Once upon a time, my college roommate H and I tried a self-improvement experiment in which we woke up around 5am every weekday. The idea came from a book she was reading for class written by a guy who's done the same thing for decades. In his line of logic, waking up at some ungodly hour lets him feel less rushed in the morning (well, yeah, if I have an extra 4 hours to get ready...), have a more productive day (again, the extra 4 hours not spent in sweet slumber...), and have more "me" time before everyone else wakes up (everyone else is also having their "me" time; it's called "sleeping".). Despite the apparently madness, we did it, or rather, I spent most mornings quietly fiddling around, noting H's many ways of ignoring/snoozing the alarm clock. Admittedly, I did enjoy the hours of quietness that preceded the circus that was everyday life.
That was then. I've come a long way since my 5am days.
Today I made a very responsible decision - I will no longer be going to 8am lectures. It's just not happenin'. From the last 4 weeks of class, I've realized that 2 things always result from my attendance of 8am lectures:
- At 8:05, I casually stroll into class, and the lecture's already started. I can't find a seat since the auditorium is already full of eager, highly motivated (EHM) med students, so I plant myself as a fire hazard on the side stairs, along with other latecomers. I feel the judging eyes of said EHM med students in their soft, plush seats which they took to at 7:45, possibly earlier.
- Even while sitting on a step with the edge of the next higher step jabbing at my lower back, I can't keep my eyes open. The next 45 minutes is a complete haze as I struggle to stay awake and process the information being dumped on us. I fail at both tasks and emerge at the end of class groggy and still clueless about the lecture material.
So long, 8am lectures! Don't mind me; I'm just getting some "me" time.
p.s. In case you're wondering how I will get the information given at these 8am lectures, all our lectures are recorded and posted online minutes after they take place. Makes you wonder why anyone goes to lectures at all...
Yesterday, on the 19th day of school, I took my first med school exam.
There's a Chinese idiom that my mom has always used to describe how I do things. It translates roughly to "hugging Buddha's legs at the last minute" and means something along the lines of "Waiting until the last minute on every damn thing before you make a half-ass attempt at it, but still having the balls to hope for the best". Poetic, no? Basically, my biggest vice in life is procrastination. Now, before you blow off that statement with complete nonchalance, thinking to yourself that 95% of the world's population are procrastinators, I will have you know that my ability to put things off will, quite frankly, boggle the mind and make you question your place in the universe. Okay, it probably won't send you into an existential crisis, but it can demonstrate procrastination taken to a whole new level. This is my gift; this is my curse.
For brevity's sake, I'll save the tales of my procrastination for another day. Suffice to say, the exam, or rather the preparation leading up to it, was yet another exercise in last-minute scrambling. My dear mother called me and told me to "stop hugging Buddha's leg; he's tired of you after all these years." Always such wise, loving words.
As I sat down in the auditorium, waiting to be led to the anatomy lab where rows of cadavers lie with various anatomical minutiae tagged to be identified, this exchange went down.
Classmate T: Man, can you imagine if someone waited until the last couple of days to study for this exam? They'd be so screwed.
Yours truly: (thinking) Now would be a bad time to bring up the fact that I waited until the last days to study. Aw screw it; I hardly know this guy. (aloud) Yeeaaah, not gonna lie; I kinda did the bulk of my studying this last week. (thinking) At least I saved a little face by saying "week" instead of the truth, which would be "30 hours."
T: Oh........ But it's not like college though, right? You can't really wait til the last day.
Y: (thinking) Wow, this guy is insistent. How do I break the news to him? Oh forget it. (aloud) Yeah, you're right; they'd definitely be screwed...
Self-fulfilling prophecies be damned!
Dear Essential Clinical Anatomy*,
After spending a couple weeks with you, I gotta say this: you're a terrible lunch buddy. Like just now, we were having such a nice time - you telling me about pelvic bone structures and me eating my lunch. Then all the sudden, you dropped the bomb and started talking about rectal exams. Reallly? You had to bring that up right now? You left me with no choice but to close you up, walk away, and finish my lunch in peace. I was totally planning on having a Skinny Cow fudge bar for dessert, but I guess I can just forget about that.
