mentioned before because I maintain that it is well run, but I hate this class probably more than any other and it is taking up a huge portion of my time, which means I'm spending a huge amount of time focusing on a subject that is difficult, heavy, high yield, and mindnumbing. So it's a lot like being forced to spend 2-8 hours of your day eating liver. It's good for you; it may be made well by champion chefs and butchers, but it's still going to ruin your day.

Clinic. The clinic is driving me nuts. 90 minutes minimum to renew prescriptions, only to have it dragged on for a week or two weeks or whatever the on-duty feels like giving me and having the pharmacy frequently out of what I need, while the mail from home isn't reliably making it. Not a great use of time. Also an added stress I don't need hitting right at the end.

Social... another big source of ambivalence. I'm finding more and more that I like a huge number of the students at this school, and have established close friendships with a number of them and I'm deeply enjoying being around them. My boyfriend is being completely awesome, per usual, and since we're both incarcerated in the study hall a lot, it means I get to spend more time with him.

BUT... (there's always a but)... I am becoming more and more acutely aware that though I'm extremely excited to get done with basic sciences and begin the next stage of my life, I am also going to lose the close contact with my fellow convicts and we're all going to get scattered to the wind. Many of us will likely end up at the same hospitals, and there's internet connections, but it's not the same, and I'm going to miss that. Some of my closest friendships have been made on this island, and I'm going to be abandoning that to have a close relationship with my step 1 videos. I'm going to miss running into a ton of people I know and like on campus, at the beach, at the market, and the whole closeness of the campus. Yes, this also creates a fishbowl here, but it can be a pretty comforting one, and soon, it's going to be back to the scary real world, having lost the ability to hold conversations with people that aren't Caribbean medical students. "Hey, how are you doing? So... who's running for president? Did you catch the last season of that show that ended three years ago? Don't you hate it when you're trying to watch an episode of House, but the channel feed keeps switching between the Colorado and New York feed so you can't tell when it's on? It's about as reliable as the egg supply at IGA. Wanna go get a Carib? How many EC do they go for at that bar on the corner? As long as they're not blasting soca, know what I mean? No?"

Also, there's the scenery. I love the scenery in the states too, don't get me wrong, but even after nearly two years, I frequently look around and am taken in by the surreality of essentially living in a Windows screensaver. Though I probably go to the beach and dive way less frequently than I did in California (and no, I didn't live near the beach), the fact that it is so close is something I'm always aware of.

So it's a whole weird thing. I'm having to do "next stage of life" things like register for the USMLE, which was always this huge looming someday off in the distance thing and now it's a 700$ charge on my credit card and I'm having to choose date periods and get photos made for my ID. I'm having to figure out what I'm doing for rotations, when I'm starting them, and how I'm handling the period in between rather than just continuing on the island, paying my rent. I'm dealing with what I'm going to do with all my stuff, people are touring my apartment, and it's a huge change.

I'm going to get to see my family again. I'm going to get to have seasons again. My clothes are going to last longer and can be varied. I'm going to get to have fast food and cheap meat and ethnic cuisine, and trips to the grocery store, and quick pick ups of anything I need as close as the local love/hate Walmart. I'll be able to drive. I won't need to book a boat or a plane to anywhere outside of an 11X22 mile radius.

So it's all... blah, mixed up inside me. And making it hard to study. As is the suddenly rescheduled meeting at 5 tonight.

To change gears abruptly (much like my moods at any given second), I guess I'll Sandblast-talk, since that's an actual event rather than some diary description of my overall feelings.

Since I wasn't behind in school enough, I chose to hit the last Sandblast for me (hopefully), which had a Halloween theme, making it particularly appealing because I love Autumn and Halloween, and they don't really do either here. I had to grab and orange AND black t-shirt since they not only had the whole Halloween thing going for them, but chose to mesh it with a Dark Knight Heath-Ledger-as-Joker pumpkin "Why so serious" motto that just upped the awesome. Well done, designers.

For a change, I actually got there close to when it opened rather than sleeping late and not getting there until they were half out of beer thing that I normally do. I also chose to maintain a steady state of alcohol in my bloodstream rather than gorging myself on it first thing, falling over, and being done for the evening by 5 PM. Muchhhh smarter. Makes for rougher mornings though.

