Sunday, June 29, 2008

Weekend report

Saturday was sort of a non-day for me. I slept in, a lot, got myself up and moving way too late to go to the public market. Puttered around doing nothing, cleaned my room, finally got home from my shopping at Wegman's around 6:30, and then sat around and polished up my clinical paper for Pharmacology before going to bed.

Today, on the other hand, was a little more eventful. I went for my first ride with my new heart rate monitor. There's a post about it on my other blog. After I got home I went out to a BBQ with Sarah and family at the house of some of her friends. The original purpose of the event was to have me meet Sarah's friend Paul, but that luckily got somewhat diluted by the fact that today was the final of the European soccer championships and all of the men invited wanted to watch the game.

Sarah and Ronen picked me up around 2:30 and we arrived at the friends' (Eric and Nancy) house about 15 minutes into the game. Sarah and Nancy quickly disappeared with all the small children (there were three of them) to the backyard and I stayed with the guys to watch the soccer. It wasn't a terribly exciting match, but it was still fun to watch. By the time it was over we were all really hungry, so Eric cooked up the burgers and we got all the food laid out. The difference between a BBQ with my friends in Portland and a BBQ with this crowd is quite striking, and entirely the fault of the three girls. Everything revolved around the kids, which doesn't make it less fun, just a completely different experience.

I actually got to talk to people a little bit more over dinner, including Paul. He's an interesting guy, and fun to talk with. Obviously a little bit socially awkward, but not too shy so between the two of us I managed the social graces and he managed to keep the conversation going. He's an optical engineer, currently has a torn hamstring, and seems to play every sport known to man. He's also well over 6 feet tall, probably late twenties, a total geek, and completely adored by the three little girls (he makes remarkably good animal sounds and they love him for it). Basically, he's exactly my type. Except for the Catholic thing, but that didn't come up at all today.

Since Sarah is the most blunt and direct person I have ever met, she of course asked me on the way home what I thought of him. I'm sure she will be asking him the same thing about me as soon as she gets the chance. It'll be interesting to see what, if anything, happens next. I can tell that Sarah is loving her role as matchmaker and I am sure that if she gets any encouragement from him at all she will make sure I meet him again.

Regardless of the whole Paul thing, I had a really good time playing with all the little kids and meeting some more friendly people today. Tomorrow I will be going for a bike ride with another classmate, Elspeth, and taking a pharmacology test. I'll have to try out my heart rate monitor again. Yay for new toys!

Friday, June 27, 2008

Birthday, demo, and babies, oh my!

I had a very good birthday. At the beginning of class yesterday morning, one of my friends wished me a happy birthday, which the turned into a big exclamation of everyone sitting around me saying, "It's your birthday?" and, "You're doing your final demo on your birthday!?" The outburst was loud enough to make sure I was bright red and everyone in the class knew that it was both my birthday and my final demo day. At least they didn't all burst into song.

After class, my partner Lauren and I went over to the lab to do the demo. I didn't know who would be evaluating me until I walked in and when I saw my two favorite professors (both named Pam) there, I was extremely relieved. Then I picked my randomly assigned system and got musculoskeletal. Yikes. Anyway, I just went on autopilot and must have done a pretty good job. Apparently at one point during the demo one of the Pams looked over at the other and whispered, "She's really good!" and the other replied, "Yeah, she's my student." Lauren did a good job at not giggling when she saw that. She actually did a very good job of not giggling at all during the whole demo. I managed to finish in 20 minutes, which had me scared because I thought I must have missed something, but I don't think I did. After I was done the Pams went off by themselves to discuss and after what seemed like forever they came back and talked me through what I could have done differently and what I did particularly well. They were both very encouraging and assured me that as the first person to do one I had set the bar pretty high. I'm very happy about the feedback that I got, since bedside patient care is the one thing I have almost no experience with (at least with strangers).

After the demo I went back to the student lounge and got mobbed with congratulations, birthday wishes, and questions about the demo. Sarah, of my newly adopted family, brought me an angel food cake with strawberries and whipped cream and it disappeared in about 10 minutes. It was delicious, and really nice to have my traditional birthday dessert. I spent the next 2 hours in the lounge talking to people, mostly about the demo. It was eventually time to go to class, and we all reluctantly filtered out to listen to a lecture on renal disease and diuretics.

