April 1, 2010

My friend Bob started a website called www.onlyamonth.com that I really kind of like. The idea is that you do one thing every day for one month with no days off. I completed my first challenge for the month of February and recently sent him a blog post about my project. It was my goal to use my exercise ball every day for a month instead of just kicking it around the house or using it as an impromptu chair. Well, it worked. I somehow managed to do at least one set every stinkin' day for 30 straight days. I had to rouse myself out of bed on a few occasions, but I got it done. I think the key was that I chose a realistic goal. I didn't need to do 3 sets, I didn't need to do so many reps that I began to hate it, I just set the bar at an attainable height.

So, this being the start of a new month, I've been trying to come up with another project. I think I've come up with another one that is achievable.

The goal this month is to send one e-mail every day to one of my contacts that I'm not so much in contact with or to send an e-mail to a new contact. I think this will be a good way to touch base with lots of old friends and possibly a way to spark up some new friendships. I know that I love checking my e-mail when I get an unexpected note from someone, so I'm about to spread the wealth around.

Today, I opened up a dialogue with my biochemistry TA Agnes by asking her for some help regarding her note taking techniques during class. She uses a laptop just like I do to follow along with the powerpoint presentations, but she is able to do things to that powerpoint presentation to jot down notes or stress important portions of the lecture in ways I only wish I knew how to. Well, it turns out she's using Adobe Acrobat Professional. It's a $60 program from the computer store that I know own. We're going to meet Monday outside of her scheduled office hours so she can show me her tricks. See, I'm already experiencing new things because of this challenge.

What can you do for only a month?

20 years is not long enough

 

I had to have my cat put down today. It was one of the most horrible things I've ever had to do. She was in acute renal failure, so her kidneys were just not filtering the toxins from her blood any more. Fortunately, she got sick quickly and she wasn't in pain. We were best friends for 14 years and I'm so sad to not have her with me any more.No matter how crappy my day was, she didn't care, but she shared in my joy when I had a great day.

That's What's Up!

While I haven't been much of a blogger over these past few months, I am still going to try to make a go of it. I've recently been having some difficulties with my academic plans. I'll summarize: I'd been informed by my local community college that I'd reached the maximum number of credit hours they'll allow while still receiving financial aid. So, basically, I had to foot the bill myself or go to MSU and pay 3X the amount I'd have to spend at school here in town. I've also been reading a lot of forum posts on the Student Doctor Network and getting an honest look at medical school from those in it or about to be in it. The picture they paint isn't nearly as rosy as you would hope for, particularly considering my position. I also found a very similar forum site for PA students and PA's alike that seems to offer an alternative....an alternative I'd previously denied, but am now very seriously reconsidering.

Here's the run-down of the events. Pardon the typos. That picture is the Biomedical Sciences building at Western Michigan University, home of the PA program of choice for me...well, if it's in the cards and all.

KCC denied my request for financial aid. I had to fill out an appeal and I found out that it got denied last night. I went to the office this morning and they told me no again, but in person, so I knew the jig was up. Right after that I went to Western for their PA school open house. I've never been in a building like that. It is 5 years old and just the most amazing place you could imagine to go to school. I was really impressed with everything, but a little disheartened to learn that my clinical hours as an x-ray student will only count for something in the neighborhood of .5 hour/per, so that sets me back a little bit and also, my hours as a TA won't be held in as high esteem as some other more respectable jobs that involve patient contact. I need at least 1000 hours, but to be competitive, I need much more than that. The incoming class average for patient contact hours was 4600. The good news is that I've got at least a full year of school left before I can really even apply, so that means I'll just keep racking up hours.

I got home and started trying to enroll for classes at MSU since they did give me financial aid without any grief. The last time I had checked, all of the classes I need were full, but when I checked today, there were some openings. I tried to enroll, but no luck, something about not having an enrollment date. So, a call to the registrars office took care of that in a matter of minutes. I started adding the biology classes and found the physics classes I wanted, but turns out I couldn't enroll in that. I apparently didn't have the necessary prerequisite. So, another call to the registrar to find out if the trigonometry that I took would work and it apparently came over as a transfer, it's just that the prerequisite I needed was college algebra. Well, I studied hard to take the KCC placement test in order to test out of college algebra. I had to do that in order to even take trig. Next came the call to the physics department where I performed some smooth over the phone manipulation of this sweet young lady, who, so impressed by my phone voice and relative maturity, agreed to waive that college algebra requirement and allowed me into physics.

Bam! There I am enrolled and ready to go for the fall semester in just over 1 hour of work when prior to leaving the house this morning, I had no idea where I was going to school, what I was going to take or how it was gonna get it paid for. I didn't have to sell my stock and I only have to make the 1 hour commute to East Lansing Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Now, I've got to pull myself away from this computer and do some rapid learning of organic chemistry for my final tomorrow morning.

That's what's up.

I found him

Turns out my esteemed professor of chemistry that mysteriously disappeared mid-semester actually had a pretty good reason for it all. My anger and frustration seems to have gotten the better of me during this period. I should be a little more understanding after all. He died. No, really, he is no longer breathing fresh air. I found the obituary in late July that indicated he passed away in early July. I'm not exactly sure what happened between his unannounced departure from my class and his untimely demise, but it's pretty irrelevant considering. I feel kind of crummy about whining like a little child, but sometimes I can get caught up in things and not really see the forest for the trees.

I'm rapidly approaching the end of the Organic Summer. I've been taking organic chemistry at Michigan State since the beginning of the summer session. I missed a 4.0 in orgo I by four lousy points on the final, and am solidly positioned in orgo II for a good grade, but I still have a quiz, a test, and the final to plow through. We shall see....

