Day 2. So very tired.
by fiona
Day 2.
So very tired. I just spent 4 hours studying. Tomorrow we are to begin dissection of the back of our assigned cadaver. Mine is an 89 year old woman.
They told us yesterday that we had our first lecture and lab on thursday. But they neglected to mention that we would be responsible for over 100 pages of reading before then. Happened to remember that little detail at the end of orientation today, which immediately took me from the status of excited first year medical student, to incredibly overwhelmed first year med student (it didn't help that the book store ran out of the one book that was ESSENTIAL for tomorrow's dissection. Go go gadget copy machine).
I shouldnt be suprised. I knew this would happen eventually, but i just wasn't expecting it so soon. We're still supposed to be in orientation, for god's sake. I guess thats an orientation, all right. So, I thought i would start off on the right foot and decline the 2 social engagements that i had planned for this evening, so i could stay home and study. This is how its going to be.
Highlights of the day (in chronological order):
1. noticed enzyme vending machine in one of the research hallways
2. overheard selection criteria for cadavers: try to get a medium sized one - too big and you cant turn 'em over, too small and you can't see the organs. Never thought of that.
3. cutest librarian EVER. I want to take this woman home with me. She came to tell us about the library system, and ended up showing me that she knows more about medicine than i probably ever will.
4. we were assigned "bone boxes." I now have in my possession a suitcase filled with human bones.
5. (this is not a good highlight) the 4th year gross anatomy lab assistant guy was not that cool. He was aloof and callous. He kept leaning on our lady's head! Physically put his hand on her head, straightened his arm, and leaned - all this abstentmindedly while he was telling us where to empty the drip pan. What the hell was he thinking? Is that how to demonstrate professionalism and respect for human life? I dont like him very much.
Anyway, i am reaaallly excited about lab tomorrow. And i'm scared that i will find out that i didnt study nearly enough. Sigh. Bed time for me.
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Posted on August 28, 2002 | Comments (0)
So now i can officially
by fiona
So now i can officially call myself a "Medical Student." I am a student of medicine. It feels really good.
Today was kind of weird, with a lot of mingling and meeting and listening to various important people tell us things. Its weird when you know that someone will come to play a hugely important role in your life, but you meet them as just any old person. Oh, so i guess thats the dean. Cool. I also know that all of my fellow first year students - all 104 of them - will become some sort of gigantic dysfuctional family. We will all get to know eachother sooo well, and Im sure that i will form really close, long-lasting friendships with some of them, but today our introductions to eachother were merely surface level. I'm glad that i already know Erica, who worked with me at Planned Parenthood. She is a kind, enthusiastic person who will be great to know throughout this whole process - and she lives 1 block away.
One initial observation is that everyone was really friendly. Both staff and fellow students. I was slightly taken aback at first at how easily some people just walked up and said "hi, my name is blahblah." Just making eye contact with someone was grounds for an introduction. I always have felt a bit uncomfortable in situations like that, where social flirtateousness and a strong small-talk ability are required. But I just kind of pretended that i was a very outgoing person meeting other outgoing people, and it seemed to work ok.
The class is 62 women, 42 men. Go women. We are poised to take over. Its kind of hard to tell when everyone is consciously dressing "professionally," but I noticed a lot of "straigh lacers" out there. I found myself looking for folks expressing a certain amount of stylistic edginess in their fashion choices, assuming that those people would be my kindred med school spirits. This is an unfortunate habit of mine- automatically summing up people's personalities by their style of dress. I hate that I do this, but I do. But my class definitely has its laid back, non-competitive fun element, which i respect immensley. Of course, it also has its fair share of "gunners"- people aiming for the top and determined to get there. Not that you can easily distinguish between the two on grounds of dress and mannerisms alone, but you can kind of tell who those people are. The gunners are the ones who went directly after orientation to buy text books. Reign it in there, friends.
I accidentally joined the American Medical Association today. Well, they happened to be offering a very highly recommended medical dictionary for a 4 year subscription, so i kind of had to. But is was not without hesitation. After reading various criticisms of the AMA, I had begun to be quite skeptical of the organization as a whole. As the largest political lobbying group in the country, they have tremendous influence on policies affecting the health care field. But history shows that it has tended to protect the power and position of the western allopathic medical system, favoring farmaceutical companies, and smuthering alternative approaches. The movement for a universal healthcare system, something that i strongly support, has always been been attacked by the AMA.
