Well, after a two year hiatus, I'm back and blogging! Ok, back to my college ways.
I guess I'll just rationalise it by saying that I wasn't actually IN school for a year and a half and blogging just doesn't work as well when you're not procrastinating on something you should be doing.
A rather fast recap of what's going on with my life:
I'm living in Germany now. I successfully uprooted and replanted in September 2014, worked as an Au Pair for a hellish year in which my mother died, my dad got married, I went to Greece, and I was randomly accepted to medical school in Bonn (on a whim). It was a big year. And a hard year.
So now I'm back in full student mode, in a new country, studying something more intense than I've never studied before. I'm older now, 25, and it's not as easy as the first time around. Or maybe it's a language thing. Whatever it is, learning stuff about medicine is hard.
The university system in Germany is quite different from ours back in the States. All grades are based on one exam at the end of the semester (sometimes also at the beginning of the next). You can take a test for a class you never attended. You basically are your own....is what I'm figuring out. They use this "sink or swim" tactic, and if you don't teach yourself the material on your own time, you fail. Unique to medicine though, (thankfully) is that we don't get grades. Everything is purely pass/fail, which is helpful. I thought, yeah, 60%, easy smeazy. Nooooo. It's not. Try remembering every sulcus and tuberculum and ligament and what they do and how they can get hurt. A whole semester worth of only BONES and I can barely manage to get 60%. Next up on the challenge list is organic chemistry (which I stupidly never took in the US). That exam is on Friday and I'm pretty behind because it's just SO MUCH. And it's super tailored toward medicine so it's like an overview of the important things and then they dropped right into biochemistry with amino acids and DNA. It's just a lot. On the bright side, I learned so much by myself and it really gives me something to be proud of, where as in the US it's more like I feel like I had been "taught" so much and the sense of accomplishment wasn't as high I think.
So that's what's going on. What's coming up?
After the embryology and chemistry exams this week, I'm flying to Madrid to meet up with my dad on Saturday. I'm really looking forward to seeing him...and maybe working on my Spanish? I would love to learn Spanish! Marco and I started on Narcos last night on Netflix and it just made me want to be able to speak Spanish SO BAD.
Anyway, after that, at the beginning of March, I'm embarking on my next adventure to Vietnam. I'm heading over there with Marco, Maja and Nick. I'm pretty excited but a bit nervous about the budget. As a non-working full-time medical student living abroad the finance situation is a bit tight. I booked those tickets nervously and thought, yeah, until then I can find a job...but unfortunately learning all this stuff takes a bit more time up than I would've expected which doesn't leave a lot of time for employment. Ah, c'est la vie. You're only young once.
And then it all starts up again in April: this time with developmental neurobiology, physics lab, biochemistry, and histology. (And maybe more? Stay tuned to find out!)
Alright, I think it's time to get back to peptide bonding and kinetics. But this was therapeutic. Maybe I'll try to get back into the groove...
Showing posts with label Anatomy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anatomy. Show all posts
Monday, February 15, 2016
Friday, November 4, 2011
when good's not good enough
today was one of those days. those days when you feel like nothing, absolutely nothing, i do isn't good enough. i studied FOREVER for my anatomy exam. (well, not forever because that means the time spent studying should be infinite and it wasn't) (also, there should be a function on a keyboard where you highlight a sentence and it puts it in parenthesis. or quotes. i should be rich) anyway, so i studied a lot for this exam, and i learned SO much! i'm so impressed with how much better i know the human body now, and not just superficially-i'll-forget-it-tomorrow kind of stuff, but i actually learned and taught myself and took time. (which I do feel good about, don't get me wrong) but it just wasn't good enough. merely mediocre.
then there was my german exam. i even read all the material and studied and i finished early, which made me feel like i missed the point. i felt like a big crappy pants (yes, a big crappy pants) and like i'm really going to struggle next year in Germany because I can't think of the word for "priest" right off the top of my head. Das Wort ist Pfarrer, wenn sie wollten.