I had promised Ashley a beer pong partner, so we first cruised the area a bit, grabbed our mugs, a well-made cocktail from the bar, hit the food tent and relaxed on the beach for a bit. Refilled a bit later on inexplicably pink beer. We attempted to figure this one out for a while, but it turns out, pink was supposed to be red for *blood* beer. While it ended up looking like we were drinking the run off from an eviscerated Care Bear, it's probably better off that there was not a sufficient amount of red food coloring to turn the beer *really* red or the clinic probably would have had a run on it the next morning the likes of which has never been seen.

So beer pong started up and we wandered over, and promptly watched a couple vet students run the table to a degree that it was surprising they were still standing.

To our credit, we got them down to the last cup to sudden death, and that is *quite* an accomplishment, but sadly, they got it in for the win. Much shame. Ran into Jay and Jordan, hung out with them for a while, and got a full thing of beer dumped over me by two guys who were "fighting or are they wrestling, I'm not sure, let's just move". Fortunately, you wear disposable clothes to Sandblast.

Ran into Grace and Dem and headed down to the Owl to watch the game. Good chicken wings there but unfortunately, only crab racing on Monday nights, which I still haven't seen. Some pool, some jeopardy, a good night swim, then home to preen for Bananas, which I ended up leaving with Grace and Dem at around 5 in the morning. Gods.

If this seems excessive, this is pretty much "just another Sandblast". One thing about medical school is that it destroys your sanity *and* your liver.

So now I'm paying the price and attempting to catch up pharm... which will leave me catching up renal in pathophys, which inexplicably puts me in the same place as everyone who either studied for the entirety of last weekend OR spent the entire weekend drinking. It's like the entire class procrastinates together and always seems the same number of lectures behind. See why I love these guys?

Fully Sandblasted

And infinitely behind as a result, though I got a few hours in at Taylor today. Sorry for no updates for a while, but I'm out of ambien, which is making me a very cranky and addled Ishie, indeed. And I'm due to report for surgery rotation in the nasty hour of the morning and hope like hell when I get back I'll be able to get in rather than having my apartment manager bang on the door to show my apartment when I have the Do Not Disturb sign up for the third consecutive business day in a row. Gods man, I sleep DAYS. And have since I got here. This should surprise no one. More later and nighty night.

A good professor...

Unfortunately, one from a year ago.

Ahhh... pathophys... does anyone have the remotest idea how to study for this class? Alas, I fear not.

The physiology department magnanimously decided to allow some of our old notes to be put back up on Angel so we can make some sense out of what we're doing now, and by "magnanimously", I am not being sarcastic. This also served to remind me that I STILL HAVE MY PHYSIO NOTES, which is absolutely awesome, because with the glaring exception of pulmonary physio, the notes for that class were really good. Hard as hell and full of equations, but well spelled out, particularly the cardio notes, which is the only reason I was able to get through something that physics-ricious the first time.

This whole physio path pathophysio thing is a conundrum for me. You see, I hated physio. Really really really did not like it at all. This was my feeling despite the fact that the class (again, except pulmonary) was well taught, the notes were organized, the labs relevant, and the material extremely important. Just didn't resonate, and it confused me.

Contrast to path. I really like pathology. I really didn't like the way the general philosophy and structure of the class, so I abandoned it (sans labs, which were good), which kept me from chewing off my own face last term.

So now we have pathophys, which is combining being new and completely disorganized without much in the way of clear objectives, with physio, which I never fully "got" and didn't like, but without the instructors that say "I'm going to assume you guys think the heart is something in a valentine and go from there". Because that is still where I like to start out. I still literally have to draw out the heart any time I'm trying to figure something out with it so I can follow the blood flow around like I'm figuring the maze on the side of a Happy Meal box.

BUT, now I have my physio notes, which I had forgotten at some level that I had, and now that I'm going back over the stuff that mystified me in second term due to its math/graph heaviness, *I'm actually understanding it* now that I've gotten older, wiser, and have gotten used to having to teach myself material. And as I'm going through it, I'm remembering just how much I loved Dr. Parry because a lot of her little expressions and analogies are suddenly firing back up in my memory from when I was watching her on Sonic Foundry back in the day (some things never change). And since path wasn't as difficult for me (no math), I'm now able to apply disease pathologies on top of the physio stuff I hadn't fully understood before.

Which I think is the point, though damned if I'm going to know that until after the first exam. Or until after I fail the boards; one or the other. Unfortunately, it's taken a month for me to even be able to sort out where to BEGIN to approach, so I'm hoping it's not past the point of no return. And having pharm (aka micro on crack) is not helping at all, though mnemonics are helping me sort some stuff out.

