August 2004

Saturday, August 28, 2004
Friday, 27 August, 2004
I think that b/c of the storm their computer system crashed. I wasn't able to put this one on until now :o)
August 23- August 27, 2004

What a week! This one wasn’t too long—I think I am getting used to the amount of work and the pace.

As you all know I had a “quiz” on Monday—I am very pleased with the results. All of my studying really paid off. Overall, I still wish I could find a better system of studying—one that would be more efficient. I will keep trying new things :o)

The rest of the week just flew by with TONS of genetic disorders and TONS of cancer. In OPP we learned Soft Tissue manipulations, and hence we are now officially dangerous ;o) We had our first pathology lab on Wednesday. This is going to be one of those classes that are so hard, and yet so very interesting. Pharmacology is getting harder by the second, but I was expecting that…

The most memorable moment of the week—we had a guest lecturer from Children Mercy Hospital and during his lecture he played a recording of a baby with Cri du chat syndrome—(caused by a deletion of the short arm of chromosome 5). Babies with this condition have a cry that sounds like that sound of a cat (thus the name), and have many problems. Anyways, I don’t think I will ever forget the sound of this cry—

The weather has been crazy. At the moment it is raining cats and dogs. Yesterday it was 92° sunny, but very windy. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday it rained so much that I got completely soaked on the way to lab… (and yes, I did have an umbrella with me…). And last weekend it was so foggy I couldn’t see my hand when I waved it in front of my body!!! This is definitely way different than Arizona.

Well, that is just about it—

For all of the Hebrew users— Thanks to my cool uncle, I can read and write in Hebrew, so you are welcome to email me!

Love you and miss you,

Re
PS—I meant tonight to be my “off” night, but I ended up sitting for the past 2 hours finishing a lecture… LOL! It was sitting there just calling me to look at it, and I just couldn’t resist… I think I might go start on another one soon.

28 aug 04 @ 11:53 am

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Friday, August 20, 2004
Second week in a summary!
Week of August 16 --> 20, 2004

Another long week, but this one didn’t seem to go by too slow. Lots and lots of stuff going on!

First of all, school is getting harder and harder. I need to find a better system of studying, b/c what I’m doing now isn’t working for me too well… at least I feel so. This coming Monday is our first quiz (a 2 hour test), and I’ve been studying non stop, yet feel like there is SO much I don’t know. I can’t wait to take it already so I’ll know what that is all about.

Okay, what else? I have to give you a description of my classmates—they are just so awesome! What a great group of people! I sit in a row full of guys :o) The other day I turned over to Brian who sits on my right side and with a smirk said to him: “You know Brian, I’m feeling just wonderful” he then asked me why and I replied with “I’m surrounded by so many great guys! Seriously though, I feel like I finally met up with people I can talk with! In every University/college I have been at up until now, there were very few people that I felt comfortable with and that were on my level (man that sounds snobbish, doesn’t it… but it’s true…) Well, here, everybody I met (okay, almost everybody) is nice and fun and just is on the same plane as me.
In the row behind me, there are two “gunners”—everybody knows gunners… they are the people who will kill to be the top of the class. They drive me CRAZY, but they are still nice, and if I just hang around them I actually get a free review ;o)

On Wednesday I joined the Pediatrics club. We are going to have a few speakers, many opportunities to shadow pediatricians and we get to do physicals in a few inner-city schools (aka—our neighborhood kids!) I am thinking of joining another club—Docs for Tots—basically it’s a community service club. We’ll tutor kids in the inner-city school for about 2 hours a week. But I decided to wait until the first quiz is over so I’ll know if I can afford loosing 2 hours of my study time.

Speaking on affording time—I came up with this on Wednesday night:

“Time is a commodity I do not have, and loosing my mind is a luxury I cannot afford”
Actually it originated with “Time is a commodity I don’t have, and freaking out is a luxury I cannot afford” :o)

I think I was stuck in Smith Hall for WAY too long!

Thursday was just awesome! It started out being a long day with Immunology and Biochemistry, but then we had a presentation. A child who has chromosomal abnormality and his mother came to us and talked about their challenges and their blessings, and their experience both with the medical world and the world at large. It was very inspiring! After it was over I went and talked (and danced) with the kid—It was most lovely!

I miss all the little kids from my old work place… I talked to Clara the other day and just hearing her talk about them brought a smile to my face.


Today after our review session I joined one of my friends to go donate blood (we had a blood drive on campus). I love donating blood, and was really excited about it. So, all was good until they took my temperature. I had a low grade fever! How strange, I feel totally fine—I think their thermometer was off or something, b/c when I have a low grade fever I usually feel like shit. So, I was disappointed :o( I’m proudly wearing my “I tried” sticker!

Oh, to my Hebrew speaking friends, for some odd reason even though I can read and write in Hebrew on the computer, my email doesn’t accept the Hebrew font (grrrrr! Yossi, any suggestions???) So until I get it working, please write either in English or in “Hebrish” so I can read what you write and not just have funky code on my screen.

Well that’s about it, I’m going to go make some food for the week—I am actually not going to study anything tonight. I need to rest a bit before the next two days. I might go over the silly path root words—Dr. Freelander cracks me up, and I don’t want him to make a fool out of me when I am tested on this vocabulary in front of my 237 close friends! (Yes, he does that almost every other day—it’s very entertaining, but it is definitely a great motivational tool for me…)

Good night, I miss you all!

Re

PS—people here drive like maniacs! It got pretty scary today right before the bridge! They are nuts.

