I feel like so much

I feel like so much has happened since the last time that I updated. So many things. I have gone from being entirely overwhelmed, from feeling like i've pretty much figured this med school thing out, to... i don't know... to being completely exhausted and exhilerated at the same time. To be honest, i feel pretty exhausted most of the time, but to the extent that its falling into a pattern. The pattern hinges around the test, which happens once every 2 or 3 weeks (i have another one on monday). The week before the test is usually when i start staying up late during the week in a feeble attempt to spread out the workload sose im not studying literally every waking hour over the weekend. Usually that doesn't work- i still study all weekend - but it does get me tired in the process. Night before the test i usually get about 4 hours of sleep. After the test i get slightly more, but am prevented from a full sleep recovery by the strangely compelling desire to drink lots of PBR. I wonder where that comes from. Then I usually forget to go to class the next morning. Oops.

Then suddenly I find myself at wednesday night, completely worn out and stressed because i have discovered that i am already 2 days behind. They give us NO BREAK. Nothing. We are supposed to study the night after the test to prepare for the next day's dissection. The only day that goes by that i'm not responsible for new knowledge is the day i spend studying frantically for the exam. After i realize that i am already 2 days behind and quite tired, and after i get done whining about the intensity of the curriculum and the fact that i need a frickin vacation, i think about the fact that this is not going to end. Never. Atleast never in the forseeable future. This is my life. Its not like i cram for a test and then go on summer break. I am always cramming for the test. And its just going to get harder. Then i get depressed. Then i go to sleep. Then i go through a period of haughty denial where i convince myself that im cool for just getting into medical school and should just watch movies instead of studying because it will all be ok in the end (i really do have some fun in this period, which last oh 2-3 days). Then i suddenly realize - Shit! I have to study! And then i start staying up late and cramming for the next test. It is an incredible exhausing cycle.

Right now i am at the friday before the test, trying to decide whether or not i should go out, or stay home and study. Its a tough call.

Here are some updates:
- last week i learned how to do pelvic, breast, prostate, and testicular exams! But i only got to practice on undersized rubber models, so i'm not sure that i'm completely proficient yet. Mike REFUSED to let me practice on him. So if anyone wants to help me out.... uh, im kind of serious. Lives could be at stake! You could have prostate cancer and not even know it! Come see Dr. Fiona today!!

- last week we disected the external genitalia. I made it my mission to find the body of the clitoris (which is actually quite long, but very very deep). I failed. 2 hours was not long enough. I keep meaning to go back to dig that puppy out, but i don't know. maybe i need to reevaluate my priorities. See quote from 10/15.

- went to an OHSU lecture on tinnitus - learned some things- i figure if im going to get it someday, i might as well know a lot about it (mike thinks im very paranoid)

- i have totally developed a crush on the young Bill Cosby, who was AMAZING in the 1964 show I Spy which was recently remade as a major motion picture (or so i hear). He was so hot! Weird. Ceck it out.

- i met Steph, the sister of one of my college friends, who is currently an internal medicine resident. I am going to go hang out with her on the wards next friday - yay! Build the connex. I think i might want to be an internist.

- I think i also might want to go into emergency medicine. This is a fairly new development. It all started yesterday, when i attended a panel lunch on ER docs. When i was like 11 i thought i wanted to work in an emergency medicine, but i also thought i wanted to live on a horse farm with my sister and join the navy, so who knows what i was thinking. I had kind of swept the ER plan under the rug of consciousness, but it resurfaced all of a sudden yesterday. I realized that when i picture myself as a doctor, it is not in a clinic discussing asthma medication, it is finding someone unconcious on the side of the road and knowing what to do, it is knowing what to do when someone has a heart attack or gets hit by a car or has a seizure. Having that knowledge. Knowing. Saving someone. Fixing that immediate need. Being one of those doctors who dropped everything and flew to New York after the attacks, because they were needed. In that most essential and human of ways. It gives me chills when i think about that. I used to be all about primary care: having relationships with patients, continuity of care, preventative health, all that. But now, i don't know... something within me is excited about the idea of emergency medicine. We shall see.

I am worried about my indeciveness, though. I am not known as one to make fast decisions under pressure:).
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