So how to celebrate this drowning feeling? I'm thinking Saturday hash, I truly am...

Eating too much; studying too little

Argh, getting into the swing of the new term is a difficult task, and progressively getting more difficult by my steadfast refusal to catch up.

Instead, I'm finding myself lamenting over all the stuff I need to do before I leave the island for good... oh, not study stuff, I've been doing that for a year and a half... no, stuff like "see the monkeys", "go to Carriacou", "Do six dives", and that sort of thing. I'm also realizing how much I like my colleagues, and how I'd much rather do stuff like eat dinner with them and hang out, or go to parties, or swim at the beach, rather than doing that whole studying thing, which can wait, and then it can wait until tomorrow, and then it can wait until after Obama's speech.

It doesn't help that I have absolutely no idea how to study for pathophysiology because I'm not sure what the exact goal is other than "Remember everything from the last two years, because it's all testable". And I'm still recovering from an awesome summer, so that leaves me lazy and worried about my sloth. Also worried about not being able to spot memorize thirty drugs at a time.

So today, after a LONNNNNG pathophys session, I headed to the new Italian place to sample that stuff with a friend... then to Rituals to try some of their cake and check out the ambiance and realize that they turn it into a wine and cheese bar every night at 6. I'm sure THAT won't have a deleterious effect on my study habits. Then, a necessary shopping trip. Then, catch up with a girl I haven't seen in months, hang at her place for dinner, eating a homecooked meal (not my cooking of course, but I did provide the salad dressing) and watching Animal Planet...

All of which is awesome. So awesome, in fact, that I lament having to leave that early, not do the 90s Party, which I'd love to do, and instead sulkily attempt to glean something from my pathophys lectures so that I can do the quiz this weekend. The horror.

Now my only feat is to determine whether my complete sloth is limited only to me, or if I can be reassured by similar echoings from my classmates.

The struggle continues

to get something done and catch up my week's truancy.

Yesterday, I actually managed to be pretty productive, confirming that I indeed do not understand the first few hours of pharm and all it's pretty graphs, but it got better after that and I burned through that week's lectures.

Today... ooh... well, I watched the ending of Surf's Up, which despite being about surfing penguins, ended up being less soulless than the part of Happy Feet that I watched last term when I was also procrastinating. So then I settled in to really get into Autonomic Pharmacology, when I get a message from Lori asking if I want to go to the beach.

Well, yeah! I mean, I haven't been back to Grand Anse since I've been back, so totally justified, right? Right?

Good decision too; it was an absolutely perfect day. The water was a great temperature, and I saw a school of baby squid (squidlets?), a snake eel, two flying gernards, a bunch of arrow crabs, and so forth. Plus, it allowed me a few minutes to keep working on the non-tan I got in Europe. That's the tan you get when you look really really white, but when you pull up the arm of your t-shirt, you can see the vaguest line that shows where you are even whiter, and by contrast, it constitutes a tan. Or so I'm told.

So I choked in a little pharm after that, while shuffling in a much needed shower, laundry run, and dishwashing, so all together, I think that counts as being marginally productive this weekend.

Titlis ho!

Yeah, I wasn't going to make the requisite Mt. Titlis joke, but I'm only human, and an immature human at that, so deal with it.

I went to the Alps today! It's weird to type that. Got on the wrong train at first but transferred quickly so no real delay and headed to Engelberg, largely on the advice of a travel magazine we picked up for free in Basel, a town we'd only discovered because there were no hostels in Bern, so we booked the first night in Basel and the second night in Zurich.

Of course, once we got to Zurich, instead of seeing this famed and fabulous city, we immediately booked it into the mountains, though before heading to Zurich to drop off our stuff at the hostel, we did manage to see the Rathaus in Basel and cross the river on a ferry. The ride from Luzerne up to Engelberg and back was amazing: a three car red train through the Alps, punctuated by alpine streams, cows with big traditional bells around their necks, and all the other Heidi stuff. I kept feeling like none of it was real due to the sheer magnitude of the scenes, all with mountains jutting up sheer around it. We walked around, saw the base of Titlis, though no time to take the cable car to the top, and then on the way back, got a thunder and lightning show at dark as the train regularly whistled through the towns. Surreal.

Dijon tomorrow, and we've booked our hostel in London on the 14th, so the only question is what to do between Dijon and London. These are the difficult sorts of decisions that consume us in life... that and "how am I going to pass my 5/6th term classes while being a week late getting back?"

