organics

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...

when becca can't study any more

I am studied out, yet, I haven't even studied that much. I'm scared because it feels like I know very little about the subjects that I have exams in. I feel like I might fail these tests, but every time I look at the material, I'm like, "I more or less know this...meh. Six Feet Under it is!"

I barely studied for a few hours today. And mostly it was chemistry. Tomorrow I have my chem exam in the evening and my biology exam the next day in the morning. I have yet to pack, which is a bad thing because I can't believe it but I'm leaving really, really shortly.

My lack of devotion to studying scares me. I know nothing about plants. And if he tests us on vocabulary, I'm screwed, because I don't know SHIT about vocabulary, or where stuff happens, or schlerenchyma. What the hell kind of word is that? and if you wikipedia it the definition is so vague! it doesn't help that what we have to know is so ill defined. I really wish professors would just lay it out, because it's not like we can know everything about EVERYTHING that they do.


As far as chemistry goes, that's pretty well defined. I just don't think I can think about it anymore. I don't know everything, but I think my knowledge is serviceable and I have an A in that class.

So that's the wrap up on school. Shaina and I are heading down to Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday. We finally figured out our transportation fiasco: my dad is driving us to Milwaukee, and Zach, (thank-you so much, I know he'll never read this but nonetheless) is driving us all the way from the airport to our hotel thing. And to get to the cruise, Zach's very kind brother is being amazing and driving us there (to Miami, from Ft. Lauderdale!) (slightly higher chance he'll read this, thank-you so much!). I guess the two details left to sort out are getting back from the hotel thingy to the airport and getting from Milwaukee back home on the 5th...ah, well. We'll figure it out.

Alright. 20 minutes of biology. Ready? Go!

q=mcΔT

Another chem exam tomorrow. Wish me luck, as this time I am ill prepared. Alas, I blog rather than study.

Yesterday was the first parking ticket of the year.
Tomorrow, the October love continues with a trip to the corn maze. I am excited, I will be social.

Today, I'll admit, was kind of a wash. I didn't really get caught up in the subjects I needed to be caught up in, but hopefully this weekend will be fruitful.

Also, I've noticed that I probably absorb too much information about passersby. I actually think about people who will never be part of my life, nor will I be part of theirs. I try to guess if the girl next to me has a really weird habit, or what the guy on the bike crossing the street's favorite food is. I guess it's weird, weirder still that I'd admit to it and have the nerve to blog about it. These are the clues which lead me to believe that I'm not quite normal, but I'm okay with myself. Am I too young to be self-actualized? I think I have a fair estimation about where on the social, academic, attractiveness, attentiveness, luckiness, etc. food chains I lay. I'm a little fuzzy on the meaning of 'self-actualized' but I think I've got a pretty firm hold on who I am. This is obviously not to say there aren't things that I can't work on, but I know where my weaknesses are, for the most part, I think. That sounded sure of myself, pfah. Also, let's not get ahead of ourselves, just because I know who I am doesn't mean I like or am okay with every aspect about myself...

I hate pilling on shirts and sweaters from backpack straps. I think it looks shitty and I'm not sure how to avoid it short of losing my love handles completely which would make me less lovable and therefore I don't want to do at this point in time. A quick google search returned a handy comb for pillage...(ha, pillage, as in I'd pillage a village, which also coincidentally rhymed) but that costs money that I'm not sure I'm willing to devote to this.


Also, sporcle is an INCREDIBLE use of time. Not incredibly good, but incredible nonetheless.

a becca fulfilled

i love october. i get so full of life during this month.

10 good things that happened to me today:

1. took the long way home to breathe.
2. did miserably on an exam, but felt ok about it, because i studied!
3. had a really awkward encounter and laughed.
4. received an anonymous phone call at the radio station from an attractive sounding man who said he was in love with aarushi and me. i wish i knew who he was!
5. two whole episodes of mad men (loving season 3 but bracing myself for the divorce which happens at some point in the future, i don't know if i'll be able to handle it).
6. was so productive in the library.
7. found music to describe two moods: the blues are still blue by belle & sebastian and she & him volume II for just being, and the social network soundtrack is awesome to study with.
8. finished my chem lab, early.
9. bubble tea.
10. took a nap.

i feel like all my problems take a break in october. forget the fact that i'm overextended, lonely, can hear my upstairs neighbors having sex, can sometimes get mean, am overly anti-social and by not being ahead in my work i am virtually behind...

I'm great!