|
SubscriptionsSites I Read
|
|
|
|
| this is it.
the calm before the storm.
 no, i don't entirely believe that, but in a way that's how it feels. i just finished a small-group session early, and have 2.5 hours before our first rehearsal for medical variety night (MVN). today shouldn't be too hectic for me - i just have to watch everything and note it all down, and keep my perfectionism reasonably under wraps while at it. my team, still unformed and who knows who it'll be (i'm bizarrely not nervous about it right now - i'll probably panic at about 8:30 tonight), don't need to be there today, so i don't need to worry about who's doing (or not doing) what and what cues are being missed and all that. that'll be tomorrow.
a few encouraging things happened today. they don't necessarily relate to MVN, but they feel like they do:
after making an announcement to the first years begging for help, one of them came up and from what he said suggested that my stage crew and the tech crew (intricately interlinked teams) should be all right numbers-wise.
a discussion just now with a few of my classmates whom i don't know too well suggests to me that there are more reasonable people in my class than i was aware of. we recently had a town hall meeting with the dean, and some of the comments that were made were so inappropriate that i felt ashamed to be in the same class with them. discovering today that there are more people in the class who also saw those comments as inappropriate is encouraging.
someone in "my group" in the '12s asked if there was any way they could help make this week easier for me, by providing support through various life stuff that's going to continue happening while MVN insanity is happening (class notes as i may be too distracted to take good ones, pestering me to eat and sleep, etc). those of you who've seen me through things like Christmas dinner prep know how this goes!
but the pressure is on. as i brushed my teeth last night (because thoughts like these inevitably come during the mundane), i remembered words of reassurance and challenge from a friend who was stage manager last year: this week, the show is mine. everything from last year up until this past weekend was the responsibility of the directors, but we're past that step now, and it's up to me to see it through to completion - to take what's on the page and put it onto the stage. fortunately, this is what i do, or at least what i've somewhat successfully managed to do in years past in other venues. unfortunately, i'm not certain that the directors know that there's supposed to be a shifting of power now...so we'll see. if they don't already know, hopefully time will show them, 'cause i don't want to have to spell it out for them.
i need to be organized, calm, clear, and concise (yes, i hear you snorting in disbelief). there will be frustrated people taking it out on me, and i need to be rational and fair, and not take it personally (i heard that). i will need to take care of lots of details but not lose sight of the big picture (uhh...).
wait a minute, i'm supposed to do this? who said i was good at these things??
a little bit of grace. a lot of bit of grace. and really important to go into this with the right attitude. not picking fights. choosing wisely what to go after. maturity. faith. peace. and grace.
| | |
| today was the neurology midterm. a lot of freaking out in my class about it...in my view, rather unnecessarily. work hard, yeah. freak out? no need. but it's easier to see that when you're more removed from undergrad and our entire education system that says you only advance if you get 99% on every quiz, test, midterm, exam, assignment, and essay that crosses your desk. it's also easier to see if you've had more life experience, and my class is predominantly school-school-school-med school.
by and large the exam was fair. the short answer questions were legitimate, and most of the multiple choice was good. i even started laughing when i hit question 7 - the question was about the effect of a particular type of spinal cord injury on the right leg, and option d) was horner's syndrome, which affects the face.
so that's neuro. almost.
we've been in school for 8 weeks and the midterm only covered the first 5 weeks of material. the last 3 weeks of material will be on the final in december, with the first 5 weeks showing up then in small chunks. the other thing is...uh...i missed a class today.  don't get all disappointed with me, please! (i can do that for myself.) it wasn't deliberate; i had a 2.5 hour break between classes, so a few of us headed out to look for halloween costumes in the interim, and i wasn't wearing a watch and lost track of time. unfortunately, the class i missed was a small group thing, so my absence will have been noticed. and i discovered that my group was supposed to be the last group to go through that session, so i can't join the next group. sigh. gotta figure this out somehow.
in other school news - because i have this crazy idea that when you're in med school you should do stuff besides study medicine - MVN (medical variety night) is coming up in 2 weeks. i should probably be in insane hectic mode right now for it, except that it's so disorganized that there's nothing for me to organize yet...which means i'll be in full-out chicken-with-its-head-cut-off mode in about a week. MVN is a show that queen's medicine puts on each year; it's a fundraiser for a handful of kingston charities. all the classes put on a skit, and then there's a variety of talent acts. the 2nd year class is always in charge of putting the production together. in our class, there's 3 directors (which...we'll see how they work out), and their team of people who make the thing a reality. i'm the stage manager. hopefully i'll be able to figure out how to run a tight ship without being super-bossy and making everyone hate me.