After pharmacology, I was planning to head home and just relax until the usual Thursday class pub night. But, Sarah invited me over to play with her babies (Yasmine is 2.5 years old, Maya is almost 11 months). I couldn't say no to that, so I went and we had a lot of fun just hanging out and talking and playing with the two adorable little girls. Eventually Ronen, Sarah's husband, came home and he joined in the fun. We had dinner, went for a walk to a playground, and generally had a great evening.

At that point it wasn't worth it for me to go home, so I just went straight to the pub to meet other friends. Once again I got bombarded with happy birthdays and final demo questions. A couple of others had done their demos that day too, so we were all being congratulated and interrogated.

I got home around 11:00pm and finally had the chance to open my packages that I'd been waiting to open so patiently. Inside I found a heart rate monitor (Yay!!!!), a really good bike light (which I've been needing), a 4GB flash drive (very useful for school), and a beautiful big poster of a bike race. I was so excited that I wanted to play with the HRM right away, but had to get up for lab the next morning and decided I could wait until the next day. Oh, I also got a voicemail rendition of Happy Birthday that was left while I was taking a shower. I think the performers could use a little vocal training, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and blame it on the phone.

This morning I went to lab, and offered myself up as guinea pig for Lauren and Laura to practice their final demo stuff on. I had to leave early to get to a meeting for my Fuld Scholar research project. I'm going to work on the study about condom use decision by young black mothers. Apparently these girls, when asked about their sexual partners and contraception, don't include their "baby daddy" among their sexual partners, even if teir still sleeping with him. For some reason, he is given a different status in their minds and their more likely to take risks, like not using a condom, with him than anyone else. So the study is done by the county health deparment and their getting these young mothers (age 15-19) to talk in focus groups about the decision they make regarding sexual risk-taking and why. I'll be mostly involved in transcribing the focus group sessions, which I think will be very interesting. I'll also have a chance to do some recruitment and maybe help with the logistics of the focus group meetings. I'm really looking forward to it, although it will add a fair amount of work and stress to my life.

Now that I'm done with classes for the day I'm trying to work on a paper for pharmacology. It's not really started yet, but I should be able to get most of it written this afternoon if I don't procrastinate too much. I'm at my coffee shop, which usually helps me focus on schoolwork. Now that I'm finished checking email and updating everybody on my exciting life, I can get back to it. Thank you to everyone that sent me cards, presents or happy birthdays!

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Final Demo

Tomorrow I do my final demonstration for Health Assessment. I made a mistake when I signed up to do it the first time and was forced to take either a time on the first day of the demos or the last day (July 10th). I did not want to have this hanging over me for the entirety of finals week, so I took the spot tomorrow. Only after I signed up did someone point out to me that I was going to do my demo on my birthday.

So, what is a final demo, you ask? I know you're asking, you're just not in hearing range. So I'm going to answer. For the final demo I will be watched by either one or two professors while I go through two different assessments on my partner (I'm working with a classmate named Lauren). Lauren will have to pretend to be a patient and I have to pretend that I've never seen her before. I then do a "5 Minute Head to Toe" which will actually take about 10 minutes, but that's expected and a randomly picked system from the following options: Neurological, Abdominal, Cardiovascular/Peripheral Vascular, Respiratory/Thorax, Musculoskeletal, or Head/Eyes/Ears/Nose/Throat(HEENT).

Each of these systems has between 25 and 80 things that we have to do. For each thing that we miss, we lose either 0.5 or 1 point (depending on how many items are in that system). I'm not sure exactly how they determine a passing grade, since all the systems have a different umber of required checks. While trying to remember all the stuff I'm supposed to be palpating, inspecting, listening and percussing for I also have to treat Lauren like a 95 year old woman that might fall over and break a hip at any moment. So, bedrails up, hold her as she stands or sits, minimize the number of times she has to change position, etc.

Right now I'm hoping to get the Abdominal System or HEENT because I know them pretty well. If I get Musculoskeletal or Neuro I'm in trouble. Neuro involves checking all of the cranial nerves (there are 12 of them), cerebellar function (similar to a drunk driving test), all kinds of sensory tests and all the reflexes (biceps, triceps, patellar, achilles, brachioradialis, and plantar). Ugh. Did I mention that I have half an hour to introduce my patient, get set up, have her change into a gown, and do both systems?