I am mediocre in other ways too. I'm just not good enough. I have little self control. I can't help doing things that I know I shouldn't do at times I shouldn't do them; reading a book that's not for school, munching on Scott's delicious bakery items left out on my table, procrastinating, buying that thing that's high in convenience but expensive, or ordering something at a restaurant that I know I'll finish and regret. I'm bad at getting myself out of mental holes I dig myself, like this one, where I honestly believe that I'll never be good enough for what I want to do. That I'll never be good enough for anybody else.
And then, driving to what turned out to be a really shit-tastic drunken (on her part) time with my mom, I was listening to Jay-Z, and I was thinking: had I come from a situation in which I was not destined to lead a life of mediocrity things would be different. Had I come from Jay-Z's world, I would be lauded for getting Bs in anatomy and German, for even being able to come to UW at all. If I had been born into destitution, I would be fucking stellar. But I wasn't. So I'm luke-warm mediocre at everything I do, at best.
And being mediocre is worse than being horrible, in my opinion, right now. take it with a grain of salt.
self deprecation for the win!
Also, new facts from my favorite class: Kanye West's mother had a Ph.D. Producers pay for the beats in songs, that's how rappers really make money. You can also tell who produced a song based on the style of the song (Kanye West productions tend to sample a lot of older music, Eminem's beats are hard and driven, etc.) Hip-Hop music came from Jamaica. Run DMC was a babe and is now a pastor. Flavor Flav was actually super legit back in his prime. Beyonce may or may not actually write her own songs, but she gets credit for it because she pays for the writers and the studio. Before sampling songs was a big thing, there was no law against it, so lots of artists just got sampled without getting paid.
then there was my german exam. i even read all the material and studied and i finished early, which made me feel like i missed the point. i felt like a big crappy pants (yes, a big crappy pants) and like i'm really going to struggle next year in Germany because I can't think of the word for "priest" right off the top of my head. Das Wort ist Pfarrer, wenn sie wollten.
I am mediocre in other ways too. I'm just not good enough. I have little self control. I can't help doing things that I know I shouldn't do at times I shouldn't do them; reading a book that's not for school, munching on Scott's delicious bakery items left out on my table, procrastinating, buying that thing that's high in convenience but expensive, or ordering something at a restaurant that I know I'll finish and regret. I'm bad at getting myself out of mental holes I dig myself, like this one, where I honestly believe that I'll never be good enough for what I want to do. That I'll never be good enough for anybody else.
And then, driving to what turned out to be a really shit-tastic drunken (on her part) time with my mom, I was listening to Jay-Z, and I was thinking: had I come from a situation in which I was not destined to lead a life of mediocrity things would be different. Had I come from Jay-Z's world, I would be lauded for getting Bs in anatomy and German, for even being able to come to UW at all. If I had been born into destitution, I would be fucking stellar. But I wasn't. So I'm luke-warm mediocre at everything I do, at best.
And being mediocre is worse than being horrible, in my opinion, right now. take it with a grain of salt.
self deprecation for the win!
Also, new facts from my favorite class: Kanye West's mother had a Ph.D. Producers pay for the beats in songs, that's how rappers really make money. You can also tell who produced a song based on the style of the song (Kanye West productions tend to sample a lot of older music, Eminem's beats are hard and driven, etc.) Hip-Hop music came from Jamaica. Run DMC was a babe and is now a pastor. Flavor Flav was actually super legit back in his prime. Beyonce may or may not actually write her own songs, but she gets credit for it because she pays for the writers and the studio. Before sampling songs was a big thing, there was no law against it, so lots of artists just got sampled without getting paid.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
The Beginning of the Best Season
I didn't post on this the whole time I was in Israel...no internet unless I was using my smart phone, which was not conducive to blogging.