My steam runneth outeth

And such-eth.

Arrrrrgggghhhh, the final stretch is the worst. On the plus side, the last CNS lecture closer was not only by a prof I like, but was 16 minutes long just to tie stuff up, which meant when I saw the length on Sonic I did my little happy dance.

Not really sure why seeing the length on Sonic affects my mood as if I'm tied in for each one until the bitter end, yet when I see 42 minute lectures, I cheer, and when I see 58 minute lecture ones, I groan, as if this somehow affects the amount of information I need to get or decreases my study time. I think, because the conclusion of each feels like progress, and that progress gets closer, as I tally down my "how many lectures I'm behind" count.

Now, I'm determining if the forensic path lectures next week will be the first time I've regularly attended lecture since midway through second term.

In my struggle to continue my streak of procrastination to increase panic mode as we close in, I did some laundry today, though it may have been a good thing, since my normal pre-exam mode thing is to leave it all until I am COMPLETELY out of clothes a day or two before the exam, which of course means I can't do laundry, and of course DOES mean having to sit the exams in my least gnarly pair of scrubs. Coming back from laundry, I saw two guys from my complex taking pictures of what I initially thought, was the pick up truck parked on our lawn. Turns out it was the bull NEXT to the pick up truck, who had wandered into our front yard to munch on the bushes and grass, so to prolong my attempts to not study, I tried to feed him a branch and he licked my hand, but rejected my offering. Picky bulls.

If I ever do get near one of those Looney Tunes style mean scary bulls, I am going to get killed to an extent that will make the coroner vomit. I just don't have the sense to be scared of the things because they look like... well... cows. And cows just don't look scary. Or fast. I'm sure those will be my final thoughts when one outruns me and sticks its horn into my skull.

Speaking of random violence, I saw the last half of 300. It was educational. First, I learned that while it's awesome to watch guys in leather speedos fight, it doesn't make for wildly effective battle protection. Second, I learned that Persians are easier to kill than stormtroopers, and a fair number of them that actually planned ahead and donned armor still managed to get slashed to bits with minimal effort by guys in leather speedos. I'm not sure who to be more embarrassed for. The Persian faction *did* demonstrate some poor planning by piercing everything though. As anyone with hoops or a belly ring that's been to a rock concert knows, this is extremely hazardous, and grows more so when your enemy likes to fight in close combat.

Accomplishments this week

C/S exam on Monday: Check
Miss lab on Monday: Check
See leatherback turtles Monday: Check

Tuesday: Go to lab. Screw around all day watching Inuyasha and Scrubs reruns and hastily attempt to do slides for Wednesday: Check

Wednesday: Go to lab. Do nothing else all day: Check

Thursday: Realize you have a study session scheduled Friday. Do nothing for *most* of the day, realize you're wholly unprepared for Friday, and try to inhale female reproductive lectures like potato chips while simultaneously checking email: Check

Friday: Do nothing most of the day. Try to ram in some lectures at the last minute before study session. Go jogging. Do study session. Watch Dusk until Dawn and Clerks 2: Check

Saturday: Realize you've done nothing all week. Go to campus to catch hash bus to perpetuate cycle. See former-fellow hasher attempting to study and peer pressure him into going on hash bus instead of to library: Check

Do hash, get back to apartment early so you can study. Instead, lie on sofa being too lazy to clean out your fresh wounds from hash, watch Wanda Sykes comedy special. Decide to study. Blog instead: Check

The level of lazy I've achieved honestly rivals the period where I was unemployed, except I don't have a Playstation 2 in Grenada.

But I'll report on the hash since, in being both a school event (kind of, but not really, but leaves from campus, so I'm counting it) and in being the only real physical exercise I've committed to since well before midterms, it's the closest I've come to being productive all week.

St. Andrews! Unfortunately, we didn't actually get to see the big waterfall, so I'm going to have to go back for it, which is no hardship; the drive is extremely pretty, the people are nice, and the area's cool, so there ya go.

When I came to Grenada, first term, I really did not expect that our librarian would be running around yelling "BRING OUT YOUR VIRGINS!!!" If I had known in advance, I totally would have applied to this school years earlier. Ta daa:



Dave called this a hash for the vertically challenged, due to obstacles such as this one. Considering it still meant pulling my vertically challenged self over the large logs I couldn't go under, and then having to jump down like a little kid, I'm still going to call being tall a definite hash advantage:



But it did enable me to get a little easier through this grassy uh... thing. And yes, that's a Bacardi shirt. Live it loud, live it proud.