The only good part about this whole demo? I know before I leave whether I've passed or not. I won't know my overall score, but they'll tell me if I pass or fail. Oh, and since I'm the first person in the program to finish, I will become the most popular person in school for a little while. That should be funny.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

How to not do any work: A 12 step guide

Step 1: Go for a bike ride

Step 2: Ride longer and harder than originally planned

Step 3: Get home tired

Step 4: Eat something

Step 5: Take a shower

Step 6: Eat some more

Step 7: Spread out homework related books and papers on table

Step 8: Pretend to read homework related books and papers

Step 9: Open a Word document and write an impressive sounding title

Step 10: Shuffle a few papers around for a while

Step 11: Go get more to eat

Step 12: Give up and go play on Facebook

Saturday, June 21, 2008

FYI

After performing multiple assessments of almost all body systems I have determined that both Koko and Iceberg are in perfect health.*

*At least for a stuffed gorilla and polar bear.

Friday, June 20, 2008

End of Hell Week #1

I survived and did well on all my exams. Now I get a little bit of breathing room, supposedly. Except I need to stay on top of the written assignments so that I don't have to deal with them during hell week #2, which is coming up after the 4th of July weekend. Current assignment list:

- Nursing Care Plan (ugh, but shouldn't take too long)
- Clinical Paper for Pharmacology (this one will be fun!)
- Comprehensive Health History (ridiculously detailed, will take forever)
- Health Assessment Final Demonstration (I get to do this on my birthday. Yay?)

Notice the complete lack of exams for this week. I'm very excited about that.

Today was the class picnic. We had a lot of fun and I got to meet and play with many small children. Mostly Sarah's kids, because I have been officially adopted into Sarah's family. I even hung out with her at their house and played with her dog this morning. And she asked her two year old if I could come over and play again and the answer was yes. Apparently that's all it takes to get adopted. Oh, and she still wants to hook me up with her friend Paul. So I should expect an invite to a BBQ any day now.

Anyway, the picnic was good, and the ride with Bernie after the picnic was good, and tomorrow I'm meeting a guy that might be renting me a room within a 2 minute walk of school and down the street from Sarah's house. I'm really ridiculously excited about that. I'm sure I will write up a full report about it tomorrow. Oh, and my new roommate finally moved in tonight. I've barely met him, but I'm sure I'll write about him once I get to know him a little more.

Oh! One very exciting development on the landlord front. The oven broke this week, so I emailed Jon about it. He actually called me back the next day to tell me that he would have a new one ordered. This afternoon we got it arranged so that the delivery will be next Wednesday. I'm so impressed with his handling of this after the dryer fiasco. Maybe he's learned that he actually has to hold up his end of the bargain if he doesn't want to lose money. I sure hope so, even though I probably won't be living here beyond the summer.

I think that's all the news of the week. This is going to be a crazy weekend of writing, researching, and cycling. I think that's a perfect way to spend a weekend.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Strange day

I've had weird encounters with people all day. First, I end up trying to reassure people about the pharmacology exam. I don't get stressed out about exams like most people do, so they all assume that I'm absolutely brilliant and must know everything about everything. They may be right, but that doesn't mean I'm going to be able to help them get over their test anxiety. It's a little weird to be surrounded by people 10+ years older than me and have them all wanting reassurance and consolation about a silly test.

I managed to escape the stress and panic surrounding the exam by going to the gym between classes. I wouldn't normally do that on a Tuesday, since I'd normally be racing on a Tuesday, but the sever storm warnings and hurricane force winds made my decision for me. While at the gym I did my usual round of weight lifting. A little while after I had finished with the leg press machine I hear an old lady ask the personal trainer/supervisor guy that's always there if he was doing leg presses. He said no, and she replied, "I thought it must have been you because it was set to 300lbs!" That made me grin, especially because I'm still in the light weight/high reps phase of my lifting cycle. Last time I tried to max it out I could press over 450lbs.

