First, I'm sorry for not posting more often, but the internet has been sucking pretty bad here in the dorms. I really can't wait to get out of the here next semester so I can finally have CaribServe, which is apparently much faster and reliable! It literally takes about 10 minutes or more to stream a 1 minute youtube clip and I have been stuck updating my computer one program at a time since the internet is too slow/unreliable to update everything at once.
Anyway, we had our second mock today and it was much like the first. Meaning, it covered a decent amount of stuff that we have not covered yet and was significantly harder than the actual exam will be. It is harder not only because they give us questions that we are not yet expected to know the answer to, but it's also free response (unlike the real practical) and many questions have multiple, sometimes even unrelated parts (unlike the practical). Also, they'll sometimes tag a structure without showing us where it's going to or coming from, making it even more difficult to identify. Because of this, it's pretty much impossible to get much of an idea of how you're doing so far, making the mock not very useful at all. It's not totally worthless, because I did pick up a few little things in the discussion time at the end. But, mostly worthless.
In any case, compared to others I've talked to, I did very well...better than I did the first time. This may sound horrible, but really the only reason I go is because I do better than most people and when I feel like I've still got so much to learn before the exam, it makes me feel a little better than I'm still ahead of most everyone else. There's no curve in grading and getting into the honors society no longer depends on doing better than your classmates, but as long as class rank remains, there's a reason to do better than others. And, I probably wouldn't even usually care about that, but I'm trying to do everything I can to improve my chances of transferring out of here, so maybe that'll help.
P.S. - to Jay, aka. - anonymous:
Thank you for continuing to visit my blog! Although I will never publish your comments and I'm not quite sure why you continue to waste your time writing them, they are slightly amusing to read. Also, ever since I've installed that BlogRush widget, every page hit I get increases my blog's exposure! So, thank you for helping to bring more readers to my blog! Even if you do continue to hide in anonymity and send comments that will never be posted, I hope you'll keep visiting and in turn, bringing more people to my blog!
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Status of med school
Well we're now into the second week of the second block. In anatomy, we're studying the head and neck. I had no idea how many tiny little structures (a ridiculous amount of nerves) were in there! Apparently, this is one of the hardest blocks. For a while, I thought I was a little behind, but things starting coming together today for some reason. Tomorrow will be a big anatomy study day for me though, so that will probably help a lot. Also, like usual for friday, we don't have anatomy tomorrow, so we won't have any new material. So, I'll be able to spend the whole day just reviewing. We also had histo today instead of tomorrow, so we won't have anything new there either!
Speaking of Histology, our new professor (not new to the school, just us) Dr. G., is hilarious!! I don't know if it's because he's got a strong accent or just because of the degree to which he is inappropriate, like all the time, but probably just gets away with it because of his accent! He's already taught us how to make a "hormone" and he had way too many gratuitous pictures of breasts in the lecture today, along with plenty of jokes for them. I'm not complaining, but it was like every other slide! Although, we were studying breast tissue today. Also, in case you didn't know, melanin covers the nucleus of epithelial cells over the apical surface, "like a little hat, it's kind of cute!" Lots of histological slides are very cute to Dr. G for some reason.
MCB is coming along and i think I'll do well again, but it's very difficult to stay awake while Dr. V. lectures! Thank god I've we've got tutoring with Sunil on Fridays to fill in anything I miss! Sunil is probably the best tutor we've got for first semester, definitely knows his stuff He's sort of all over the place on stage ;) , but he does a very good job of highlighting what's important for the exams! The anatomy tutors are also good, but too many people show up and crowd around the dissecting table, so I don't bother to go. I really wish we had smaller classes!!! 170-something is too big, really too large for the anatomy lab to hande! I don't know how they're doing it at Ross and SGU with twice as many people! Oh, and in case you were wondering...a month into first semester and we still don't have cadavers! I really don't see any acceptable excuse for that. Oh well..nothing to do about it now, i suppose. In reality, even though there is plenty to complain about here, the quality of education is very good and we have some excellent professors. I'm certain (and from what i've heard...it's true) that we'll be at least as prepared as all the students from the US schools when clinicals begin. It may be easier to get in here, but it is not any easier to stay here and do well!
Speaking of Histology, our new professor (not new to the school, just us) Dr. G., is hilarious!! I don't know if it's because he's got a strong accent or just because of the degree to which he is inappropriate, like all the time, but probably just gets away with it because of his accent! He's already taught us how to make a "hormone" and he had way too many gratuitous pictures of breasts in the lecture today, along with plenty of jokes for them. I'm not complaining, but it was like every other slide! Although, we were studying breast tissue today. Also, in case you didn't know, melanin covers the nucleus of epithelial cells over the apical surface, "like a little hat, it's kind of cute!" Lots of histological slides are very cute to Dr. G for some reason.