Doing hashes tends to run you through people's yards. Fortunately, they don't seem to mind much.



And no matter how many times I see similar scenery (Grenada's not that big), I never get tired of it:









Mmmm... dinner... or the inspiration for a crappy William Carlos Williams poem. No wheelbarrow though.

Fun tax!!!



Early on in the hash during the most strenuous part, I managed to get a pricker vine wound around my calf, which naturally stopped my progress quite suddenly when it ran out of slack, and took me down like a bear trap. The fall tightened its hold on my calf, promptly ripping it open, a fact at this point, that was unknown to me, since I mainly squawked because I wasn't expecting to fall.

So I'm hiking along when the people behind me go "Uhh.. whoa, you're bleeding. We know to follow you!" and I look down and there's blood just all over my leg, and say "I think this means you *shouldn't* follow me." So for the rest of the hash, as the people behind us varied depending on how fast we were going and how many pictures I was stopping to take, I kept getting the "Whoa!" reaction, despite the fact that it looks WAY worse than it feels.

I also apparently need to get into better shape (duh). This was my third hash and prior to midterms, I was jogging relatively frequently. As I was stumbling along rather effectively, I thought (I hike by creative falling, which consists of sliding around on slippery rocks and mud, while catching myself in a forward momentum that keeps me upright 90% of the time while contributing to my progress with the grace of an epileptic duck), the guy behind me laughingly went "First hash, eh?" To which I replied "Nope. Just a klutz."

But!!! Better a klutz than a virgin!



Look at em! Lined up just awaiting their baptism in beer, which I cheerfully contributed to, since I missed the devirginizing at the night hash, so the other time this little ritual was being performed, *I* was on the receiving end.

Note the clothes:



Pure Carib wash!

Also on this hash, I FINALLY got to end my elusive search for oildown, as they had it at the bar where we finished up. Wahoo!!!



And no, it doesn't taste as bad as it looks. I did pick out a couple pieces of pig snout due to the principle that they still had the hair attached to them (a lady's gotta have standards), but the rest was fine.

Then back home after a long and productive day of doing everything but studying!



No really, I'll study tomorrow.

Letters Home

Dear Mom and Dad,

Grenada is nice. I'm making friends with lots of the locals:





School is going okay. I think I finally found a study strategy that works for me:



But I do worry about the effect that it will have on my next exam:



I'm keeping up in path lab, but it's difficult to deal with the overcrowding:



Though the path tutors keep a watchful eye on us:



They still really give you the feeling that they view you as equal colleagues fully worthy of their respect:



Still, despite my progress, and though Grenada's beaches are nice:



It all leaves me feeling well, kind of like this:



So, I've still decided to buy a boat:



And instead of medical school, sail back to Puerto Rico:



Where I can apprentice under the world's fastest bartender:



After a couple years, I'll be heading to Anguilla:



to open a bar of my own:



I've already okayed it with the highest government offices in Anguilla:



I figure, even if it doesn't work out, I can always become an airline pilot... or a short order cook. I'm not sure which:



As always, I love you guys lots, and please send money.

Ishie

Oh, P.S., when you send the wire transfers, please send it to "Esmeralda". I'm going to have to change my name to avoid my student loan creditors:

You know you're procrastinating when...

As King Kong takes on the THIRD simultaneously attacking tyrannosaurus rex, you think "You know, this movie isn't half bad..."

Also, as far as terrifying goes, maybe it's the strong primatology background with my anthro major, but considering how creepy and horrifying those natives were at the beginning, if they'd kidnapped me after I'd watched them bash in the brains of my colleagues, the fact that all of it was to the end goal of throwing me to a giant gorilla would have come as something of a relief.

Down to the wire...

Yup, path exam in 6 hours now, so what am I thinking primarily as I'm doing slide reviews?

I'm thinking... I'm becoming a doctor.

I'm thinking... I'm a mature adult.

I'm thinking... this means I will NOT laugh at the name of the Coxsackie virus. I will NOT laugh at the name of the Coxsackie virus. I will NOT laugh at the name of the Coxsackie virus.

There was the play, then the work...

Easter Weekend, so Thursday and Saturday were my "enjoy the last fun you'll ever have" days, and now, with a week to go until my first path exam, the heat's on.

Saturday was Sandblast. Or more accurately, Sandblast, rejection of Karma for the Snooty Principle, Creole Shack, and Banana's. Hardcore, eh?

