CEEEEEELLLLEEEEBBRRRAAAATIIIOOON.

I didn't post last week. I was bizeee doing stuff, if you to get specific about it. A lot has happened in the last two weeks. I'll do my best to catch you up with as few words as possible (You're just here for the pictures anyways, right? I know it, you know it, we all know it.)


I suddenly came to the realization this week that I live my life in cycles. As in, I live my life based on days until an exam. How am I doing? You might as well just ask me how many days till my next exam. More days till my exam typically correlates to, "I'm great! I love my life and I love med school and I love my friends and I'm getting 8 hours of sleep a night and I love my life." Less days till my exam typically correlates to, "I don't know about this whole doctor thing and I'm exhausted and I'm sick of studying and I may or may not be seriously considering an alternate profession and also I'm sick of studying if I didn't emphasize that enough the first time."


That being said, I finished my first neuro exam two weeks ago (as mentioned in my previous post), so the last two weeks, this has been me:

Having a lot of fun, mixed with a tidge of distracted studying, as depicted below:

Ok, so it hasn't been exactly like that. I still study every day. Thing is, though, I study LESS every day, so it feels like that. Here's a rundown of what's happened since my last exam:

•  I celebrated finishing my exam! After taking my test, I drove straight to the grocery store to grab some celebratory snacks. While I was self-checking out, I ran into a friend/classmate. He had just finished his exam, too. I asked him what he was up to, and he replied that he was just getting ready to celebrate. I know it's rude to look at other peoples' stuff, but I couldn't help myself. I glanced in his cart and saw this:

Ok, yeah, nothing unusual there. Post-exam alcohol is pretty standard in medical school. He asked me what I was up to, and I told him the same thing, that I was getting ready to celebrate. I saw his eyes flick down to my cart. And this is what I had in my cart:

Yeah. If he didn't know then, he definitely knows now. Mormons celebrate a little differently than most people. For the record, the popsicle were delicious. I ate six before I even put the box in the freezer. Oh, and I played this song really loud in my room while I ate them. It's the little things.

 

• What else have I been doing? Hmmmm. Well, for starters, I've studied a lot of brains. Like the one below. I actually know what all that stuff is!:

• I also went up to DC to hang out with my friend, Ben. We had a blast cruisin' around Georgetown and DC on bicycles. He was most excited to stand in the middle of all the bikes, and I was most excited to pop a wheelie in front of the Capitol Building:

 

  

  

On the way home, I stopped in Manassas, Virginia to get a pork burrito at Cafe Rio (one of favorite restaurants form undergrad) and enjoyed the beautiful drive home:

 

• This past weekend, I also hiked Old Rag, the most famous mountain in Shenandoah National Park, with some classmates. It was a good time. Especially the not-walking-up-a-steep-incline parts:

 

Ok, this is getting long. I better wrap this up. Last thing. On Thursday, we had a class session entitled, "Substance Abuse," which was all about, you guessed it!, marijuana and alcohol and PCP and cocaine and all that kind of stuff. Being a lifelong Mormon, all of this was news to me. When I started reading the handout for the class, I'm pretty sure I did this after reading about every single drug:

Seeing as I had zero life experience to draw on (Thanks, mom!), the class was educational to say the least. So...now I know about drugs! I'm sure that'll come in handy at some point. Well, that about does it. Sorry it was so long. I had a lot of stuffs to talk about! Next post will be shorter, promise!

This and That

As per usual, my thoughts are all over the place. Here's some of what's floating around my brain right now:

• I finished my first neuro exam yesterday! I'm really liking it so far. Guess I may become a brain surgeon after all. Wonder if these come in a larger size. If so, I'm totally buying one and wearing it to class...

• While I was studying for my exam this past week, I listened to a lot of music, including Native, OneRepublic's new album that came out two weeks ago. My favorite song on the album is "Preacher." It's about Ryan Tedder's (the band's lead singer) grandpa who was a preacher (the song title is making a lot of sense right now, huh?). Favorite line from the song: "He was a million miles from a million dollars, but you could never spend his wealth." 
•  Good stuff. Life is about so much more than having a prestigious career or buying a big house or going on lots of vacations. It's about treating others with love and respect. It's about realizing our goals. It's about leaving our families and friends and communities and countries better than we found them. It's about finding happiness and helping those around us to find it, too. That's real wealth. Here's the song:

• Apparently, there are a lot of vampires reading my blog. I know, I know. Exciting, right? Sounds crazy, but it's true. I guess I better start off with a little background. When you have a blog, there is a page that show's you all of your "blog stats" (How many people look at your blog, what type of browser they use, where they access your blog from, etc.). And according to my blog stats page, 21 people accessed my blog via vampirestat.com. Yeah, this is for real. Check it:

• So....shoutout to all my blog-lovin' vampire buddies over at vampirestat.com! I don't know you personally, but here's what I imagine you look like while reading my blog:

Photo credit: Googleimage search, Transylvania

• In my clinical group this past week I gave a presentation on medical apps (Apps as in applications. Apps as in apps for a phone or computer). Technology is really amazing. I was particularly excited about this portable ultrasound probe/iPhone app combo. It works well and is about 1/10 the cost of a conventional ultrasound machine. It has some serious potential for use in ER's, rural medicine, and medicine in developing countries. I love that the field of medicine is constantly progressing. Gold star to whomever created this!

