January in LA-LA Land

Holy schnikees I haven't written since Christmas break.

One may describe life as "hectic" since my return to the Inland Empire, and one will still fail to fully capture the mien of the second semester of the second year of medical school. This is how I describe it: Holy Shit!

The course load is as intense as ever. On top of that, I am a TA for a class which sucks up anywhere from 2-4 hours of my week. Also, they have this course called Inter Professional Education, where we work with colleagues from the other colleges (physical therapy, physician ass't, podiatry, dentistry, optometry, etc.) to solve cases and whatnot. Well, this semester they've decided to have us do group work, but have not blocked out any "safe-time" in the schedule for this work. So we're stuck trying to meet on our own time. By the way, each college has its own schedule, and they rarely coincide with ours. It is maddening and exhausting and robs us of valuable study time. Rawr.

On top of that we began studying for step 1 of the boards this month. So while still passing our courses--and the operative word there is pass--we have to read 50 pages/week and work through 125 questions/week of board practice material. No sweat, right? Because I forgot, I am actually Superwoman. Actually, I'm way behind already.

We are currently in the Reproductive System course and while I can say that I understand the appeal of working in OB/GYN (you get a bit of inpatient, a bit of outpatient, a wide variety of pathology, surgery and medicine), I am frickin' tired of looking at junk all the livelong day. We capped last week with lectures on miscarriage/abortion and sterilization. This week we'll learn to deliver fake babies, so maybe that'll reinvigorate me. Until next week's pelvic and rectal exam practice.

This weekend is "free" for me ("free" meaning no big exam, but still at the mercy of board study and IPE), so last night we ventured into LA for some fun. We strolled Santa Monica beach in near 80º weather--something that typically doesn't happen during an Oregon January. Or sometimes July for that matter. We strolled through Venice. We shopped. We nom-nom-nommed. We sipped at the gay bar. We set out, eyes peeled for famous Venice residents (i.e., Bradley Cooper, Viggo Mortensen, Zach Galafinakis, and never to be forgotten, RDJ), and who did we run into?

Bob Saget.

Celebrity sighting FAIL.

Overall, a Friday night WIN.