Sandblast was fun, though I got there late because I'm too lazy to even party on time.





But there were a ton of people all having fun, so that was great. Lost at a little beer pong, took some pictures, crawled into the opening to the security dog cages so I could get a picture on my hands and knees barking... You know, the usual stuff...



BUNCH of cruise ships out too. I was thinking of the poor people on board and how they probably just wanted to relax on a relatively secluded beach, only to stumble into the middle of Spring Break at a medical school they probably didn't even know was here.

Waves were crazy high too, almost up to the edge of the ladies, and a friend said there was a bunch of coral and rock debris thrown up the next day. Wonder what was up with the tides.

There was an afterparty at Club Karma, but I was with my friend Jay. We'd thought there was no dress code that night because everyone said there wasn't, but instead this one was very pointedly looked at him, said he couldn't go in and that by "Dressing down", it meant he didn't have to wear a nice shirt like the guy was wearing (wasn't that nice, dude), but no long shorts or whatever, and THEN there were student ID issues, and altogether, way too much "We're a New York nightclub" image-obsessed feeling, so wasn't worth it, and was glad to save the 20 bucks.

It's some people's thing, but I'm rarely dressed up anywhere, so I don't like clubs where the goal is to "be seen". So not a fan of Karma, I'm afraid. I'll take Victory Bar anyday.

Headed down to Creole Shack instead, because I wanted to stay on the Carenage for a while, since I really like it. Great place! I've been meaning to go there for about a year, but the people were really nice, they had some karaoke going on and the food was great and cheap. We started to walk back, and saw a youth basketball game going on where everyone was having a lot of fun and getting rowdy, and cheering their teams. We got invested, and even though they lost, GO BLACK AND YELLOW! Southern Pros!!

Afterparty, as always, at Banana's, but they'd converted their new awesome game room back into the "Club Banana's", which sucked because I really wanted to play darts. Ahh well. Still found good company and a good time, and everyone was out.



But now, path and micro own me for the foreseeable future. On the plus side, I like the classes. On the minus side, there's SO much studying. I know it sounds like all I do is go out, but honestly, the rest of the time it's just STUDY. Study for group, do the quizzes, do my slide presentations, do my concept maps, do the lectures, review the slides, review the staining techniques, check the book, go running with the Goljan lectures so that no time is wasted. Exhausting!!!

Let's just hope it pays off.

On! On!

And in other news, third term grades are in, and my half-lidded truancy and steady diet of Old El Paso tortilla pizzas has paid off! Woo hoo! I suspect fourth term will not be so kind.

I've done a hash! And not the illegal kind! A hash is a sort of fun-walk/jog/run/hike that here seems to be somewhere between 4-6 miles long, and involves a lot of yelling (Are you? On! On!), and a lot of beer. I have an official "Certificate of Loss of Virginity", which I'm tempted to frame as a substitute for my degree to instill that extra vote of confidence in my patients.



For those quick to judge, all this was AFTER hiking pretty strenuous trails for five miles and sprinting through a gamut of non-virgin hashers coating us in beer. This also meant I smelled like a three-day dead hobo. Perfect for getting back onto the bus with others who were similarly qualified, or as the certificate put it "exhausted, sweaty, and smelling like a ram goat".

Oddly enough, this certificate was awarded by the head of the library, who turns out to be incredibly awesome AND a seasoned hasher. I am humbled.

Not knowing there was a bus directly to the hash, I decided to make things more difficult for myself by attempting to "meet up" on the Carenage down in St. George's, not finding anyone, wandering around sufficiently to further my face burn (by the way, THREE cruise ships in port? Good lord!), and finally just saying "Balthazar?" to people at the bus terminal until someone stuffed me, and I do mean STUFFED me, into a van.

Probably made it in record time though. The reggae bus driver was burning off the tires on the turns.

But got there without a problem in time to watch the SGU buses pull up. Sigh. Incidentally, *they're* free.

I'm completely new to the hash, though I've read up on it a bit. Here's the website for the Grenada Hash House Harriers.

If I could recommend nothing else, if you have one of those camelback integrated water systems, by all means take it. If you're slow, take a flashlight. They do them at 4 PM, I believe to intensify the penalty for lollygagging by having you blunder through the rainforest at night looking desperately for shredded bits of paper to mark the trail. Fortunately, I was hiking towards the front! Which is a first!