MCB is coming along and i think I'll do well again, but it's very difficult to stay awake while Dr. V. lectures! Thank god I've we've got tutoring with Sunil on Fridays to fill in anything I miss! Sunil is probably the best tutor we've got for first semester, definitely knows his stuff He's sort of all over the place on stage ;) , but he does a very good job of highlighting what's important for the exams! The anatomy tutors are also good, but too many people show up and crowd around the dissecting table, so I don't bother to go. I really wish we had smaller classes!!! 170-something is too big, really too large for the anatomy lab to hande! I don't know how they're doing it at Ross and SGU with twice as many people! Oh, and in case you were wondering...a month into first semester and we still don't have cadavers! I really don't see any acceptable excuse for that. Oh well..nothing to do about it now, i suppose. In reality, even though there is plenty to complain about here, the quality of education is very good and we have some excellent professors. I'm certain (and from what i've heard...it's true) that we'll be at least as prepared as all the students from the US schools when clinicals begin. It may be easier to get in here, but it is not any easier to stay here and do well!
It has arrived!
After waiting for the past couple of months (very impatiently), since the day they officially announced the iPhone, mine finally arrived in St. Maarten! I don't know that there's ever been a package that I've anticipated so much! If you don't know by now, I am a bit of an apple fanatic, but the iPhone is the most amazing piece of technology that I have ever held in my hands. If you have touched one, then you may know what I'm talking about. However, if you've only seen it in pictures or heard about it, you have no idea of it's greatness! it really is somewhat magical when you use it.
In any case, it took me about 3 hours to unlock because of the painfully slow internet connection at school. However, the actual unlock process only took less than 1/2 hour! As soon as the unlock program had completed its thing, I stuck in a Chippie SIM card (the local cell provider) and it worked immediately, with full service. The only thing that obviously doesn't work is the EDGE network and visual voicemail, which are both dependent on AT&T's network. However, everything else works perfectly! Thank you soooo much to my dad for getting it for me! If you want one of your own, I can tell you how to unlock it, it's really pretty simple.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Really?
OOOH...maybe all jews should wear a star too! Isn't that right, Nazis? I'm afraid this is the 25% of America that support Bush.
Shark Dive
On Friday, I went on the shark awareness dive with Dive Safaris. There were about 10 of us on the dive, but all the others were from the Royal Caribbean cruise ship or tourists staying in a hotel. I was really surprised that not more people from AUC wanted to go, but I guess there aren't that many that are both certified and have been diving in the last two years. John just finished his certification though this past Saturday and wants to go, so i guess at least he will next time.
In any case, the dive was definitely worth doing. It only costs $55 since they give students the local discount. It's about a 15 minute boat ride out to the dive site and then after a briefing, they get you underwater pretty quick. You descend down a line to just under 60 feet and then make your way over to the feeding area. They have been doing this for about 8 years now, so by the time I got over to where they do the feeding, 3 or 4 sharks had already started swimming around the area.
They have everyone lay down behind a bunch of cinderblocks which you can hold on to. Unfortunately, but for other divers' safety, we're not allowed to touch the sharks. So, you just lay there for about 30 minutes while the guy in the center feeds them. You can, of course, take pictures though...you don't just sit there and do nothing the whole time. The sharks do get very close though! You could easily reach out and touch them and one of them almost took off my goggles when I wasn't paying attention!
The two largest sharks which come around (Big Mama and Spot) both showed up, as did 5 others. They ranged in size from about 3-7 feet. A lot of people said I was crazy for diving with sharks, but it's really not unsafe at all. In 8 years, they haven't had a single incident, and this is with one of the top 20 most dangerous shark species in the world (reef shark) out of over 300 species! They really act more like dogs than anything. They just swim around and at most, when they get a little fiesty, nudge at you or swim between your legs or something. Even when they were fighting the feeder guy to get at the shark food though, they never bit, just nudged.
You can find many more pictures from the day at my flickr link to the right. All of these are pictures from the dive, not fake as some people have suggested!!!
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Recent News:
- We had a pretty decent storm last night...thunder, lightning, lots of wind, and torrential rain! Apparently, it was the remnants of hurricane someone or other.
- The internet went out (again). But, I suppose that's to be expected. Thinking too hard about internet is enough to make it go out, so I suppose any moisture would could do it as well.
