"I like my money where I can see it... hanging in my closet" - Carrie, SATC

I promised I'd update with a non-medical school/fun post eventually, so here goes the epic weekend:

Friday night - Grey's Anatomy, Girls' Night In, and out and out forgetting that school ever existed
Saturday- Starkville! First "live" football game... and it was way too much fun. Melissa thinks she might even turn me into a State fan. Eh, I don't see that one coming any time soon - but I did cheer for them and get excited when they beat the pants off Georgia. My football fandom goes as such: Ole Miss>Mississippi Teams>Bama/Florida>All Other SEC>The rest of the country...
Sunday - church, football (Saints... what more can I say. Don't break our hearts this season boys... it takes an offense AND a defense).
Monday - had a freaking mandatory TBL (team based learning, or more affectionately known as total BS and lies) that was extraordinarily painful, followed by keifer's and writing of test challenges.
Today - it's off to Renaissance with M and N for lots and lots of retail therapy, good food, and laughs.

It's a very happy time in my life. Welcome to it :)

Foreman: "Now all we have to do is read her subconscious and hope that it's completely rational and went to med school."

Test block OVER!!! What a week it has been. The title of this entry, although intended towards a patient in an episode of House totally describes a majority of our professors and their approaches to test questions. I'm just relieved to be on the other side, and super excited about a school free weekend. So far, it holds promises of lots of food, friends, football and fun. Going to my first college game tomorrow night - pretty excited about that. Tonight is going to be low key... I've got about enough energy left to lift my head off the pillow and look at the computer screen (and that's pushing it!) even after a couple hour nap.

I can't say the week was pleasant, but it was much easier considering the fact that M moved in and we muddled through it all together. How you'd do this without a best friend beside you, I have absolutely NO idea.

In personal news, one of my very good friends from home has officially announced her pregnancy - I'm so happy for her and her husband. They are going to make wonderful parents. I was lucky enough to be in the wedding, and if all goes well (and baby stays put til his/her due date), I may be lucky enough to be beside her on this big day too - it falls at the very end of April, so I'm going to have to have a talk with Peanut and convince him/her to wait until after finals, but soon after, so that it isn't close to fourletterword test day.

Looking forward to October. Fall is in the air (somewhere), I'm making another trip to Easely Amused (Starry Starry Night by Meg, the artist...), and there will not be one single test. Much different than Blacktober last year. All my prayers and well wishes are already with the M1's. Other projects for October involve a day or two back in the NICU and some more research on the longitudinal study that Dr. K and I were looking at starting toward the end of the summer. Crazy how quickly the year is passing.

This could quite possibly be the most boring blog post ever. Just wanted to let y'all know I hadn't dropped off the face of the planet... and hopefully I'll have fun things to post about soon!

A patient's history is as important as their symptoms. It's what helps us decide if heart burn's a heart attack... if a head ache's a tumor....

"A patient's history is as important as their symptoms. It's what helps us decide if heart burn's a heart attack... if a head ache's a tumor. Sometimes patients will try to re-write their own histories. They'll claim they don't smoke, or forget to mention certain drugs... which in surgery can be the kiss of death. We can ignore it all we want, but our history eventually always comes back to haunt us." - Meredith

Another wonderful week in the world of med school. I can't believe the test block is right around the corner, but shockingly, I feel much more prepared than I thought I would at this point and I'm truly not overly concerned. Kind of ready to get it over with.

The big exciting news of this weekend post is that I've finally found a church I feel "home" at in Jackson... why it took me so long to go, I'll never have any idea. But God was definitely drawing me there yesterday and it was an incredible experience. Very different than any church I've ever been a part of (It's. So. BIG!!), but exactly what I need at this point in my life. We also started up bible study on Wednesday, so I've spent the week getting back to the basics and the things that matter - my relationship with Jesus and His community. It's a lot easier to go through the trials and tribulations of daily living when you're in concert with Him. Even though I've struggled a bit with my humanism this week, it's been revealed to me in multiple ways and through multiple people that He is good, and He has put some amazing people in my life to help me walk this journey :)

So once again, it's kind of a boring "med school" update. I'm ready to get back in the clinical setting, the classroom is for the birds. Which is why I'm sitting at home studying today instead of in the classroom... I'm tired of being a bird. It seems we study better not sitting in class and the stress level is much lower, so I'm slowly becoming one of "those" people. I'll never be a complete non-class-goer, but not being there every class is awesome.

Now, back to breast pathology. Don't forget to do your monthly self breast checks!

doctorspeak

Sometime in the last two months, something changed. Not only are we beginning to think like doctors, we're also beginning to talk like doctors - and not in the awkward "using big words because we just learned them" way of last year. Nope. Instead, doctorspeak has become almost as comfortable, if not more so, than the common English that I've been speaking for 25 years. For example:
CC: 25yo WF presents for occasional "heart racing".
HPI: Sxs appear seasonally, with peaks in September and December/January
Physical: Normal findings... (lots and lots of three letter abbreviations)
Dx: Football FEVER!!!!!!!

Why yes, my friends, it is officially football season! As if this week needed help getting any more fun and less school productive? :)

Other things that happened this week outside the realm of study central:
-First PIG meeting on Thursday. I think it went pretty well :), and i've tweaked the sticky parts so that next month's is even smoother
-Easely Amused Thursday night was AMAZINGLY fun. Our painting "Sweet Georgia Brown" looked pretty tough, and I have no artistic ability.. so I was a little bit nervous about that. But it was super fun, turned out really well, and is definitely an experience I'll repeat.
-Mommy's birthday yesterday... we had a good time hanging out/catching up. Family is something that too often gets neglected during this process (especially last year) and I'm grateful that I've found a better balance so far this year.

Hope everyone has a WONDERFUL long weekend!