Scholastic rut

I’m sorry I haven’t made a lot of substantive posts lately, but I have been having a hard time organizing myself studywise. I really thought I had all this shit figured out by now. If I just read the textbook, I understand just fine, but lack any depth. If I sit and take notes as I read the chapter, I wind up with LOTS of notes and it takes forever, since I’m not really sure at that point what is really important yet or not. If I read the chapter, highlighting what I think is important, then go back and type out what I realize was really important that seems to be the best way but it takes the absolute longest. At this point, I’ll usually pull out the BRS and realize how much I let slip through the cracks, and then start plugging the holes. All this isn’t really studying per se, but laying the groundwork for studying.

On the flip side, having said all the above, I’ll surprise myself with what I will remember the next day or whenever for those things which I speciifcially thought I didn’t really get to study. I’d like more control over what I retain vs. what I don’t. I have a serious mental block with anything related to immunology, it seems — I don’t know why. Subjects/concepts that are learned by ingesting tables and rote memory have me running for the hills. I don’t doubt my capacity at all, I’m just too easily distracted with certain subjects since they don’t really hold my attention. Actually, I’m easily distracted all the time, but that’s another matter. I’m just getting frustrated with the seemingly endless cycle of cram, test, cram, test, cram-like-there’s-no-tomorrow, final.

I’d love to hear comments from anyone about how they organize their subjects, notes, etc. particularly integrating digital copies of lectures/texts (PDFs, PowerPoints).

New backpack

Over at The Berry Patch, Ory wanted help choosing which backpack to get. Well, if that wasn’t the straw that broke this camel’s back to finally get me to order a new one for myself…I did, and I can’t wait until I get it. Ever since winter break, I have been carrying my backpack with all my books/folders/etc., my laptop bag (Targus Citylite, so it’s just larger than a slipper) for my tablet, and on most days when I pack a lunch, my insulated lunch bag (about the size of a small purse). I didn’t have a laptop last semester, so a backpack which contained all my small electronic gear (iPod, Palm) was always problematic with 20 lbs. of books; I was always worried about crushing the gadgets. The Targus is a great case, but it’s one more thing to carry, one more set of pockets to misplace something in a hurry, and I’m like a complete retard looking for this or that in both cases, depending on where I decided to stuff it the time before. My backpack is a Mexican Wal-Mart special, since I didn’t have time to get a good one before I left the states, even though I knew I probably would need one. Now that I don’t live w/in walking distance of school, I pack even more things for the whole day as before.

Enter the new backpack that shall free me of all despair, usher in a new era of conscientious studying, and will singlehandedly ensure my 99th percentile on the USMLE Step I: behold, I present to you, the eBags Macroloader. (cue Strauss’ “…Zarathustra”) See the pictures on the bottom left to see the laptop integration goodness, the plentiful pockets, the undeniably sexy “junk in the trunk.”

OK, so I’ll be as much of a slacker after I get it as before, I’ll probably look like a freak, but at least I’ll have everything consolidated, even if I do develop kyphosis as a result of packmuling everything, but I’ll be organized, damnit!

Thanks Ory, thanks a lot. ;^)

Cool PDA Medical Reference

From PalmDoc:

USBMIS is having a sale on their Medical Student’s PDA Reference and for a limited time, you can get 25% off. Medical Student’s PDA Reference is designed for all medical students, interns, and other trainees and physicians working on clinical services. The content includes…concise discussions of 3000 diseases within all body systems and indications, classification, adverse reactions and mechanisms for approximately 700 pharmacologic agents…

I am a complete reference junkie, so I have to fight the urge to buy it. I know I really don’t need it right now, but when I need it what if it’s not on sale? Decisions, decisions…

I might have chosen the wrong profession

…at least according to Amazon.com. I woke up this morning to this “suggestion” by their crackpot statisticians:

Dear Amazon.com Customer,

[Some unrelated correlation from an author I haven't even ordered from deleted]. For this reason you might like to know that Martin M. Antony’s newest book, Overcoming Medical Phobias: How to Conquer Fear of Blood, Needles, Doctors, And Dentists, will be released in paperback soon. You can pre-order your copy at a savings of 32% by following the link below.

Overcoming Medical Phobias: How to Conquer Fear of Blood, Needles, Doctors, And Dentists; Martin M. Antony, et al
  List Price : $14.95
  Price : $10.17
  You Save : $4.78 (32%)

To learn more about Overcoming Medical Phobias: How to Conquer Fear of Blood, Needles, Doctors, And Dentists, please visit the following page at Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/1572243872/ref=pe_snp_872

We’re Converted!!