When I got back from the gym, I went to the lounge area to eat and looked around for a seat near ANYONE that wasn't reading the pharmacology text or reviewing flashcards. I found Sarah, who is very sweet and interesting to talk to (a former neuroscience graduate student), and ate lunch with her. Somehow our conversation led to talking about relationships (Sarah is married to an Israeli dancer with two little kids) and she asks me, "Do you like tall, quiet, geeky guys?" Apparently it's pretty easy to determine what kind of guy I like. She then starts describing her friend Paul, who is apparently perpetually single because he's quiet and geeky and awkward around girls. Oh, and he rides bikes. But apparently he's a little bit Catholic. So, anyway, Sarah now wants to invite me to a BBQ at some point this summer, and she just might invite Paul too. At least she didn't suggest setting us up on a blind date...

After that lunchtime matchmaking session, I took the pharmacology test. It went just fine. I wrote about high cholesterol, thyroid suppression, heart failure, and diabetes. I was also the second person in the class to finish, but that's pretty normal for me. The post-test debriefing and chilling out happened in the lounge area, as usual. During one of the conversations a girl that I knew was in our class but hadn't actually met before asks me, "Are you the bike racer?" Apparently I'm getting a reputation. Turns out her name is Elspeth and she does endurance races, mostly cross country skiing, but also mountain biking. So we talk bikes for a while, and I suggest that she do the Highlander century with me. She sounds interested, but worried because she doesn't have a working road bike right now. But if she gets one, I could probably talk her into it. But, at the very least, I've got her phone number and we're planning to go for Monday morning bike rides together.

As I was leaving school today, walking down the hallway, I hear Jocey, a girl that I sort of know, say, "That's Caitlin." She was pointing me out to Karin (Kah-rin, not Karen) and explaining that I'm the one that rides the yellow bike. Apparently Karin was admiring my bike, and my reputation as the crazy biker chick is growing.

Oh, and one last weird people thing. Sarah, the matchmaker, went to graduate school with Bernie of the UR cycling team. He was hanging out with her and asked if she knew a blonde Caitlin. Which she does, because there's a blond Caitlyn in our class. After what sounded like a very confusing conversation, it was determined that Bernie can't tell anything about a girl's appearance when she's wearing a helmet and sunglasses and should have just started with cyclist Caitlin. I guess there are much worse things to be known as. For example, the blonde Caitlyn is now known as the girl who got hammered at a bar and knocked over a guy in a wheelchair. She's also about 6'1" tall, so she's pretty easy to identify. Anyway, Sarah and I proceeded to spend some time talking about how much we like Bernie's legs. He has really good cyclist legs.

On the ride home today it looked like it might start to rain, so I decided to just try to beat it home. That was a mistake. For the record, in Rochester if you are outside without raingear when the rain starts, it's already too late to put the raingear on because you're soaked to the skin in less than a minute. On the plus side, I guess, the rain had stopped by the time I got home about 10 minutes later. And when I got home there was a big box of books and cookies waiting for me! I now have two full gallon bags of cookies in the freezer, divided into "mostly intact" and "falling apart". At least some of the mostly intact ones will be going with me to a class picnic in the park on Friday afternoon.

Tonight I just have to watch a video about doing an abdominal assessment, make sure my cardiovascular SOAPs are ready to turn in, and maybe review a little bit for my exams on Thursday. I'm avoiding any more (school related) reading until the weekend because I'm burnt out from studying for this pharmacology exam. That certainly doesn't mean that I won't be reading the historical smut books that arrived with the cookies.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Hell Week approaches

Three exams, a quiz, two assignments, and the usual metric ton of reading has qualified next week for the title of Hell Week. So, naturally, I spent yesterday baking muffins, going to a birthday party and enjoying the thunderstorms. I did manage to get a few hours of studying in, and am working on it more today.

The muffins I made turned out deliciously. Check out the recipe, if you're interested. I love that they are called toddler muffins. I also made some awesome little pancakes this morning. Except I didn't really follow that recipe very well. I used sour cream instead of cottage cheese, since I didn't have cottage cheese, used 2 whole eggs instead of 4 egg whites because I didn't want to waste 4 yolks, and added some cinnamon. I think in the future I'll add some sugar too. They were quite good though, and incredibly easy. Then, when I went shopping today I found chicken cutlets stuffed with cheese and spinach on sale. That sounded too good to pass up, so I'll be cooking those tonight and eating them for the rest of the week.