The trip was fantastic, I made some good friends and worked really hard to not isolate myself. What made the trip interesting was that it was a good social experience for me, beyond being a spiritual or exploratory trip. Broadening the social horizons is always something I need to work on. As far as exploring Israel, I saw a little bit of everything, from the northernmost part near Jordan (the Golan, absolutely beautiful) to the very southernmost tip near Egypt in the Red Sea (snorkeling was fantastic!). I hiked Masada, a random mountain in the middle of nowhere, also in the Negev, and in Golan. I felt so active! I stayed the most time in Jerusalem, the holiest of cities. I would have preferred to have a more introspective trip, but the company was nice and now I know what to do the next time I go. Wandering the streets of the old city was probably one of my favorite parts of the whole experience, it feels like a time warp. Seeing all the people who have so much trust in Hashem in one place gives me more hope than having faith in him myself. I stayed in Haifa with Carmel, an Israeli friend who was on our trip. She's in the IDF, but she's on an education mission so she doesn't do any combat or have an AK47 hanging around or anything. It was a good experience and her mom was a great cook! Unfortunately, the last week of my travels I got really sick and didn't enjoy the experience as much as I probably could have...
I'll digress here into my most striking memories and acknowledgments about seeing Israel. First, it is so incredible how interwoven the Israeli life is with warfare, terrorism and security. It is just an every day occurrence when missiles are fired into Israel, when buses are bombed and when people the same age as myself die in combat for their country. In the US, sure, people die for a cause their country is fighting for, but they do NOT die for their country. No one attacks the United States day in and day out. We don't have to quite literally fight to exist. It astounds me how much these soldiers have to fight for. There is no cause that all of my peers are willing to die for. There is no cause that is worth so much to us. I was completely moved walking through the cemetery in Jerusalem and seeing the names and ages of all the soldiers who had died for Israel. They were all my age, not a soul there over 50, most being between 19 and 25.
Fighting to exist is no new concept for Israelis. (Prepare for a marginally organized poorly worded diatribe about Middle East politics). The day after Israel became a state, war was declared on them and it has been going on ever since. Palestinians use terrorist tactics to bomb Israel, and yet Israel is constantly portrayed as a bully in our media. Is it because the Palestinians are the underdogs? Is it because Israel violates human rights codes (do they really though?) Honestly one of the most interesting things I learned was the nature of the IDF, Israel's "army." It's a defense force. They never are on the offense! Sure, they take out terrorists and innocent Palestinian lives are lost, but the Palestinians live under a terrorist regime that uses tactics which force citizens to harbor terrorists that fire missiles into Israel, a nasty tactic that forces Israel to target citizens and look like the bad guys.
I feel for those innocent Palestinians, but at the same time, no matter how many "peace treaties" or land accords are granted, they continue to attack the Jewish state that was awarded after Holocaust to the millions of Jews with nowhere to go. And I understand that the Palestinans lived in many areas of Israel before the British gave the territory away, and I whole heartedly believe they should have a state of their own as well. But not at the heavy cost of Israel. Let's move on.
Returning at 3:00 am on Monday night (Tuesday morning?) and allowing myself an astounding 2 hours of sleep, I began classes yesterday. They're all great, especially African American Music. It is quite possibly the best class I will ever take. I worry though because I am taking a really low credit load and I see myself falling into the 'oh this shit is easy' trap. I have yet to attend an Anatomy lecture; today I felt like death so opted to sleep instead and on Friday I was still in Israel. So there's some catching up to be done. I looked over the lecture though and all it really is is learning the real word for all those body parts I already know the name for (e.g. my pigeon chest is actually my epigastric area and my right and left hypochondriac areas, my leg is actually my crural region, the back of my leg is my sural region and my thumb is a pollex).
I couldn't complete this post without a nod in the direction of my new friend the Neti Pot. Sinus infection, prepare to be dominated! Seriously though, have you not tried a Neti Pot, now is the time. Now is the time.