So, I had vowed originally to not join them, or give them any money. And then I did. Hmmm. Am I that easily swayed by a free book? Apparently. But, I genuinely am interested in finding out more about the organization and their practices (i realize that some of my sources of criticism were a bit one-sided). And, if I do find that i reach legitimate criticisms of my own, being a member will allow me to take action within the organization - much more effective than shunning it, im afraid. Its just too huge. So that will be one of my little side tasks throughout the medical adventure: figure out if the AMA is legit or not. I hope I can maintian some objectivity.
You would have thought that sitting in an lecture hall in silence and moving to a smaller room would leave little room for messing things up on your first day of school, but... no. I did manage to slightly embarrass myself... twice. First, I went to the wrong room for our "small group discussion." I failed to see that the small heading writted in copy-faded cursive at the top of the page said "thursday orientation" instead of "tuesday orientation." Wrong page, wrong room. Oops. Then, I practically fell asleep in the post-lunch lecture on the the history of OHSU. The head it was a-nodding. And me in the second row! You think I could have atleast waited for classes to start to begin that ritual.
Well, I wont have to wait long for that, because our first lecture is on THURSDAY. That is when we begin to cut up dead people. We'll just jump right in, I guess. Hooray!
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Posted on August 27, 2002 | Comments (0)
Monday, August 26, 2002 I
by fiona
Monday, August 26, 2002
I sit here in darkness, the light of the screen almost blinding. Tomorrow is the day. When it all begins. The point from which I will not return. Oddly, I am not nervous or anxious, not really disturbed about anything, not really that excited. I feel instead a great sense of momentum, of satisfying inevitableness. Tomorrow it begins.
I sit here in darkness. The power went out earlier tonight, fizzing out with a couple of sputtering attempts to regain lightness. Even the glare from Trader Joes was subdued. I am reminded of my days in the Dominican Republic, where the limited resources of the country could not be stretched to keep the power on at all times. The power would just sort of fall off, atleast once a day. “!Se fue la luz!” everyone would exclaim, “la luz se fue.” It just went. And when it went here, suddenly, impetuously, I was almost relieved. Comfort. Warmth. Small flickering candles.
It came back on again almost the minute after I returned to the apartment, having dropped mike off in north Portland to fulfill some deep-seated need for wrestle-mania. The scooter makes it quite easy to go to other sides of Portland now. I have nicknamed it the Storm Trooper. It is also sometimes Grunty. I returned home alone to darkness abruptly interrupted. The lights went back on and I was forced to deal with things once again – phone calls, plans for tomorrow, the temptation of nervousness.
But it was easy to fix…I turned the lights back off. A too hot bath bathed in candlelight. The sounds of the street blending into close, wet little sloshings. And breathing, breathing. And now the candles and the darkness accompany me, helping me to relax, focus, and prepare. Is it easier to smile in the darkness? No. Perhaps easier to be.
Tomorrow I get up early, walk to the bus with my friend Erica, and go to meet the beginning.
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Posted on August 27, 2002 | Comments (5)
Countdown: 5 days until medical
by fiona
Countdown: 5 days until medical school.
OHSU Orientation begins next tuesday. Its so odd. I feel the need to make very good use of my last few (very few!) remaining days of freedom. I am caught between the desire to accomplish a vast array of tasks and projects (see aug 16th entry) and the pressing need to relax and enjoy some free time. Additionally, my assumption that my life will change and i will become a different person come next tuesday kind of gives me a feeling of dread - i should be excited! I should be looking forward to this - its medical school, for god's sake - all i've ever wanted and planned for myself since i was 7. Ok, so i am excited. But its a dreadful excitement. I think that makes sense.
My thought for today: maybe i should go downtown and protest our friend George W. Bush when he arrives in portland today. It should be a big fun party. Some people were talking about getting dressed up all fancy and respectable and sauntering down to the hilton, where he will be raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for Gordon Smith's (aka the rat bastard)'s re-election campaign. Then the cops wouldn't beat us! Good idea.
The issue at stake today is the unveiling of Bush's new forest plan to allow commercial timber companies into our National Forests, currently protected under Clinton's roadless act. Allowing them to cut mature trees will apparently relieve us of that pesky forest fire problem. Read a good analysis of the issue here.
Hmmm. Should i go? Or should i just stay inside and work on my new website while listening to the PULSE cd of late nineties dance hits? Its a tough one.