Summer is just a great time to be on campus in East Lansing. Granted, this isn't my first summer up there, but I would bet that it's the first summer that I've really had some appreciation for it. When you hear people say things like, "Michigan State really has a beautiful campus...", they're really not giving the proper amount of credit to the place. There's really just such a striking variety of beauty that it's hard to describe to someone who hasn't been there. Aside from young, healthy, and beautiful people everywhere, there's an amazing variety of gardens that are scattered around campus. I've been skating on my roller hockey skates everywhere which has allowed me to cover some territory and possibly even shed a pound or two. The breaks between lecture and recitation have allowed me study in out of the way places undisturbed. It's pretty amazing. I'll post some pictures I shot today later this weekend. Right now, it's time for bed.

Where art thou?

Where in the hell is my chemistry teacher? Tonight was the third class in a row in which he has failed to show up. It was the second in a row for him to skip without so much as a notice from the school secretary on the door. What gives? WTF!?

The department chair and the lead chemistry instructor happened to be around before class started and they both stopped in to our class to apologize on my slack ass instructors' behalf. They were trying to reach him apparently, but to no avail, and he didn't show once again. He's such a horrible teacher to begin with, that his absence is no great loss, but it is disconcerting. I really want to and need to learn this stuff. My efforts to work my way through the material on my own, I fear, are not going to be strong enough for me to recall this information a year from now when I sit for the MCAT. I've been meeting with a tutor twice a week for the past few weeks and that's been pretty helpful, but our time together can only clear up some of the confusion I've found myself getting into through my self-learning program.

It might be important to stress how horrible my instructor is in terms of preparation for class and labs. While this is the first time he's taught this class at this location, his credentials would indicate that he would be able to teach this class without any difficulty. He shows up for class and glances at the power point presentation he got from the other instructor for the very first time. Then, he attempts to lecture from this power point presentation. He literally has never seen the presentation until minutes before he tries to lecture from it. He has no idea what our labs will be like until he finishes the Monday lecture and opens the door to the lab. There is absolutely no planning of any kind going on.

I'm not the only student in class that feels this way. As we were waiting as a class for him to show up, this third time, three of the nine people in class admitted to approaching the department chair about our concerns regarding his inappropriate comments in lab and regarding his lack of planning or effectiveness in teaching the material.

All may not be lost! My chemistry teacher from last year that happened to be waiting around to speak with my instructor volunteered to put his finger in the dike. He taught the class and even gave a bonus quiz. The contrast in teaching styles was striking. I honestly think I learned as much, if not more, during the 90 minute lecture than I have all semester.

I don't know what will happen or what to even expect on Monday. I've taken a whole lot of college classes and I've never had a teacher just flake out like this. I've also never hoped for a teacher to go away quite like I'm hoping he goes away.

In Search of Curiosity

My new pleasure reading these past few weeks has been this ridiculously dorky book, “In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind” by Eric R. Kandel. This guy is the leading researcher in neurobiology and his book chronicles his discoveries and his career.

I've always been interested in how our conscious and unconscious minds work in harmony, or disharmony as the case may be, with each other. How is it that our experiences are transferred into memory both short and long term? Well, this guy is looking into it and he's been doing so for 40 years.

It's funny when I talk with my colleagues in the x-ray department about big topics like this because I get that thousand yard stare from them. It's actually comical, but I imagine from their doe eyed perspective, I must be pretty comical as well. Who really ponders this kind of stuff throughout their mundane working days? How can I find them and why am I surrounded by people with no curiosity whatsoever?

When I'm hanging around the science building at school, I can get a completely different reaction from my current and former teachers. Their reactions to these big picture topics are full of excitement and offerings of resources to get more information. My microbiology teacher just about jumped out of her chair when I started asking her about the enzyme formations that might be possible in the creation of long term memory. She slapped a brochure in my lap and it featured a series of lectures from the author of this book I'm currently reading, Eric Kandel. My teacher leads me to a fascinating web site http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/ which is run by the Howard Hughes Medical Institution. I find myself really grateful to have such easy access to my teachers at school, and wonder if I would find such enthusiasm for my curiosity at the university level. Then, I wonder if at the university level, I would have long ago been pointed toward this web site and have learned long ago of Eric Kandel's work. I nevertheless doubt that the impersonal environs of a university would have fostered my curiosity the way my community college experience has. *

* I don't think I'm supposed to end a sentence with this type of word, but my mom and brother, the english teachers, can inform me of my prepositional fau paux soon enough.

The grossest

If you have ever had the misfortune of coming into contact with a diabetic foot ulcer, you will understand where I'm coming from when I state without hesitation that those things are the grossest damn things ever!

The worst diabetic ulcers in my opinion are those worn by diabetics that just can't seem to care for themselves very well for whatever reason. There is a mixture of odors associated with this unpleasant encounter. There's the stale cigarette lingering on top of the body odor which is actually a mixture of caked skin, dirt, sweat, and urine. These two unique smells mix well with the ripe odor of putrid flesh rotting just inches from your olfactory bulb.

I had to x-ray this patient today with a really gnarly foot that comes in second in my all-time horrific diabetic foot encounters. The worst being on a night shift in the MRI department where the exposed bone was infected with osteomyelitis that was visible to the unaided eye. Anyway, I'm trying to take pictures of this poor guys foot, but it's impossible without me actually holding the thing in position because first, it had become so misshapen that it had taken on a banana curve, and second, because he had lost so much voluntary muscle control because of his diabetically caused neuropathy that he literally couldn't bend his knee without me bending it for him. On the bright side, I was able to get a good hold of his urine soaked jeans and get in position for chunks of skin to fall to the floor because his other leg had been amputated below the knee previously.

I kept thinking that I could smell that unique bouquet for hour after this adventure and only now coming to grips with the fact that the nightmare is over.