The trip was fantastic, I made some good friends and worked really hard to not isolate myself. What made the trip interesting was that it was a good social experience for me, beyond being a spiritual or exploratory trip. Broadening the social horizons is always something I need to work on. As far as exploring Israel, I saw a little bit of everything, from the northernmost part near Jordan (the Golan, absolutely beautiful) to the very southernmost tip near Egypt in the Red Sea (snorkeling was fantastic!). I hiked Masada, a random mountain in the middle of nowhere, also in the Negev, and in Golan. I felt so active! I stayed the most time in Jerusalem, the holiest of cities. I would have preferred to have a more introspective trip, but the company was nice and now I know what to do the next time I go. Wandering the streets of the old city was probably one of my favorite parts of the whole experience, it feels like a time warp. Seeing all the people who have so much trust in Hashem in one place gives me more hope than having faith in him myself. I stayed in Haifa with Carmel, an Israeli friend who was on our trip. She's in the IDF, but she's on an education mission so she doesn't do any combat or have an AK47 hanging around or anything. It was a good experience and her mom was a great cook! Unfortunately, the last week of my travels I got really sick and didn't enjoy the experience as much as I probably could have...
I'll digress here into my most striking memories and acknowledgments about seeing Israel. First, it is so incredible how interwoven the Israeli life is with warfare, terrorism and security. It is just an every day occurrence when missiles are fired into Israel, when buses are bombed and when people the same age as myself die in combat for their country. In the US, sure, people die for a cause their country is fighting for, but they do NOT die for their country. No one attacks the United States day in and day out. We don't have to quite literally fight to exist. It astounds me how much these soldiers have to fight for. There is no cause that all of my peers are willing to die for. There is no cause that is worth so much to us. I was completely moved walking through the cemetery in Jerusalem and seeing the names and ages of all the soldiers who had died for Israel. They were all my age, not a soul there over 50, most being between 19 and 25.
Fighting to exist is no new concept for Israelis. (Prepare for a marginally organized poorly worded diatribe about Middle East politics). The day after Israel became a state, war was declared on them and it has been going on ever since. Palestinians use terrorist tactics to bomb Israel, and yet Israel is constantly portrayed as a bully in our media. Is it because the Palestinians are the underdogs? Is it because Israel violates human rights codes (do they really though?) Honestly one of the most interesting things I learned was the nature of the IDF, Israel's "army." It's a defense force. They never are on the offense! Sure, they take out terrorists and innocent Palestinian lives are lost, but the Palestinians live under a terrorist regime that uses tactics which force citizens to harbor terrorists that fire missiles into Israel, a nasty tactic that forces Israel to target citizens and look like the bad guys.
I feel for those innocent Palestinians, but at the same time, no matter how many "peace treaties" or land accords are granted, they continue to attack the Jewish state that was awarded after Holocaust to the millions of Jews with nowhere to go. And I understand that the Palestinans lived in many areas of Israel before the British gave the territory away, and I whole heartedly believe they should have a state of their own as well. But not at the heavy cost of Israel. Let's move on.
Returning at 3:00 am on Monday night (Tuesday morning?) and allowing myself an astounding 2 hours of sleep, I began classes yesterday. They're all great, especially African American Music. It is quite possibly the best class I will ever take. I worry though because I am taking a really low credit load and I see myself falling into the 'oh this shit is easy' trap. I have yet to attend an Anatomy lecture; today I felt like death so opted to sleep instead and on Friday I was still in Israel. So there's some catching up to be done. I looked over the lecture though and all it really is is learning the real word for all those body parts I already know the name for (e.g. my pigeon chest is actually my epigastric area and my right and left hypochondriac areas, my leg is actually my crural region, the back of my leg is my sural region and my thumb is a pollex).
I couldn't complete this post without a nod in the direction of my new friend the Neti Pot. Sinus infection, prepare to be dominated! Seriously though, have you not tried a Neti Pot, now is the time. Now is the time.
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