socially it'll be a busy week. we have the meds halloween party tomorrow, and hopefully my costume turns out (since it turns out i missed a class for it and all...). i'm going as piglet. random, i know, but one of the guys in the group got a pretty great winnie the pooh costume, so it's fitting. and then the coming thursday is the meds formal. i've got my ticket and have been running around bugging both my friends from my old class and the people in my new class to go. my relative lack of success confirms why i should never go into sales.
the midterm confirmed for me the need to really get back on the horse. and by that, i mean...um...when's the last time i was that conscientious? last two years of high school, probably, when i was juggling so many balls that the benefit of living in the dorms became palpable if only because it bought back any commuting time i would otherwise have had. back when i woke up at 5:45 to practise piano and could look beth (my dorm mom) in the eye when i asked to be allowed to stay up past my 11:00 lights out to finish my homework because i had indeed spent every spare moment of the day working on homework or doing something else equally legitimate. i'm probably not physically or mentally capable of that level of intensity anymore (aging...), but the need to really stay on top of the material and not cram at the end was very evident today. i know that i could've had an easier time of it and known more and done better without too much additional effort. all i need to do is change my habits. and we all know how easy that is.
| | |
| too late.
sorry. 
...though i didn't catch it tonight walking home in the rain - that would be coming on incredibly fast for a cold. no, it was last week saturday.
and it's not the fault of all the sickies in my class. nope. not their cold.
or the strain of whatever's going around amongst the people in my old class.
this one is just my fault. last friday i was out late...making an investment in the future. (hanging out with new classmates.) went home late, went to bed late, then had to wake up early on saturday morning. it was OMSW (ontario medical student weekend), and this year it was held at queen's. no need to get into what it is, except to say that it's big and that the host school is responsible for putting it all together. i volunteered for "whatever. whenever." which means i was assigned to be at holiday inn at 8 a.m. on saturday morning to take care of any non-queen's medical students who might happen to be not hungover from the friday night party and ready to roll for saturday's conference elements. (there were 3.) this was followed by a series of other random assignments, and of course i didn't leave until the last bag of trash was tossed.
by this point, it was 5-something, i had a minor sore throat, and i just knew it was going to turn into a full-blown cold.
i also brilliantly confirmed my foreknowledge by choosing to leave the safety and comfort of my bed (i took an actual power-nap!) and having dinner at a friend's house. when's the last time you went to a friend's for dinner and just had dinner?
so no big surprise that i woke up sunday morning with a cold. it was bizarrely reminiscent of the viral pharyngitis (sore throat caused by a virus...and no, we can't just say that because it doesn't sound cool/smart enough) i had before starting radiation, except a lot more mild. but still, i was pretty wiped and was in bed all day sunday. have gotten progressively better since then, and haven't missed any class although a bit of a perimeter was set up around me in class, especially on monday. can't say i blame them - we have a mid-term this coming friday.
so why am i writing about a cold a week late? if you know why, then yes, that's why. 
but really, you know what it is? i miss the two-way care that some of us share with each other. don't get me wrong...i'm really glad to be back in kingston. it's good to see and hang out with my friends again, good to be back in medicine and the classroom and learning things that i still hope and believe will one day be useful and meaningful in someone's life and health. the jury's still out on my new class, but i do like the group that i hang out with, and within it i'm really liking the process of building new friendships, and the hope for the potential that comes with it, if you let it. but some days i just really miss the safety and comfort of old friendships, of knowing and seeing what's where in your life right now. and knowing that you're here to care and scold or even drive when it's raining.
| | |
| i tried harder to be good this past week. not so much in terms of eating and sleeping (don't tell my dad that), 'cause honestly the sleeping part was bad, but rather the whole conscientious student part.
you'd think it'd be easy for me...i'm a self-proclaimed, happy-to-be-labeled-as-such dork who enjoys school. but for me there's a distinction between sitting in lecture, paying rapt 100% attention, hand flying across the paper (i'm old-school), and sitting at my desk with the textbook, going over those same notes again. but i tried harder this week than last to be good about that, and thanks in part to some of my new classmates, managed to get some studying done during the week, though i am still deplorably behind, and will continue so if i don't bury my nose in the book and get reading.
