Bored now...

The problem with being an intrinsic night owl the second you're deprived of an attending who would take you not showing up at a rotation until 3 PM somewhat amiss, is that you start studying late thus your study breaks come around... oh, say, now, rather than at a time where you can spend them doing anything fun.

So my Step 2 CK is in four days, and I'm trying to stay motivated, which is difficult because as noted above, I'm bored. I seem to have weaned myself off the crippling levels of stress that kept my blog so um... colorful... through my early med school days, but losing that overwhelming anxiety is also killing my drive to do things like study straight through for 48 hour blocks. That's probably a good thing. I also live in NYC with an awesome roommate, which means at any given time (even now), I *could* be forgoing this study thing entirely and replacing it with whatever the heck I want. Live music, transvestite burlesque shows, 2 AM cupcake delivery, microbrewery sampling.

But whine whine, that all ends on Tuesday and then I have some relaxation. By relaxation I mean, do a case write up in the hopes of squeezing a last minute publication under the wire, write my personal statement, and upload all my crap to ERAS because I'm a horrendous procrastinator that can only focus on one task at a time. Sometimes not even one.

Oh, though speaking of awesome NYC stuff plus night owl stuff, I'm actually taking my exam starting at 1 PM, because holy crap, that was an option. That means instead of spending the first three hours of the exam feeling shaky, exhausted, and smelling of Red Bull and fear, I can sleep until my normal hour, stroll to the testing site grabbing some tasty lunch treat along the way and be at my best when I'm actually at my best. Granted this will leave me strolling Brooklyn after dark, but for the luxury of sleeping in on board exams day, I will gladly sacrifice a maxed credit card or three to the urban jungle.

What else... I'm still in maximum amounts of love with my phone and it's letting me play with Wikipedia with enough speed and dexterity that I can study in places that aren't "in front of my computer where I'm getting foot drop from having plastic-chair ass".

That seems like a good place to end.

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.

Back to the books...

Since I'm kind of flying blind on this whole USMLE thing, and don't have the crutch of having SGU notes to direct me toward a loose idea of the exam questions, and don't have the history of lecture attendance to make a review course feasible, I'm starting off by borrowing EXTREMELY heavily from Topher's suggestions (anyone who wants to go to SGU, do well in school, ace the USMLE, and transfer out of SGU should head right over there, by the way) at least in the beginning.

I'm on day one, but I'm feeling WAY better for having a tentative plan. I guess that's why 99% of people that have passed it, written books on it, or have heard of it, recommend having a schedule. Hey, never too late to start, right? I'm using the First Aid as a guide to what else to review, and am starting off with behavioral, epidemiology, and statistics so I can be eased into the meat with not only the beginning of the First Aid, but also with the mindset I had in third term, which was "whew, that's way less suicide-inducing than the last year". I'm using the BRS Behavioral Science book to supplement this study, and so far, it seems pretty good, and is adding in a few points the First Aid left out that still seemed important.

I'm also going to try to follow the First Aid book's format of being system oriented since I think it'll help me link key ideas, as I started to do in pathophysiology. It also may be the only chance in hell I have of learning any concept related to dermatology, since I've been steadfastly avoiding it as filler in every class where it came up, therefore the only thing I know about the skin is that it tends to hurt a lot when it's removed.

In the meantime, I'm trying to augment my studying with exercise and a healthier diet, since this long haul is going to require my not feeling like crap for the duration so that I have a hope of focusing my attention for longer than three seconds.

In short, I figure I've got close to 9 weeks to remake myself into a completely different person: specifically one that's not a cynical cheese-fed ADD slacker. anyone want to play odds on my chances?