Dear diary,
It is Saturday again and I have 15 mins to blog or maybe more. I have a lot to do but I really don't feel like doing much today :( I miss home so much. My mom sent me a pic of her staring at our livingroom's window, holding the curtains, hoping to see me come back. It was so sad, made me cry.
On a more positive note, I had a lot of fun last night. It was the end of half of our block 1 exams. I had histology and embryology yesterday and they were pretty challenging i thought. I gave it all I had and I felt like I deserved a nice break. So I went swimming for probably more than 4 hours lol the water was AMAZING! it was very relaxing. Then we went home and cooked a big meal (Chicken, potatoes, rice and salmon with toast--heavenly!). Then we went out again for ice cream. everyone was just so happy and social. it was like christmas...it really was. I mean we were done histo! well, block 1 histo but its something. I have three more exams to go. 2 on monday and 1 on Tuesday.
Arrgh my thoughts are all over the place. I have been under tremendous amount of stress so its only normal. I woke up crying yesterday. I dreamt that I was being tutored by someone in class but i didn't seem to be getting whatever they were saying and it was minutes before the exam. It was terrifying I actually woke up crying. hahaha I'm so stressed out.
I better get back to studying.
Till next timeeeeeeeeeeee (Saturday most likely)
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Carrot Cake
Yesterday I went shopping with my friends and bought me a small piece of carrot cake. As I sit here right now, I am munching on it and slowly sipping my coffee and man the feeling brings me back to that starbucks by the library...I used to take everything for granted but that will have to change when I go back. I have to start appreciating things around me.
Food here tastes very different. Fruits and veggies are a lot more flavorful than they were back home. Dairy products are good too (and cheap) but everything else is super expensive and tastes different. The carrot cake that I'm eating now for example tastes like gum lol. I don't know what it is and I sure hope and pray to God that they didn't add any alcoholic substances to it but it just doesn't taste like cake :/ I spent my first few days here translating the labels (Dutch to English) and second guessing myself a lot. Even food that I made from scratch, I wasn't very comfortable eating it...not because it didn't taste good but because I had my doubts about their meat or about their milk. The way they store their dairy products is just beyond me. Everything is kept outside! The locals' bodies are used to it, their bodies are more immune to the bacteria that may develop in such cultures than my body. It was terrifying. But you can only read/translate/second guess yourself about goods you buy here for so long--especially if you're in med school.
Med school med school how I heart thee! Things just keep getting more and more interesting as we explore different parts of the body in Anatomy and Embryo! It is fascinating and truly a faith strengthener. I am 100% certain that we couldn't have just been created by an accident like the BBT. There's a greater power building this body.
Everything in medicine makes sense and everything connects and I love how I don't have to worry about the respiratory track of a dolphin or the anatomy of a cockroach's leg and wing or how a plant makes their ATP. We are only learning about humans. Humans!
Speaking of humans, I dissected my first human cadaver on Wednesday. It was such a great feeling. I wanted to blog about it but I was so tired, I went to sleep when I came back. It was very intense. I went in thinking that the smell would be terrible (I have dissected pigs and cats in the past and the formaldehyde smell was unbearable). I got to dissect his shoulder and I held his head. He looked more like a hippie...pony tail, tattoos, ear piercings etc....
I just wish we were given better dissection instructions! It was more like "This is a scalpel, this is a blade, those are the scissors and the pickup is right over there, oh and that's a human body. You have an hour". We did the best we could considering that we had no prior experience, most of us anyway. I very much enjoyed it. We had another lab just yesterday but the cadaver was starting to smell real bad. I felt like I was going to faint but I put it together. It was starting to get very messy because we dived into his upper limb muscles and nerves and of course fat in the process.
I have my Block1 exams next week! I am excited and scared but everyone says that those are the easiest...I have to get back to studying.
God is the best engineer.
Till next time,
Food here tastes very different. Fruits and veggies are a lot more flavorful than they were back home. Dairy products are good too (and cheap) but everything else is super expensive and tastes different. The carrot cake that I'm eating now for example tastes like gum lol. I don't know what it is and I sure hope and pray to God that they didn't add any alcoholic substances to it but it just doesn't taste like cake :/ I spent my first few days here translating the labels (Dutch to English) and second guessing myself a lot. Even food that I made from scratch, I wasn't very comfortable eating it...not because it didn't taste good but because I had my doubts about their meat or about their milk. The way they store their dairy products is just beyond me. Everything is kept outside! The locals' bodies are used to it, their bodies are more immune to the bacteria that may develop in such cultures than my body. It was terrifying. But you can only read/translate/second guess yourself about goods you buy here for so long--especially if you're in med school.
Med school med school how I heart thee! Things just keep getting more and more interesting as we explore different parts of the body in Anatomy and Embryo! It is fascinating and truly a faith strengthener. I am 100% certain that we couldn't have just been created by an accident like the BBT. There's a greater power building this body.
Everything in medicine makes sense and everything connects and I love how I don't have to worry about the respiratory track of a dolphin or the anatomy of a cockroach's leg and wing or how a plant makes their ATP. We are only learning about humans. Humans!