The hash:



The beginning, with us having no idea what's about to be in store for us.



Suggestions for not dying (standing on a 2X4 on a barrel not being one of them) as given by our excellent hare (the hounds chase the trail the "hare" leaves), the one, the only, River Rat!

And speaking of rivers:



We were periodically crossing the Balthazar River, usually only mid-thigh deep (though I got to clean my running shoes), but in a couple people's cases, mid-head. Having fifty some-odd people try and hurry across slippery rocks in a river is pretty interesting.





These seem pretty (and were) until you realize how much slippery uphill river crossing, mud grappling you have to do to GET to these views, and it was far prettier in person.



If only they'd had rotis... the hash would have ended right there...



The hashers seemed to be the event of the month to some local kids, one of whom was amusing himself by making an *incredibly* convincing impression of a doberman growling and then jumping out with an equally convincing bark. I'm not even afraid of dogs, and this circa 6 year old made me jump about five feet.

These kids said "take our picture!" "Take our picture!"

If you ever want to be ambassador to the children of another country, own a digital camera. That is hours of entertainment right there, and netted me the following picture when I was in the Philippines:



And the more shots you take, the better they get, since the more they see the pictures of them, the rowdier they get. I'm sure their parents just love it.

Anyway,



Mmmm... chocolate...

Some pictures from the hash aren't present because the trail got nasty (and wet) enough that my camera was half-safely tucked into a plastic bag tucked into my bathing suit top, and I was *still* worried about falling in the river and destroying it.

So we made it to the sweet sweet end of the trail, where beer and goodies are typically served at whichever bar they've crashed. We did our initiation, climbed into the SGU bus reeking of beer, Grenada, and our natural juices, and someone said "we want ice cream".

For the most part, SGU buses, even special events ones, have a certain hypothetical course that they tend to follow without side trips. Reggae buses, not so much. This was not one of those buses. So we were off to St. George's, to the strangest little local ice cream/bar we could find. Went in, ordered beer and ice cream (mmm nutmeg), and somehow, someone whipped out from behind the counter these Rossi wine jugs that someone had made rum in, and had filled said rum with things like nutmeg, sticks, bay leaves, and... we'll just get to the "and" in a minute.

Being already a bit inebriated from the beer and with a free one in hand, it struck me that it would be a good idea to try a shot from the nutmeg infused one figuring I like nutmeg and I like rum, and the best rum is usually served out of a bulk wine jug at a bar where even the locals won't touch the stuff you're drinking, so what the hell, right?

OMG, I think I now know what antifreeze tastes like. Though it's supposed to be sweet. I used to think tequila and whiskey were bad but this was a complex feast of bad in the mouth that had staying power. Gods.

Then, the bartender/executioner whips out a jug that has the bottom full of Grenadian centipedes, or as Jay calls them "deathipedes" because they tend to be between 6 and 14 inches long, and yes, they're venomous. In said jug, there is a brownish pond scum looking murky liquid that smells a bit like scotch tape and gasoline.



Oh, you thought I was kidding?

Something to know about me is that as an idiot, a former anthropology major, someone who worked at a science museum, and someone who's been camping a lot, there is virtually nothing I won't eat or drink, and even that barrier is usually broken by alcohol (I can tell you exactly what squid eyes, mealworms, earwax flavored jelly bellies, and wood moths taste like, for instance).

This was not one of those times. I'm not TOUCHING that stuff. In fact, after a shot of the nutmeg moonshine and a shot of the bay leaf moonshine, I considered myself lucky to still have my eyesight.

Two of the manly men in our party were not similarly dissuaded, and swung back two shots of this vile muck to the sounds of gasps and groans as camera flashes (and regret) exploded in their faces.

Then came the process of getting one of the local patrons to try the stuff who had not witnessed the initial shot, so in a friendly game of "America vs Grenada", the only way the two guys could convince the third guy to take a shot of the worm venom was to do *another* shot of it with him.

The fact that the last time I saw these guys, they were still alive (though had inexplicably bought four baby chicks off a woman making oildown, or as they said "chickens, the ultimate impulse buy") is a testament to their characters. It's similarly impressive that the guy they were pitted against ran outside immediately after, I believe, to throw up. I had a similar urge just by watching the process.

Somehow, in a lack of timely oildown, we all ended up at the wine bar with 8-10 people and four chickens fifteen minutes before they stopped serving food(poor wine bar), to put panini on top of, in one guy's case, about five beers, two shots of regular rotgut moonshine, two shots of centipede moonshine, and a piece of uncooked callaloo (don't do that either, by the way) he'd eaten during the hash. Glurgh.