On my way out to the store, I passed by a couple of kids playing their front yard. One of them yelled, "Can I hit you with a water balloon?" at me. I told him no, since I was just heading out, but if he saw me on the way home in about an hour he could. He just looked so excited about it and asked so nicely that I couldn't give him an absolute no. Sadly, or luckily, I didn't see him on my way home. I'm sure the water balloon was put to good use.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

The Cinema

I was studying at Muddy Waters yesterday afternoon, as is becoming my habit on Fridays or weekends. I wasn't focusing very well, but still managed to finish my SOAP notes for the cardiovascular assessment we did in lab this week. Around 6pm it was time to go find dinner, so I walked a couple of blocks to the South Wedge Diner. South Wedge is the name of the neighborhood around there. It looked like a typical greasy spoon diner, with remarkably good sandwiches, service, and prices. After dinner I decided that I wouldn't be able to get any more productive studying done, so I might as well go to the movies.

The theater right beside Muddy Waters is called Cinema. Creative, right? All I knew about this small theater was that they had $3 student admissions for their nightly double feature. Yesterday they were playing Then She Found Me and Made of Honor. The first one had been recommended to me by Lauren, and I knew it had Colin Firth, so that alone was worth the $3.

Inside, the Cinema looks a little shabby, but very quaint. They have a tiny little food counter where you can buy a large popcorn for $2 and a box of candy for a quarter. The theater itself isn't very big, but as soon as I sat down I was surprised by a big tabby cat that jumped up onto my lap and started purring. According to the people sitting in front of me her name is Princess and she lives in the theater, cuddling with whoever she wants during the shows.

The first movie was quite good. I got teary-eyed a few times, and Colin Firth was his typical swoon-worthy self. The second movie was awful. I don't understand what people find attractive about Patrick Dempsey, and the entire storyline had been done before, only better, in My Best Friend's Wedding. Except the part where Patrick Dempsey actually gets the girl in the end. Sorry if I spoiled anything for you there, but it's not exactly a big shocker.

I also discovered that the ticket stub from the Cinema will get discounts from both Muddy Waters and the ice cream shop just down the road. So, for $3 I got two movies, cheap coffee, and a cat to cuddle with. I call that a pretty good deal.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Shopping!

I had a very successful shopping trip this evening. I ordered a bridesmaid dress for Alice's wedding (it will be in red), and bought a whole bunch of clothes for summer. I think the final count is four tank tops, one t-shirt, one skirt, two pairs of bermuda shorts (like capris, but end just above the knee), and a pair of non-padded bike shorts that I can wear under skirts for riding around town and to school. Helps to prevent chafing, as well as unintended flashing of my underwear.

I still need to pick out shoes to match my dress, but otherwise I think my part in the wedding planning is done. Not a lot I can do from the other side of the country anyway.

This is now week 4 of school. That means I'm halfway done with my current classes. It also means that clinicals will start in 4 weeks. That means working with real patients. I'm going to pull a Scarlett O'Hara and think about that tomorrow.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

The heat is gone!

It rained this afternoon, and I had a little celebration inside my head. It's now a very comfortable 80ish degrees and not very humid and smells like fresh rain. It's even cool inside the house, for the first time since Friday.

I met my other roommate tonight. He was just moving some stuff tonight and will be officially moving in on the 19th. I don't know where he's coming from or anything about him, but he seemed like a nice enough guy.

This week has been pretty laid back at school, but everyone is looking at next week's schedule with awe and dread. Here's a taste of what we have to do on top of our usual class schedule:
Monday: Genetics pedigree assignment due
Tuesday: Medication proficiency test
Wednesday: Cardiovascular Assessment SOAP write-up due
Thursday: Health Assessment test, Pharm test

The big problem is that the only thing that can be done ahead of time is the pedigree. I won't do the CV assessment until Friday, so I can't start that until the weekend, and we won't finish covering the material for the Thursday tests until Tuesday in class. I'll start studying over the weekend, but I have a feeling that Wednesday will be a long night no matter what.

I need more ideas for things to bring with me to class that I can eat throughout the day. Fruit is good, and PBJ is good, but that starts to get old. Anything that I can eat in class would be ideal, since I have a lot of three hour classes and tend to fall asleep if I don't get something to eat. If only my bagels hadn't been attacked by the Rochester super-mold. Maybe it's time to start making trail mix.

Monday, June 9, 2008

Sexy research

Apparently you guys think I should study either condoms or prostitution... I dunno what that says about me, or you, but I'm sure it's something. I've emailed the coordinator for the condom use study because that one sounds the best to me. I would actually be able to sit in on sessions with participants and do transcription of interviews, which would be fun.

