About time...

I am finally getting a chance to write some more not due to being busy (rest assured that I am) but actually because the internet has been VERY unstable.

We got our first block exam results back on the 18th and in the morning I got my Molecular and Cellular Biology (MCB) score back which I was thrilled about. [I'll refrain from publishing actual numbers since people get really antsy about them.] So I was having a good morning up until we got our Anatomy and Histology scores back. I passed both written and practical but I was really anticipating higher scores than I actually had. But after going over the exams I realized what happened, there were only two or three questions that I had no idea about but the rest were either tricky questions or mainly dumb mistakes (doubting my gut instinct/running out of time on the practical). I should definitely do much better this block since I am not sick (and will hopefully remain that way) and since I know the style a bit better it should be easier. But then again we have different professors for this block so the questions will be different.

Also there is A LOT of more material to cover this block, mainly in Anatomy and Histology. We are covering cranial nerves and doing head and neck which has a ton of detail that we have to know. And in Histology we have the correct professor, who is actually quite eccentric and excited about the subject, which definitely helps but then again he covers so much material in one lecture that it hurts my brain. So I don't know how they will pose the questions and such but we'll find out...

Either way besides the boring stuff here are some more pretty pictures from the island:

The following is a nice little panoramic of Mullet Bay Beach after the our first set of blocks:


This one is sunrise after a night of rainy weather, shot from my balcony:

Another day in paradise...

That shot was taken off my balcony at around 6am. You may ask what I was doing up so early, in fact I was up around 5am. Again you may ask why? I actually went to bed around 7pm yesterday because I had a headache and felt slightly febrile and I did not wake up till around 5am. I actually felt worst than the night before but my headache was gone, which was a definite improvement because I cannot deal with having a headache. Joint pain, fever, nasal clogging, and even chills I can deal with but headaches really mess me up.

Either way we actually had internet access in the morning so I decided to look up symptoms for Dengue Fever, since they mentioned it is prevalent on the island during orientation, yes I know it was a smooth move on the part of administration. Either way I did the stupidest thing a young doctor in training could do, I self-diagnosed myself. I checked out some WebMD and Wikipedia entries about Dengue and learned that there are two types, Dengue Fever and Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever. The later is the really bad one, if you couldn't tell from the name, it involves bleeding from orifices and usually lays people out for a good week and has a 1-2% fatality rate if Dengue Shock Syndrome occurs. I checked said orifices and I came up clean. The virus is passed through mosquitoes that bite during the day, in contrast to malarial mosquitoes which bite at night. Since we have all gotten bitten up by a ton of mosquitoes I was starting to get scared. That and I was exhibiting the classic symptom of biphasic fever.

So after the mistake of self-diagnosis (kind of like how most of us thought we had serious psychological issues when taking personality psych classes) and the initial scare, thanks to the internet, I went to go workout and do the cross training portion of my marathon training schedule.

And of course what do I see as soon as I step out the door...yes a mosquito...and let's just say it's in a better place now (either that or scraped along the corner of the wall).

Crazy news update...

It was around 9pm when I 'skyping' with my cousin Raj. We were just catching up on what's been happening and all that good stuff. Then he asked me if I had been running and I told him I am getting into a 3 day running and 2 day work out regiment, followed by a long run on the weekends (which I missed this weekend). Anyways I told him I had been running 3 miles before class on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And then we go to talking about the NYC Marathon.

Just to fill everyone in:
Raj ran the NYC Marathon last year and I have been running long runs with him since last summer, since he got me motivated to do so. So after liking the idea of running for extended distances/periods of time for no reason I decided that I would enter to run the marathon with him this year. He recruited 5 others to at least enter the lottery, no one made it, I think most of them were relieved. Feeling a little dejected we all moved on. Then about a month and a half ago one of Raj's acquaintances mentioned that he has some connections and that he might be able to get me in, we took it with a grain of salt but decided to give it a shot.

Lo and behold he checked the entrant database while we were 'skyping' and I was a confirmed entrant!! Excited? DUH! Scared even more? YES!! We couldn't believe it, first that the guy was able to pull through, and then the fact that I had just signed myself up to run 26.2 miles in NY.

Some of you maybe asking yourselves, "How are you going to do this when you are on St. Maarten?" Well I will be flying back for three days, leaving Friday midday (November 2nd at 3:30pm) and getting back Monday (November 5th at 3pm). The race is on Sunday, and I do have class Monday but I guess I'll unfortunately be missing class, to take advantage of this opportunity (if you can call it that, although I think some of you may disagree).

The good thing is I have that following Friday off so I can catch up if need be, and it is actually around the best time possible because I will have had a block exam the week before the race.

I don't really know how I feel right now, a bit of everything I guess, but more excited than anything else. I mean running a marathon is the culmination of a runner's dream. (And yes I do consider myself a runner, and probably even more so after I run the marathon)

Well the spaghetti is almost done and I am starved!

School + Island Life

So it seems the school wants to take it easy on us and ween us into the hell that is to come...from what everyone makes it out to be. Either way Anatomy has been pretty good...lots of vocabulary and bones/muscles/ligaments/vasculature to learn along with Molecular and Cellular Biology (MCB) in which we have only covered genetics so far. It has been manageable but time consuming and I am starting worry about the upcoming weeks when we add Histology and Embryology to the mix. But till then I guess I'll keep working on managing my time with what I have now and get a routine down.

So far my day is usually a variant of the following:

-Wake up by 7am, if not earlier to get in a quick run, then a cold shower (since hot water is a commodity) and breakfast before the 8am MCB class
-MCB runs from 8-9:30am
-Anatomy runs from 9:30-10:30am
-[usually Histology runs from 10:30-11:30am, but we haven't had it this week]
-Class is followed by lunch and a siesta
-Then we have Anatomy lab from 2-4pm
-Then usually reading/studying/making flash cards with multiple breaks for dinner, the occasional basketball game, or Family Guy/Scrubs
-Sometimes there is a meeting or random event that we attend (they lure us into those with free pizza and drinks)
-Then get to bed by midnight


Besides all that boringness check out these shots from the beach last weekend with "The Crew:"

Da Beach

The Crew

THE Great Wall

King of the Castle

Till next time...