 

• Last thing. Life is great! Spring is here. Charlottesville is beautiful. School is interesting. Lauren and I are dating (about time, am I right?). Aaaaaand I bought my plane ticket to Rwanda this week. Like I said, life is great! So great, in fact, that I wrote this entire blog post while doing this:

Brains and Neurons and Personality Disorders, Oh My.

Hello, my people. Good to see all of you again. I must admit I'm a little surprised you keep coming back. Sometimes I feel like I just ramble. Like, I just type and type and write and write and type and type and say a bunch of stuff without really saying anything at all. You know? To warn you, I'm probably going to do a large amount of rambling on today's post, so feel free to check out right now if you don't think you're up to it.

Two weeks ago we started the "Mind, Brain & Behavior" system, which is fancy-talk for the "Neurology & Psychology" system. So far, I've thoroughly enjoyed the system. The human brain is incredible. I remember the first time I held a real brain in my PdBio 220 class way back during the winter of 2010. As odd as it sounds, it was a very spiritual experience for me. I can't help but think that the designer knew what He was doing when He made it.

Ok, enough serious stuff. I've got some funnies for you. You know when people say, "Well, it's not brain surgery?" Well, neurology isn't brain surgery, but it's getting pretty close. As you might imagine, some of the things we've been learning about are incredibly complex. Sometimes (and by sometimes, I mean every time) my professors open their mouths, this is 110% how I feel (skip to 0:40 for "Dr. Cleese's" "explanation" of the brain):

*Video-scavenging credit to a classmate whom I cannot remember. Makes me laugh every time.

Anyways, that's how I feel. But in a good way. Like I said, I'm really enjoying the system. So that's the neurology. As far as the psychology goes, I've enjoyed it, not so much because I like psychology, but because 1. Dr. Cohen (the psych teacher) is hilarious, 2. We get to watch videos of crazy people during every single psych session (see below for my reaction when Dr. Cohen turns on a video),:

 Aaaaaaand 3. Because we get to take personality tests and psychoanalyze ourselves and every person we've ever met. Example. Last Thursday, we had a 2 hour class on personality disorders. As preparation for the class we were assigned some readings (if you're into that sorta thing) AND a personality test. If you've never taken a personality test, you should. They are almost always a good time (assuming that you have a good personality). The most commonly used personality test by psychologists is called the Big Five. It assesses your extroversion, orderliness, emotional stability, accomadation, and inquisitiveness. Here are my numbas (click picture to enlarge):

Apparently, I'm super orderly (Which, I think, is pretty accurate, though the articles of clothing tossed haphazardly on my bedroom floor may disagree) but only moderately emotionally stable (Which, is also probably accurate, seeing as I have never committed a hate crime but I did tear up at the end of Toy Story 3). At the bottom of the page (but cropped out in the picture above), there was a link for a more detailed description of my personality. Here that is:

And here are my thoughts on my the above description of my personality:

The good: "Believes in human goodness (Preach it, Global 5 Type Descriptions!)," "believes children need firm discipline (Hello, of course they do. I don't want my future children to end up on Judge Judy.)," and "physically affectionate (haha. No comment.)"

The bad: "Overly nice (Maybe that's not a bad thing)," "finishes most things they start (Only most?), and "prone to panic (Guess that means you shouldn't yell "Fire!" around me.)

The ugly: "Manipulative (So I'm overly nice AND manipulative? Those seem exclusive to me.)," "swayed by emotions (So you're saying I'm not a robot? This is actually good news)," and "prone to addiction (Well then, good thing I'm too poor at this point in my life to buy 100 kilos of cocaine)."


The personality test also included careers I should and shouldn't go into:

I'm glad they added this to the results. This really cleared things up for me. Number two under favored careers? Medical doctor. Yessssssss. I'm doing what my [likely inaccurate] personality test thinks I should be doing! I feel good about that. Plus, becoming an assassin is listed under my disfavored careers. I also feel good about that. I'm not really into the whole killing people thing, so that works out well. Anyways, I had a good time taking my personality test. If you want to give it a try, here's the link: Big Five Personality Test.

 Last thing. Use your brain! Not everyone does. And be grateful for it! Not everyone has one.