Today was still hot. Katherine ended up being unable to ride with me, but I still went out for about an hour this morning on Paris. It was nice and relaxing, except for the sweat dripping all over me. Everyone at school seemed shocked that I was still riding my bike in this heat, but then they would go sit outside during class breaks. I think they're all insane.

I'm probably not going to race tomorrow night, since the forecast calls for a high of 86 with accompanying thunderstorms and potential large hail. Doesn't that sounds like fun. At least it'll be cooler. The low at night will actually drop to 70ish tonight, which will be a welcome relief. As an example of how brutally awful the heat is, there was a pro bike race in Philadelphia (about 3 hours away) this weekend. 190 men started, less than 50 finished. And these guys get paid for this.

I'm having other problems with the weather. All of my bread is going moldy. Until this past week I'd been keeping everything in the cupboard because fridge space is limited. Well, half a loaf of bread got covered in black fuzzy stuff in just s couple of days, so anything that has survived is now refrigerated. The thing that really puzzles me, though, is that my bagels got moldy. Why is this a puzzlement? They were in the freezer. How does mold grow in the freezer? I know they weren't moldy when I put them in there, but I went to toast one this morning and it was covered in little white spots. I thought maybe it was just from freezing, so I warmed the bagel up a little, and turns out the white spots smelled like mold. And they were on all 10 of the bagels in that bag. Rochester must breed super-molds or something, I just don't get it.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Procrastination

Not really procrastinating, since I don't have a lot of schoolwork to do right now. I had planned to spend my extra free time today shopping for hot weather clothing, since I'm woefully short on that kind of thing. Sadly, all the zipcars were booked so I have to put it off until Wednesday evening.

The good news is that Alice finally got her wedding dress in and the color has been confirmed for our bridesmaid dresses. Which means that while shopping for tank tops and shorts, I can also pick out a bridesmaid dress. It will almost certainly show off my fabulous tan lines. Should be great.

I really want to do some muffin baking, but it's just too hot to turn on the oven. Ugh. Thankfully it should cool down to high 70s/low 80s by midweek.

Oh, and I'm thinking about doing this. It sounds like the Torture 10,000 of the East. I might just be a little bit insane.

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Crazy weekend fun

Last night was the East End Festival and a night out with the main social crowd from school. We were celebrating Jessica and Eric's birthdays, or at least that was the excuse for the outing. I managed to get a ride into town with a group of girls that I'm getting to know pretty well, including a Sarah from Portland. You guys might get to meet her between semesters, I think she'll be going home too.

Anyway, we met at a British pub called the Old Toad. I sadly didn't get the chance to see much of it, since we were running late and whisked off to the festival. The festival was all local bands playing on several different stages. Think loud, crowded, lots of beer and greasy food, people cheering for no reason, etc. It was a lot of fun, except for the 90 degree heat with extra humidity. Every time a breeze picked up there was a lull in the noise as we all stopped to make the most of it.

While standing in line with the group for beer, a random guy I'd never seen before (clearly very drunk) put his hand on my shoulder and said, "You are so..." and then couldn't finish the sentence. So Kristina, who was standing beside me offered some help, suggesting "Beautiful, gorgeous, ravishing, lovely..." and on and on. He decided to agree with "all of the above," I was bright red at this point and wanting to go hide in the crowd, but couldn't figure out a graceful exit. He probably noticed this and then stalled me by asking if I would like a beer. I was so surprised I didn't answer, but Kristina answered for me, saying that I would absolutely like a beer. She also told him what kind. So I ended up getting free beer, having hardly said a coherent word since the moment he accosted me. Of course, when he handed me the beer he asked if I had a boyfriend. The answer was an emphatic yes. I don't think he was too disappointed, since he promptly turned around and bought beer for the next girl in line.

I think the highlight of the East End fest was a country-ish group with an enormous man in overalls doing the worm across the stage to Sweet Home Alabama. It was definitely a sight I will never forget.

The festival ended at 11, so we went out to a place called the Blue Room afterward. They were playing music from when most of us were teenagers, so we danced like idiots and did a lot of giggling. I got home around 1am, completely worn out, drenched with sweat from the heat and dancing, and feeling quite happy with my Friday on the town.