And then I "hashed" home. The bus was taking a while.

I think it's a testament to *my* character that I was able to drag my aching butt out of bed today to go to La Sagesse and sunset point. You know you've had a rough day when going to the beach the next day takes initiative, but it was well worth it:







And now, having lived it up for an entire weekend where I had absolutely *no* responsibilities, Monday starts the beginning of fourth term, thus the end of life as I know it. Ciao!

I've been operant conditioned!

I'd already been classically conditioned in that I salivate every time I hear a bell. Pavlov fans? No?

Okay, how about this Freud one? I was in small group on Tuesday and we'd finished discussing our actual case and went onto discussing a case brought up in class where a woman under a sedative had chirped up for breast implants to be added to her surgery schedule, which inexplicably was obeyed, bringing the question of who was at fault in the inevitable follow-up lawsuit, and one of our wittier group members chimed in with "Her id did it."

(crickets chirping)

Okay, forget you guys... the point of this particular entry is that one of our trickier behavioral science professors (Hi Dr. Y!) successfully operant conditioned me into getting up at 7 am to go to lecture, which is notable because at 7 am, I am usually resting up after spending the nighttime hours marauding for the blood of the innocent. In med school, this is naturally difficult to find.

Though it's probably what my apartment complex thinks is true. Due to my nocturnal tendencies, I have a black sheet taped over my window to prevent any hints of daylight from intruding on me while periodically transferring all my bedding between my sofa and bed depending on what mood my insomnia is in, both of which are habits that are a source of eternal confusion to my housekeeper. Combined with my occasional tendency to pace around the complex at night especially when it's raining, I think everyone here keeps a clove of garlic close at hand when I'm around. Unfortunately, I'm a vampire that's a fan of Italian food.

I think it also perplexes my housekeeper that since I never had a housekeeper before I came to Grenada, and the idea of someone else having to deal with my state of perpetual disarray seems unfair, so if she's unlucky enough to have to clean when I'm home, I'm nervously picking stuff up and moving stuff and apologizing for being a terrible person.

So essentially, she's protectively turned into a ninja. I venture out of the apartment to slink off to small group, whether it's the right day or the right time of day for her normal schedule, she throws up a smokescreen, uses mop to quarterstaff Bruce Lee action, and leaves no sign of her presence upon my return but a suspicious shine, clean dishes, and the scent of bleach.

But I was talking about lecture... and yes, it was pretty cool, and I was glad I went. Plus, apparently I managed to hold out for this long just to be back in time for... the sex lectures! Sweet. Though I missed the controversial pictures during the alcohol lectures yesterday... I'm just primarily hoping I'm not *in* any of them. The wine bar is a harsh mistress.

It was weird to be done with the primaries for 4 lectures by noon, so I kept thinking it was time to *start* studying, but I'd already seen 4 lectures. Live and uncut! Plus I got to chat with Dr. Y in the path lab for a while, which was awesome (and convinced me to do the hash on Saturday), and due to the uncharacteristic before-noon productivity, I could go out and see the eclipse tonight guilt-free, having cleared out my work for the day and leaving me a pretty manageable schedule for tomorrow, so I don't even feel nighttime panic over the exam Friday. Is this how normal day-people function? Of course, it's 3:24 am when I'm typing this, so I'm thinking I may need a few more shocks from the Skinner box before I learn to stop pressing the lever. It is depressing that rats learn faster than I do (though not surprising), but again, a solid testament to the power of a professor with a goal. Combined with the promise of free highlighters, this may be the most successful lecture attendance strategy since Dr. H's first term "Slideshow of complications of genital trauma" (also not one to miss, though one to skip breakfast for).

Oh, though L'il Grr? I'm calling *you* out. You cannot make relentless fun of me for six months for absenteeism and then sleep through ethics! That so does *not* constitute "going to lecture", and I will be teasing you unmercifully throughout the weekend.

Rut Roh...

I've been called out!

In my defense, I was up until 4:30 learning that caffeine isn't a drug of abuse or dependence according to the DSM-IV, *meaning* that I will be in lecture tomorrow, bright and early, 8 AM, having mainlined the dark black cheap British tea I love so dearly.

So... Bell Hall, right? I'll be good! Er... you wouldn't consider moving that lecture to midnight, wouldja? I am a behavioral science *machine* at midnight.