The Beginning

So I decided that since I won't be seeing most of you for at least four years, it might be nice to have a way to know what I am so busy doing. Therefore I have created a blog which I hope to update periodically, likely as a break from studying. I've been at medical school for two weeks now and I feel a bit different already. For one, I have come to accept the fact that indeed I did not trick the admissions people here into letting me in but am just as qualified as the rest of my classmates, even though I'm not an olympic triathlete or anything. My class consists of 183 people between the ages of 21-38. You will notice that I am on the younger end of the spectrum. It is a bit odd to meet classmates who are married with kids because that is so not where I am coming from.

As most of you know I am now a frat girl? Which doesn't actually make sense but basically means that I live with a bunch of other medical students in 4 houses which have been split into apartments. It has been nice living here because after the first two days of orientation, the socializing opportunities quickly ceased because everyone started studying. But since I live with other med students, I have been able to meet people and hang out with them on the weekends. Tonight, most of the frat members (Phi Rho-ers) went out to dinner at the Loring Pasta Bar. It was a very cool restaurant and it was nice to take a study break even though expensive dinners are probably not covered in my student loans (oops). One big perk of living at Phi Rho is that rent is only $330 a month including utilities, cable tv, internet, and toilet paper. This is super cheap considering my last apartment was $450/month not including utilities.

I have quickly become accustomed to the hectic med school schedule. The first 7 weeks are focused solely on gross anatomy, so our days are spent first in lecture on the parts of anatomy we will be exploring that day and then in lab for a couple hours dissecting. The cadaver thing is one of the weirdest experiences ever. It is disgusting, amazing, and smelly all at the same time and it has already become something which is relatively normal to me. I guess I never thought it would be normal to compare my experience dissecting a cadaver with another person's at the dinner table or talking about which muscle of the forearm is my favorite (has to be supinator). Our lab TA's are very helpful and we have an orthopedic surgeon in our lab who wanders around exposing different joints. He dissected our knee as he would for a total knee replacement so we could see the ACL and the cartilage and everything. It was very cool.

In other news, our first big test is next week on Friday. We have a lab practical where they tag different parts of the bodies and we have to name them and a paper exam which involves more analytical problem solving type of stuff. I am pretty nervous about this just because I don't really know what to expect and don't want to fail the first test in med school. I am studying hard but it never really seems like enough. Especially because our exam covers the muscles, bones, ligaments, arteries, and nerves of the chest, back, arm, hand, leg, foot, and Gluteus. I am confident that all of this information will leave my brain the day after the test. I have to make room for the new stuff after all.