- We got a ridiculous amount of cranial anatomy to learn today! Very good thing that we don't have anatomy tomorrow, because we've easily got two days worth of stuff!!!
- I think I'm going to join Marcy's Mega Gym in Simpson Bay...anyone know anything about the place? I visited it last night and it seemed to be one of the nicer gyms around. It certainly put AUC's gym to shame!
- The Spouse's Club!!! They sure do know how to make a breakfast burrito, delicious cookies, and rice krispy treats! They sold them yesterday, but they were selling the left overs today. The day-old burritos were just as good the second day :) mmmmmmm....spouse's club breakfast burritos.
- Yesterday was also shawarma wednesday. They were delicious, as well. It was nice, didn't have to leave campus at all yesterday for good food!
-Speaking of good food by campus, the pizza guy next to the coffee shop makes awesome pizza. I hear the student special, complete with honey, is very good, but I don't know if I'm quite ready for honey on my pizza yet.
-Shark diving tomorrow!!!
- The internet went out (again). But, I suppose that's to be expected. Thinking too hard about internet is enough to make it go out, so I suppose any moisture would could do it as well.
- We got a ridiculous amount of cranial anatomy to learn today! Very good thing that we don't have anatomy tomorrow, because we've easily got two days worth of stuff!!!
- I think I'm going to join Marcy's Mega Gym in Simpson Bay...anyone know anything about the place? I visited it last night and it seemed to be one of the nicer gyms around. It certainly put AUC's gym to shame!
- The Spouse's Club!!! They sure do know how to make a breakfast burrito, delicious cookies, and rice krispy treats! They sold them yesterday, but they were selling the left overs today. The day-old burritos were just as good the second day :) mmmmmmm....spouse's club breakfast burritos.
- Yesterday was also shawarma wednesday. They were delicious, as well. It was nice, didn't have to leave campus at all yesterday for good food!
-Speaking of good food by campus, the pizza guy next to the coffee shop makes awesome pizza. I hear the student special, complete with honey, is very good, but I don't know if I'm quite ready for honey on my pizza yet.
-Shark diving tomorrow!!!
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Another video
I'm not trying to turn this into an atheist blog or anything, but I saw this today, and thought it was funny!
A note to all the religious people out there: In the likely event that you did not pick up on it, this video is not actually true! It's a little something called satire. ;)
A note to all the religious people out there: In the likely event that you did not pick up on it, this video is not actually true! It's a little something called satire. ;)
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Don't tell mom you're an atheist!
This video is hilarious, amazing, frightening, and maddening, all at the same time!
That bible-thumping, rubbish spewing, curiousity of evolution, Ted Haggard, would be proud!
Scott - 1, Block exams - 0
We got the results back today and mine were very good!! I wound up honoring MCB and histo, and was one question away from honoring anatomy (89%). I'm kinda pissed because I definitely made some stupid mistakes on the anatomy written. One in particular, I even knew the answer...but I debated whether it was the obvious answer and a trick, or the answer that I thought was right. I stupidly decided to go with the answer that fell right into their trick (which is sort of a BS thing for them to do) and got that one wrong, instead of going with what I knew was right. Oh well...I still did very well for the first exam (from what I hear, only 9 others honored MCB for this exam) and I'm off to a very good start in honoring all 3 classes!
So what did I do to study? I think the biggest thing was that I studied on my own! Everyone seems to study in groups, and that just seems like a huge waste of time to me. I tried the group thing one day last week and realized in the first 5 minutes that I could learn it a lot faster on my own. I think groups may be valuable for testing yourself after you study, but they just slow you down when you're actually studying. Personally, I don't even see the need to have anyone test you after you study. You either know it or you don't and it should be pretty obvious which is the case for you.
Someone said that I did well because I study all the time. This is not the case at all though. I took a couple of days almost completely off from studying and I usually study somewhere around 5 hours a day. Sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less.
So what did I do to study? I think the biggest thing was that I studied on my own! Everyone seems to study in groups, and that just seems like a huge waste of time to me. I tried the group thing one day last week and realized in the first 5 minutes that I could learn it a lot faster on my own. I think groups may be valuable for testing yourself after you study, but they just slow you down when you're actually studying. Personally, I don't even see the need to have anyone test you after you study. You either know it or you don't and it should be pretty obvious which is the case for you.
Someone said that I did well because I study all the time. This is not the case at all though. I took a couple of days almost completely off from studying and I usually study somewhere around 5 hours a day. Sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less.
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