I really would like to spend more time with you, since I have an exam in less than a week. So c'mon, help me out here. Please find a more appropriate time to bring up those unsavory topics that you like to surprise me with.
Love,
Yvonne
*My anatomy textbook
In animal behavioral sciences, there's a well-known experiment by a guy named Pavlov and his hungry dogs. Basically, you can elicit a certain response (salivation) with a completely unrelated stimulus (ringing bells) through conditioning. The experiment was repeated again in a particularly delightful opening of The Office involving Jim, Dwight, some Altoids, and the Microsoft bell sound. [Alas, the Youtube video has been removed. Copyright laws be damned!]
Today, I realized that I've also performed the experiment in my life.... to myself. I am Pavlov, and I'm also a hungry pup. Through years of conditioning, the stimulus of studying (even the mere thought of it) now brings about a response of sleepiness.
I had high hopes of fully learning the muscles and nerves of the forearm/hand this afternoon. 2.5 hours later, I woke up. I still maintain it was time well-spent.
4 for 4.
That's the torrential downpour that's occurred 4 out of 4 school days this week.
It's also the 4 lectures I've napped through out of 4 days.
I don't believe in numerology, but 4 out of 4? 100-frickin'-percent? That's something special right there. I'm feeling pretty extreme, like I'm living my life to the max right now. So extreme and to-the-max, in fact, that after skipping my last lecture of the day (which came after the lecture that I slept through), I came home and ate lunch. An extreme lunch. A Skinny Cow low fat fudge bar, a wedge of Laughing Cow Swiss cheese, and too much grapes later, I resolved to go shopping for rain boots. (I never thought that skinny, laughing cows would figure so significantly in my diet.) Alas, it started raining cats, dogs, and other mid-sized mammals again.
Now I have to content myself with writing an extreme blog post. Coincidentally, the song playing on my Last.fm radio right now is called "Cannot Contain This". So wild.
With the way my school works, we have an exam every 4 weeks. Since two weeks have come and gone, I'm officially half-way to my first med school exam (a day which I refer to as "Day of Reckoning"). DoR wouldn't normally have all its implications of doom and despair, except that I've come to realize that I know squat. In the review session yesterday, the tutor asked us questions similar to those we would see on the exam over what we've learned so far. "If a person can't perform the opposable thumb action, what is the condition called and what nerve is damaged?"
Yvonne's mind: <a vast void>
The answer: "ape hand", and there is injury to the recurrent branch of the median nerve (from the almighty brachial plexus), which innervates 6 and 1/2 muscles of the forearm.
Yvonne's mind (in the exact order these thoughts raced through): 1. I bet apes would be unhappy to know that they're associated with a physical ailment that marks man's superior opposable thumb action. 2. It would really simplify everyone's lives easier if they would just round up and say 7 muscles. 3. Wait, I should know this?! Shiiiiiiiit.
Here's to a decidedly un-extreme weekend of hitting the books.
A short list of my accomplishments yesterday:
- Woke up 2 hours and 6 minutes later than I had intended. [The story of Rip Van Winkle always did strike a chord with me.]
- Got stung, twice, by mosquitoes during the minute it took for me to change shoes in my car. [Yes, I did spray some Off the minute I stepped outside my front door. Clearly the mosquito(es) that stung me didn't get the memo.]
- Realized I had lost my school badge after arriving on campus. [Don't worry, unlike the mosquite bites, which are still itching like bad mofos, this one has a happy ending.]
- Scored some free lunch at a talk about "student wellness". [The actual point of the talk, besides hearing about the entire employment history, accomplishments, and family life of the speaker, still eludes me. I did, however, learn that I need more delicious creamy Italian salad dressing in my life.]