but it'll take a herculean effort and some serious God involvement if that's going to happen this week. 34 hours. that's the number of class hours i have this week, though most of my classmates have a piddling 32. i speak sarcastically, of course, 'cause whether 32 or 34, that's easily double the average week for an undergrad arts student.
i will be missing about an hour or more likely 2 of the thursday morning lectures, as my follow-up appointment with dr. zaza, my new oncologist (cancer doctor) here in kingston general hospital (KGH) is at 9:50 a.m., in the middle of what is probably a rather important lecture on pain. on the plus side, i just went through the lecture that i missed last week on myasthenia gravis (which was during my MRI), and i think i got everything although it was terribly clear that i couldn't see what our teacher was drawing on the board.
speaking of my MRI (sorta like a 3D x-ray), it went well. normal. boring. you know . the technologist was prompt in picking me up from the waiting room, flew through the questions with me, and then got me settled in. two new things: 1. they had these little label things that she put on my salivary gland surgery scar - apparently it's the new policy; 2. they have metal-less headphones that they play radio music into, so i was slightly less bored while lying still on the scanner. in case you weren't aware, you can't put anything metal into or anywhere near an MRI machine - it's basically a giant super-magnet, so yeah, you can guess what'll happen. in fact, there are horrific true stories about patients with metal in their eye going into MRI machines and then losing the eye because the magnet sucked out the metal. (possibly with the eye? i'm not sure on that part.) but yeah, little lesson there people: don't lie to your medical staff. they ask those annoying questions for a reason.
and the short lab exam on friday went well. even with coffee, i was so tired in the morning that it prompted me to warn one of my group-mates, "if i fall asleep during the exam, please make sure my face doesn't land in one of the specimens." i didn't, of course. the busyness of the bell-ringer (remember, the bell rings every minute) and the exam itself kept me awake enough to realize and appreciate that i really was in a stacked group. but i was also glad to have the opportunity to contribute to some of our answers, too, so it's not like i was coasting exactly. and the exam was fair, which is good. oh, and i had mis-read the email - it was 2 questions per minute, so 30 seconds per question, not 15.
one last thing before i get back to my notes on normal neurological development in children: a lot of you are aware that coming into school and joining the '12s, i was concerned about settling in to a new class with a lot of people i don't know. i'm finding that i get questions from all my friends, my old classmates, and even some of my new classmates about what i think of the '12s...and my answer so far is usually, "i don't know yet." but i will say that i've had the opportunity to spend a bit more time with some of them, and the mere fact of that speaks at least to their friendliness, 'cause naturally i wouldn't have been at lunch (this past friday) and dinner (the friday before that) with them if they hadn't invited me. so if nothing else, there's at least a group of my new class who are looking out for me socially, and that's been a blessing as it's making the transition easier.
| | |
| i received a phone call from the MRI (sorta like 3D x-ray) department yesterday - they've found an opening for me tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m. i asked for the 7:30 appointment since i know that's when they open, and the lady was apologetic, but she couldn't accommodate the request. so tomorrow morning i will be lying flat on my back in the middle of a giant magnet with my head sandwiched between plastic and sponge (there to immobilize the head and neck - after all, left on your own, you'd definitely move at least a bit in the 45 minutes it takes for the scan!), instead of listening to a good lecture on a neuromuscular disease (disease that involves both the nerves and the muscles). and good it will be; the teacher in question has taught a few classes already, and he's smart and keeps your attention. he also likes to draw on the board occasionally. 
on the plus side, all of our lectures are recorded and uploaded for our studying pleasure, as are the slides that our teachers use. and one of my new classmates has promised me a set of their notes.
and then friday is our first (and only) lab exam. it's a bell-ringer, which means that you have a number of stations and x amount of time at each station to answer whatever questions are there (after x, a bell rings to tell you to move to the next station, hence the name) - a typical format for anatomy-related things, where they like to have a picture of, say, the arm (minus the skin) and an arrow pointing to something, with the statement "1. name this structure". the distinction this time is that we're working together in pre-assigned groups of 4. i've been assured that the group i'm in is stacked, which makes me glad for the support but also wondering if i'm going to be standing there friday morning feeling like i'm just coasting on everyone else's hard work. and giving a very bad first-ish impression. it's 100 questions in 25 minutes - 15 seconds a question.
i love school...i love school...
 (you know i do...i'm just having trouble getting nose to grindstone these days.)
| | |
|