Whee!  We’re now running the new site!   *pats self on back*

However, there are a few glitches.  Search and page views (ie, when you click a link) don’t show the sidebar and a lot of the images and internal links (posts to posts locally) are broken since they have a different site navigation.  I’ll fix those soon, as well as get the photos up.

For those waxing nostalgic for the old look, here is a screenshot:

I like things better now. I have a physiology partial exam tomorrow PM, so the computer stuff has to wait for later/study breaks for now.

Thanks for your patience!

Action Items

Out from class early today, thanks to not needing to go to Histo (don’t get me started on that @#$!-ing guy) and since I’ve been actually studying the last couple of days (as a med student, that should be a given, not an accomplishment, but oh well…) I’m going to take the next 24-36 hours to do the following:

1. Redo this blog, change to WordPress
2. Finish my photo section, which has been languishing since mid-November
3. Process my weblogs on my server to do my OWN statistics with Sawmill on my G5 so I see who you all are (peeping through virtual window with binoculars..heh)

(1) is not that big a deal…I’ve had a hidden version of this site converted already. I’ve made notes to convert from Drupal but I’ll have to manually adjust things afterwards. Things might look weird here or there in the next day or so. This is more about commitment to actually DO it. Regarding (3), my ISP actually gives basic stats, but for my geeky purposes it’s not enough. Surprise.

If this sounds like a lot, it’s really not. I just don’t think I’ll get this done w/o actually promising it to the world, like anybody really is waiting for or holding me to it anyway. Just ignore me and come back later to better digs.

Sleep

It’s midnight and I’ve been wanting to sleep for 30 minutes, but that’s being made difficult since there is Mexican music and an MC blaring on speakers from a stadium about a mile away. I am not sure we would have moved here had we known about the stadium, but what’s done is done. Usually it’s just soccer games in the daytime, which winds up being a lot of intermittent white noise; constant music is another thing. After midnight. With no sign of letting up.

Sleep is usually the first thing I sacrifice like a bloody offering to the god of time. I am by no means [hypo]manic, but I really do think sleep gets in the way of many things I want to do. Bedtime is usually a daily reminder that I haven’t managed my time well as I realize how much didn’t get done. I love to sleep when I want to sleep, but so often sleep comes as a saboteur of my schemes and intentions.

I have a physiology quiz tomorrow and a test on Monday. I can really say that I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the high quality of instruction in this class as well as the confirmation of my prediction that we’d see clinical relevance sooner rather than later. The subject matter is dense, but since I am pretty good at abstraction and generalization, I don’t find it to be such a huge problem to apply concepts to different situations. I certainly operate that way mentally far easier than the rote memorization that’s been par for the course so far.

Good God, this music won’t let up… I wish I could pull out a recorder so you could her what I’m hearing–inside mind you–but that takes too much energy than I have. That sleep thing is starting to happen again.

Grand Rounds 2:21

Grand Rounds 2:21 is up. Maria outdid herself on this special Valentine’s Day edition. As a psychiatry resident, she knows a thing or two about suggestion, and right now, I think I might need a cigarette…

Eat Me, Hallmark

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY! (or San Valentín if you are in Mex). If you want to know more about the holiday and it’s origins, visit the History Channel’s very informative website about this day. Make sure you visit the “Special Thanks” link at the bottom of that page, because that’s what today all boils down to. Sorry History Channel: you tried to be scholarly, but you don’t get any points for subtlety–no chocolate candies for you.

And for those of you who are wondering: yes, I love my wife very much, and yes I bought flowers and went out to dinner^**, but that was last night because I have community clinic tonight. I’m taking reading material, because I don’t think an outpatient clinic is gonna be seeing much action tonight.

^**Since I get her flowers “just because” (as recently as two weeks ago) anyway, and since we go out to eat as well, technically I didn’t buy into the marketing hype. So there.

Histology Potty Humor

Regardless how advanced/enlightened/elevated we men become or think we are, we will always succumb to laughing at or engaging in potty humor. In class today, our visiting prof (from Kansas State) was running short on time and said, “Ok, so let’s get through these last few slides on ileum [small intestine] and then we can blow through the colon.”

This potty humor break has been brought to you by the makers of Imodium AD (loperamide), the letter “C,” and the number “2.”