When I woke up this morning it was only slightly cooler outside. But, I had to get food, so I went to the market and Wegmans and did my grocery shopping. I tried to convince myself to get on Paris and do a workout, but it just wasn't going to happen. So I tried to convince myself to work on my Nursing Science paper, but that was almsot impossible with sweat dripping off my face onto my keyboard. According to the thermostat it was 80 degrees inside the house by about 2pm. It only got hotter throughout the day. So I fled to Muddy Waters for air conditioning and caffeine to get me through my paper writing. It was remarkably successful, and I'm now pretty much done with the assignment and have caught up with my Pharm reading. I also managed to put together the two videos in the previous post and spend a lot of time joking around with the barista.

This barista was very funny, sarcastic and inappropriate. For most of the day (I was there from 2:30-9:30 except for a short dinner break) I was the only other person in the shop. A few examples of his (funny) inappropriateness: We complained about the weather and he suggested starting a commune in the shop and invited me to join the commune because, "I'll need women to help me populate it." Then, when I got back from dinner and said something about the weather not being nice he said, "Like Mormons at your door trying to convert you not nice, or the people who throw the Mormons out not nice?" Oh, and my personal favorite was when I bought my second drink from him he gave me 50% off just for hanging around all day. But he said, "I'm only giving it to you half price because I put something special in there just for you. *wink* If you start feeling a little woozy, let me know, it means the rufies is working." We then went on to describe an advertising campaign for the shop that included, "It's a great place to bring a date! Free rohypnol with every drink!" I blame all of this on heat stroke.

So, things I have learned this weekend:
1. Keep your mouth shut and you might get free drinks.
2. Get used to a constant layer of glistening sweat, since it reappears immediately after showering.
2a. Sunscreen only works for a little while, since the glistening layers of sweat get rid of it pretty fast.
2b. Sweaty sunburnt skin should not come into contact with a leather couch. If it does, it hurts a lot when removed from the leather.
3. Air conditioning is one of the best inventions ever.
4. Become a coffee shop bum and get free barista entertainment plus cheap coffee.
5. Chocolate peanut butter blended iced coffee is right up there with air conditioning.


Oh, and maybe some stuff about pharmacology too. By the way, I got a 96% on my last pharm test. And I have no exams this week, which is a small miracle unto itself. Tomorrow I will do a workout on my bike, I promise. I ight also go shopping for more summer clothes.

Movies!

I've been promising video of Rochester and the market for a while, and finally made some. First, a trip to school:



And since that video took a ridiculously long time to upload, and I want to go get some dinner, I'm going to post the second one later.

**EDIT**

It's now later. Here's the market video:



I've uploaded them in slightly different ways. If one works better than the other let me know in the comments and I can stick with that in the future.

Enjoy!

Thursday, June 5, 2008

New poll!

I have to choose a research project for my Fuld scholarship. I've listed the options that I find even remotely interesting in the poll on the right. Vote and help me choose!

A lot happening this week

I'll post more when I can. My laptop charge cable died, so I've been without a computer at home since Sunday. That has sort of derailed my efforts at posting more consistently. Anyway, the quick and dirty update for today is that things are looking up. I had a rough beginning of the week, but everything seems to have been sorted out now.

I'm starting to get tests and assignments back and am doing well, which is encouraging. I have another Path/Pharm test this afternoon and need to finish up and turn in my SOAP notes for Assessment tomorrow. After I'm done with school stuff tomorrow I'll be heading to the East End Fest for a celebration of all the June birthdays in our class.

I didn't race Tuesday night because of all the stuff going on and a general feeling of exhaustion, but I've been going to the gym regularly and feeling so much better because of it. I might even learn to like lifting one of these days.

This weekend I'll be doing homework, shopping, and riding my bike (hopefully with a friend from school or the UR team guys). Once my computer is back I've got a video and some pictures to post, too. I should be getting the replacement cable today.

Oh, and I found out that I'll be doing Adult/Home Health/Psych clinicals in the fall and OBGYN/Peds in the spring. This summer is Long Term Care/Acute Care. I think that's a good schedule, I like that I'll get the adult stuff in before doing pediatrics. My Fuld Scholar research will be starting up soon too. Always lots to do. Will try to post more, including cycling posts, later tonight or tomorrow.