- Made a small dent in my Google Reader subscriptions during radiology lecture. Meanwhile, classmate K next to me also gave up on the lecture and took a not-so-silent nap.
- Searched the ground fervently for my school badge while retracing my steps home from school. The badge was eventually found still in the backseat of my car from when i changed my shoes. [Upside: my badge is no longer missing. Downside: I feel like a d-bag for having lamented about my lost badge to anyone willing to listen all day.]
- Consumed a regrettably massive amount of Brussels sprouts for dinner while not picking up a phone call from my Bostonian friend O. [She will later compare the disgusting factor of Brussels sprouts to that of cadavers. Are cadavers chock full of vitamins A and C? I think not.]
Sometimes I like to complain that my life is boring. However, looking at this list, I was obviously mistaken. How have I been able to withstand so much exciting happenings every day all these years?
The best news of the day: I finally got internet at my place.
The worst news of the day: I finally got internet at my place.
Tidbit: My wireless network is named Maruko, after my favorite Japanese cartoon character.
This could be the beginning of something extraordinary and beautiful. I could finally turn my life around and act like a proper, dedicated med student -- watching online dissection videos ahead of time, reviewing slides and notes before and after lectures (my ambitions will not be contained!), researching through archives and archives medical journals, and possibly curing cancer via extensive Google searches and Wikipedia browsing. Oh the possibilities!
OR
This could be the official undoing of my educational endeavors and professional aspirations. What little time I had previous spent in scholarly non-internet activities would now be spent hungrily surfing the internet. My gift for spending hours in extensive Google searches and Wikipedia browsing (while not curing cancer, interestingly enough) would be honed and perfected. Oh don't worry, Facebook would be the least of my worries (so please stop trying to turn me into a zombie/vampire/other mythical beasts; no, I will not bite you back.), since there's still Flickr/Hulu/NYTimes/various design blogs/various fashion blogs/personal blogs/Reginald & Beartato to keep track of.
The jury's still out on how Maruko and I will fare. My money's on that everything will seem great and we'll be deliriously happy together for a short while. But inevitably, soon I'll realize that she's sucking me dry and trying to ruin my life. What a bitch.
Dear lovely young couple living next door to me,
I hope this letter finds you well and in full use of your electric appliances. We met last night around 10:41pm as the power went out on our block. I'm sorry for being a paranoid brute who rang your doorbell (which did not work due to the power outage), then tried to open your glass door (which was locked) by shaking its handle violently in order to knock on the main door. I promise I was only trying to inquire if you had also lost your power, and not making a sorry attempt at home invasion. Alice*, thanks for not greeting me with a shotgun and for being quite nice even though you had clearly been asleep. Robert*, you should know better than to let your wife answer the door late at night in the dark; c'mon, be a man (despite the fact that you ride a moped to work).
Next time the power goes out, I will keep my paranoia to a minimum and not try to break into your home. Feel free to hit me up if you ever need a cup of sugar (I only have brown though).
Sincerely,
Yvonne
* Names have been made up to protect identities and because I don't know the real names.
Dear mosquito population of Galveston,
I don't mean to embarrass you, bu really, is all this attention you've bestowed upon yours truly really necessary? Okay, I get it -- you find me irresistible. But haven't you also heard of "playing hard to get"? "Absence makes the heart grow fonder"? "Mosquitoes are disease-carrying, blood-sucking SOBs"?* Frankly, you throwing yourselves at me is really turning me off to the idea of you. If you really want to get on my good side, how about let's cool it for a while... like forever. It's not enough that you follow me down the street, into the library, the elevator, and my car. You've also taken to hanging outside my house, waiting for the moment I step out so you can besiege me. Why can't you profess your undying love for me in some other cliche way, like holding a radio over your head outside my window, or hiring a mariachi band to serenade me? I think it's best if we stop seeing each other, for good.
Respectfully (not) yours,
Yvonne
*Contrary to what med school teaches you, SOB, in this situation, does not stand for "shortness of breath".