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Posted on August 22, 2002 | Comments (0)
Last night I made toasted
by fiona
Last night I made toasted walnut basil pesto. Yums. With organic farm-fresh basil from jessica's sauvie island farm co-op share. That plus spaghetti plus fresh tomato equals the best lunch ever. I have been feeling pretty domestic lately. I felt especially house-wifey last night when I made mike's lunch for him to take to work, and took particular care to sprinkle grated parmesan over the aforementioned pesto tomato spaghetti. But i suppose going out and acing the written driving test so i can get my Oregon liscence with a motorcycle endorsement so i can drive my NEW SCOOTER is not an entire waste of the day, domestic or not.
Mike just got home. He says the pesto is "amazing." We go now to the Mission Theater to see About a Boy.
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Posted on August 19, 2002 | Comments (0)
My left hand hurts. It
by fiona
My left hand hurts. It its singed with newly formed blisters. Why? you ask. No, its nothing dirty. Unless, of course, you consider riding around on your brand new white bajaj chetak SCOOTER dirty, then yes- i am very very dirty! I JUST BOUGHT A SCOOTER!! It's parked outside now... i can almost see it out the window if i lean forward over my computer real far. Its so very pretty.
The first ride on the jaj felt so wonderful. Such speed and freedom i have never known. And such cautiousness. And such a sore wrist - im going to have to do strengthening excercises just to be able to use the clutch. Not to mention the fact that my leg is all bruised from trying out the kick start, and i just about thew my back out putting it on its stand. But its all worth it.
After years of bike riding and passively begging for rides, the prospect of just getting on my scooter and going wherever i want is pretty damn exciting. I feel so self suficient! No more checking the bus schedules. No more riding in the rain... oh, wait.
Not that i will no longer be utilizing my former modes of transportation. I plan to bus and bike quite a bit. But now I feel a whole lot more flexible. Its weird to have made the leap into the world of gas-burners. I feel, however, that it is a very responsible choice. Yes, I will be burning a little bit of fuel, but just the amount required to move my body and a few pounds of metal. The excess weight moved around by car engines is one of the reasons that i have steared clear of them. A scooter is a great compromise for those who are dependent on the convenience of power vehicles, but are concerned with their impact on the environment. Why doesn't anybody push this? There needs to be a scooter-advocacy ad compaign, some kind of public service announcement.
From here on out I will be taking up the title of Fiona, radical scooter activist.
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Posted on August 18, 2002 | Comments (0)
We got cable installed yesterday.
by fiona
We got cable installed yesterday. Go interwebs! The countdown has officially begun... I have 11 days until orientation at OHSU. That means 11 days of relative freedom before i give my life over to the pursuit of medicine. Is that equivalent to the pursuit of happiness? Probably not, atleast at first. But that is the eventual goal. So in that 11 days, I have various important things to accomplish. These include, in no particular order, starting an indoor herb garden, buying a scooter, making a website, transcribing the interview with my grandma, buying a stethoscope, finding a kitchen table, hanging out with my friend Annie who's visiting, hangning out with my friend Jill before she moves to Vancouver, hanging out with my Dad when he comes to visit, starring in a silent film of a rock opera, and getting the mail key fixed so i can see what important med school documents have been sent to me in the past three weeks. This last one is particularly pressing, being that i probably have bills and such.
Impromtu THE STATE quote:
Jake the mailman: So your concern is the importance of getting your mail.
Man: Yes. Yes.
Jake: For bills and such.
Man: Yes. Yes!
...
Jake : I just dont have the same passion for delivering mail as I do for making and distributing tacos.
GOD, that was a great show.
Anyway, point being - i have lots of things to do. And not much time in which to do them. Will my life end? Will i relinquish my freetime? Will I lose all interest in friends, music, drinking, and all trappings of the outside world? Will I become a boring medical student automaton who forgets how to communicate with normal people? Well, I hope not. Time will tell. In the mean time, I will just worry about going to find something to eat.
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Posted on August 16, 2002 | Comments (0)
So i'm in Maine visiting
by fiona
So i'm in Maine visiting mike's parents. They were generous enough to fly both of us out here for a nice little visit (only because they think we're going to get married - otherwise they probably wouldn't invest in a girlfriend). Separate rooms to boot. But it was very kind of them nonetheless. I've b
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Posted on August 2, 2002 | Comments (0)
Ok. Cool. Now I have
by fiona
Ok. Cool. Now I have a weblog.
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Posted on August 2, 2002 | Comments (0)
test 2 --------
by fiona
test 2
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Posted on August 2, 2002 | Comments (0)
Test. --------
by fiona
Test.
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Posted on August 2, 2002 | Comments (0)