20 aug 04 @ 8:08 pm

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Friday, August 13, 2004
08-09 --> 08/13 The longest week!
Friday the thirteenth, August, 2004.

So…I survived the first week of medical school. It was one of the longest weeks of my life! The amount of work that I have to do is astronomical, and I am a little bit overwhelmed (okay… a lot!) I still need to find a better way of studying, but overall I spent a lot of time with my books and notes.

On Tuesday we had our Osteopathic Manipulation lab, and we got to be “doctors” as well as “patients”—I had a lot of fun with this lab, definitely much better than just sitting in class.

Histology, or rather, cell biology in Histology is kicking my butt! I feel like I need to know every single detail (which I probably don’t at this point), and since I never studied histology, this “introduction”/”review” is just awful. I feel like a whole semester worth of undergrad material was condensed into 2 hours, and it is just very overwhelming. Microbiology is the same story… blah!

So far, I just LOVE physiology. Our instructor is great, and it is interesting and it flows well, and I am not as overwhelmed with that avenue.

What I did notice today was—I went to Histology and the whole lecture just flew over my head- then during physiology and physiology/pharmacology as I listened to their lecture, I encounter information that I didn't realize I knew. So I tried to remember where I knew this info from, and was totally surprised that somehow this newly learned information sunk in during histology. Very cool! I guess the “genesis” program is working!

Anyways, it is Friday night, and I need to go study again.

Much love to all of you, I miss you very much!

13 aug 04 @ 7:40 pm

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Sunday, August 8, 2004
can't wait!

It's the night before school begins... I am very excited!
8 aug 04 @ 7:21 pm

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Friday, August 6, 2004
Monday, August 2nd- Thursday August 5th

Hello to all! I've decided to keep a "journal" of my life as a medical student... a short summary of the weeks will give you a nice update with my life and will leave me with an interesting memory. *Just as a note, the journal might get pushed way down on the priority list as the amount of work will pile up....*

So, before I tell you all about the orientation, I must explain how tired I really was... The previous Wednesday Abba and I drove all the way from Arizona to Missouri—we all were kind of sad on that first day and we didn’t leave until noon, so we only got to Albuquerque, NM that day. The next day we did a HUGE chunk of the way: we finished the rest of New Mexico, got into Texas, went through Oklahoma and then got to Wichita Kansas. On Friday we got to Kansas City and went back and forth between the Missouri side and the Kansas side to find our hotel… then we picked up mom from the airport and… went shopping. Saturday we went shopping again…. Sunday we moved my stuff into the apartment and… went shopping again. I can definitely say that I am SICK of stores, and that I NEVER want to see one again. We ended up going to sleep really late and then got up really early- Dad went to the airport, I went to orientation, and mom helped me organize the apartment.

So… Yes, I was VERY tired the first day of Orientation, but the adrenaline kicked in and I was fine all through the day (barely).

The first day was the “welcome day”—we met President Pletz, Mr. Dalzell, and many, many, many other people— It was very informative, very condense, and a little overwhelming. We got to meet our advisors and eat lunch with them and our peers—in my group I am surrounded by 5 or 6 guys. We ended the day by picking up our bone set from the Anatomy lab! Hurrah! Much to my horror I didn’t remember all the bones I have learned in phys/Anatomy more than 4 years ago… and when I came back home mom helped me relearn the very simple bones I have forgotten (I won’t say which so you won’t tease me). Thanks mom!

The second day can be dubbed as “Let us scare you to death” day. Two words: Financial Aid. It is just insane how much money I will owe the government and private lenders. I am seriously reconsidering the military options for next year. Very insane. There were other speakers, but after hearing Ms. Herman from Financial Aid, the mood in the lecture hall darkened, and I doubt anyone could really stop thinking what a huge investment is on the line here.

During the afternoon we had DOlympics (which I did not enjoy much)—a jeopardy game on all the information we received. My group bet all of our points in the daily double and we got the answer wrong, so… what can I say, I am a sore looser! :o)

Then I went home and found that my furniture got there!!! But… the bed was the wrong one, one of the chairs was scratched… blah! Mom and I had to drive to the store to exchange the chair. Lucky for me, I decided I liked the bed they brought better than the bed I originally chose, so no more stores for me.

In the late afternoon I had IT (Information Technology) session—KCUMB’s computer system is very user friendly, and I don’t expect too many problems with it.

On Wednesday morning I woke up very early to take mom to the airport. Then, after 2 days of sitting cooped up in a classroom, we got to move around and do community service. Some of us built porches, others painted, and I got to pick trash in our local neighborhood. I told most if not all of you that this neighborhood is the Ghetto. Well, it’s true. TONS of liquor bottles, beer cans, and to top it all—Wes (a guy in my group) found a loaded gun. :oS Wow!!! The weird thing is that when we went a mile or two up north, we got to a neighborhood with nice big houses that are being renovated. It was beautiful to see the architecture. I hope that the trend of making this neighborhood better will continue. Since the University is buying more and more land around here, basically reclaiming old property that they have lost in the past, there is a chance that by the time I graduate this area will clean up a bit.

Today we enjoyed morning registration—as we are all taking the same classes it wasn’t really a registration per se, but this made it official. Our night was very special—White coat ceremony. I must admit that I thought this would be lame, but I had tears in my eyes… I have worked really hard to get into this school and I am very proud of myself and of my new class.

That is about it, I have to go to bed because the cable guy is coming here tomorrow morning and I will finally have internet connection in my room!!!! YES!

6 aug 04 @ 9:55 pm