During my first week of medical school, I:
- am actually starting to wonder what I just got myself into. I really am (unfortunately) in class as if it’s a 9-5 job, except I have to come back home and study what I’ve just learned. “Study” is a loose term for what I think I actually accomplish away from school, because I honestly feel like I retain 20% of what I’m supposed to know every day.
- am starting to learn words I never thought existed like thoracolumbar fascia and syncytiotrophoblast and glossopharyngeal and pterygopalatine, all of which come from anatomy (and which probably doesn’t bode well for memorizing).
- had my first anatomy lab. Apparently there’s no such thing as easing into medical school — we went full speed and started cutting and identifying parts of the body, and our first quiz over our dissection is Monday. In the meantime, my classmates and I are learning how to get rid of that nasty formaldehyde smell that plagues first year medical students. (How can you tell first year med students apart from others? They reek!)
- am having a mini-freakout after realizing exactly how much information we’re supposed to learn in a month for our first round of exams. Every word in every sentence on every page that’s contained snuggly within my 2″ binder is expected to be committed to memory. I’m having trouble believing my brain can squeeze that much information in it. Rinse and repeat 8 times until May — that’s a foot and a half of information on sheets of paper for the first year.
But — the people here are so amazing and helpful. If there’s one thing I’m enjoying right now, it’s getting to know my classmates. I’m actually starting to really love my school, despite my initial qualms about it (I’m not a huge fan of the city, but maybe that’s changing), and I’m glad my classmates know how to have fun (because if I were surrounded by a bunch of nerds who studied 24/7, I’m sure I would die inside).
And now…it’s time to head to the library for a (not so) nice session of “trying desperately to commit this all to memory.” AHHH.
I’m having a hard time trying to remember what life was like before the advent of cell phones. How did people contact one another? Why must there be a decision between having a land line and having internet? How did you know where everyone was at a certain point in time???
My SIM card on my phone literally went kaput last night, and right now I can’t make or receive any calls and/or texts…or well…anything. I’ve spent the last few hours going to my cell phone service provider store to see if they could just swap it out for me, but unfortunately some bullcrap clause about not being an authorized user on the account is proving to be an obstacle, so I have to get my parents to call customer service and activate a second SIM for me. This would all be good and dandy, except no one’s picking up their stinkin’ phone, and apparently they’re all out of the house.
It’s scary how slowly I’ve become dependent on my cell phone, because right now I’m freaking out because no one has a way to contact me and I don’t have a way to contact people. I feel so isolated from the world right now.
Darn you, SIM card — I finally found someone to watch Harry Potter with me, and now I have to deal with this fiasco!!
It’s amazing how much actual crap you can accumulate over 4 years of college. I’ve spent the last 3 weekends (very tiredly) moving all of my aforementioned crap…it pains me to imagine exactly how much more stuff I can acquire over the next 4 years and if I even want to move out of my room after my first year should something go horribly wrong with my rooming situation, since my roommate and I are virtually strangers and have yet to get to know each other, hah.
But it’s now 3 days before my white coat ceremony, 4 days before my week long orientation starts, and 2 weeks before my first year of medical school begins. It still doesn’t feel real, even though I picked up my parking permit (which holy cow, allows me to park what looks like 2347203948230 miles from campus according to the map) and got my student ID today…maybe in 2 weeks? It’s kind of scary thinking about how people will call me “doctor” in 4 years even though I have a tendency to trip over invisible objects and have things slip from my hands all the time and accidentally bump into things and people and oh my god I’m going to be responsible for people’s lives.
Mini freakout aside, I’m getting more and more excited for the first day of classes (which goes from 8am – 3pm — one of my shorter [!!] days). I haven’t woken up before 10am, much less at 7am, in a long time, so I hope I don’t miss my alarm. That would suck.