Speaking of humans, I dissected my first human cadaver on Wednesday. It was such a great feeling. I wanted to blog about it but I was so tired, I went to sleep when I came back. It was very intense. I went in thinking that the smell would be terrible (I have dissected pigs and cats in the past and the formaldehyde smell was unbearable). I got to dissect his shoulder and I held his head. He looked more like a hippie...pony tail, tattoos, ear piercings etc....
I just wish we were given better dissection instructions! It was more like "This is a scalpel, this is a blade, those are the scissors and the pickup is right over there, oh and that's a human body. You have an hour". We did the best we could considering that we had no prior experience, most of us anyway. I very much enjoyed it. We had another lab just yesterday but the cadaver was starting to smell real bad. I felt like I was going to faint but I put it together. It was starting to get very messy because we dived into his upper limb muscles and nerves and of course fat in the process.
I have my Block1 exams next week! I am excited and scared but everyone says that those are the easiest...I have to get back to studying.
God is the best engineer.
Till next time,
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Changing the name of this blog...
So today I was seriously contemplating changing the name of this blog. Yes I am still very neurotic hahaha but I don't know about the second part. I can't be a perfectionist and in med school at the same time. I tried very hard to read every little detail of histo last night but it was just impossible! Everyone in my study group is way ahead of me...way way ahead of me. And the funny part is they actually understand the material more than I do, even though I have consulted more than one resource to understand the topic (and there's neurotic perfectionism kicking in again--unable to feel satisfaction because in my own eyes I never seem to do things well enough to warrant that feeling of satisfaction.
So I am thinking that maybe I should change it to something boring like "diary of a medical student" or "Dr.my initial". Not sure yet.
I plan to make a lot of food today and clean my apt! It is a big mess! and I also have to go grocery shopping : ( And I still have a chapter to finish in histo. The plan was to finish all of histo last night and start Anatomy this morning at 4:00 a.m.....my alarm went off and I actually woke up, turned it off and went right back to sleep!
Anatomy, here I come!
Till next time
So I am thinking that maybe I should change it to something boring like "diary of a medical student" or "Dr.my initial". Not sure yet.
I plan to make a lot of food today and clean my apt! It is a big mess! and I also have to go grocery shopping : ( And I still have a chapter to finish in histo. The plan was to finish all of histo last night and start Anatomy this morning at 4:00 a.m.....my alarm went off and I actually woke up, turned it off and went right back to sleep!
Anatomy, here I come!
Till next time
Saturday, January 15, 2011
The battle has just begun
I've been wanting to blog about the recent events but it just seems like time is so golden. It really grabs you by the wrist and directs your life. But I am all alone now...and words can't describe how much I miss my family but the good thing is I am surrounded by other people who are going through the exam same thing I am going through. It just makes things easier and somewhat healthier. I really have no time to blog about all the details but if there's one thing I wanted to express here it has to be that medical school is no joke! And the more we progress in our course material, the more doubt I have about my ability to survive. Sometimes at lunch time I just sit there and space out. I think about what a good friend of mine told me before I left Winnipeg. He said that this move [medical school+being on my own] is a big move and that he is afraid that its going to be "bigger than me". I really hope and pray to God that I can survive the first semester. I feel like there's no time to "adjust" to life here because you are constantly worrying about Histology and Anatomy that major things like food and sleep are often compromised. I want to organize my time and be able to cook ahead of time for the whole week. It would save me a lot of time and mental energy (I think about what to cook when I go home all the time--Dreading the cooking part already!)
Last night was very unproductive. I was going to take a nap for supposedly 45 mins but my alarm didn't go off and slept in till 12:30 a.m. but I feel like I really needed those 5 hours of sleep. Then I woke up, drank water and went right back to sleep lol. I'm trying to not punish myself too much. There was a big party last night and everyone was out having fun and enjoying their little time off...I felt like I should do the same, albeit in a very different way. I should have some "ME" time. Sleeping does it for me. Man I really miss my "morning me time" with mom. My mornings now consist of waking up at 6 a.m., showering, eating breakfast real fast while studying for anatomy, praying and rushing for the bus. I have no time to just sit there, sip my coffee and do nothing. Gotta kiss those days goodbye!
I gotta get back to studying.
This is the view 2 mins away from where I live.
Till next time
Last night was very unproductive. I was going to take a nap for supposedly 45 mins but my alarm didn't go off and slept in till 12:30 a.m. but I feel like I really needed those 5 hours of sleep. Then I woke up, drank water and went right back to sleep lol. I'm trying to not punish myself too much. There was a big party last night and everyone was out having fun and enjoying their little time off...I felt like I should do the same, albeit in a very different way. I should have some "ME" time. Sleeping does it for me. Man I really miss my "morning me time" with mom. My mornings now consist of waking up at 6 a.m., showering, eating breakfast real fast while studying for anatomy, praying and rushing for the bus. I have no time to just sit there, sip my coffee and do nothing. Gotta kiss those days goodbye!
I gotta get back to studying.
This is the view 2 mins away from where I live.
Till next time
