Almost time to go....

I leave on the 29th to start my next adventure. My world wind tour will start in Texas, then onto Miami and finally I'll land in Dominica on January 4th. I'm sad to leave my family at home, but I'm also excited to start this next phase of my life.

I've ordered my books and all of my doctor equipment. At this point I look like I know what I'm doing more than I know what I'm doing! Give me a few months, and I will amaze you with my knowledge. Just think, in approximately three and a half years, I'll be Dr. Baca!! Of course before I can practice, I have to do my residency (another three to five years depending on the specialty) and if I subspecialize I'll have another three or four years! For example, if I decide to do pediatric oncology, I will have to do a three year residency after medical school years to be a pediatrician then another three or four years to complete the hematology/oncology fellowship: approximately ELEVEN years!!! Recently, I've been more and more interested in Infertility and Reproductive Endocrinology (which would also be approximately eleven more years: OB/GYN residence and Infertility fellowship after medical school).

I hope that everyone has a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Time flys when your having fun....

WOW! My time at home is flying by. I am excited to get back to school; however, I've had so much fun with my family and friends that it will be hard to leave again. It's only 21 days until I head to Texas, then to Miami, and finally onto Dominica.

The family went to Olympia to visit friends for Thanksgiving. It was GREAT and we happened to get out of the west side of Washington, just in the nick of time. I went down to the Walla Walla barrel tasting....IT WAS GREAT! I can't tell you how much fun it was!

Well, I only have a few weeks left and so much to do. Hopefully I'll talk to you all soon!

Woodworking isn't for me

I might be a medical student, but I'm not a genius. I got the bright idea to strip the paint off my night stand table. Brilliant! I worked on it Tuesday and it now looks like a spotted table...a sick spotted table. It has been sitting in my garage and every time I pull in to the garage, it startles me. I've decided today to attack this stupid table again today. To my surprise, after laboring for hours with my orange, gel stripper, a plastic scrapper and piles of paper towels, my table doesn’t look half bad. Now, I still need to sand it, stain and polyurethane it, but that should be the easy part.

Since Dad was going out to play billiards with the guys, Mom and I went out to Twigs for dinner tonight. It was slam packed. I didn't realize that so many people would have the same great idea...maybe I am a genus after all.

Keeping Busy at Home!

I've managed to keep busy since returning to Spokane. Mom and I have been spring cleaning since I won't be here next spring to do my fair share of cleaning. I have a ton of things to do for my visa to go to dominicia. They require a police report, chest x-ray, random vaccinations, pictures and piles of paperwork. I've also been trying to see as many people as possible.

I was at the book store today and found a copy of "First Aid for the USMLE I." I am such as nerd. I am as excited about getting another review book as a young girl is about getting another doll.

I am getting excited to head south to go back to school, but I'm trying to enjoy my break. There won't be another real break until my name is Dr. Nicole!!

Glad to be Home!

It is a beautiful fall here in the great northwest. I'm excited to be home and have the opportunity to see everyone. It was fun to go up to the hospital and see all of my old coworkers. I was on the south hill today and it was BEAUTIFUL! I am so lucky to come home to all of this beauty. I colored my hair red today….now I have a new autumn color on my hair. I’m just a festival of fall!

I don’t usually love Halloween, but I’m excited to see the little guys this year. I hope we get lots of trick-or-treaters. I think I’m going through children withdrawal; however, I’m not going to have any kids of my own any time soon!!!

Home at Last!

I started this post in the Chicago Airport waiting for my connecting flight to HOME to Spokane. It was over 90 degrees in Miami when I left. But, it was rainy, cloudy and downright crummy in Chicago. My flight into Chicago was a bit late because there was so much fog that they had to make the spacing between the planes larger. It was rainy and cold. Luckily, the flight out of Chicago wasn’t too choppy and the four hours went relatively quickly.

I’m happy to be home. Last night was the first time I’ve slept for eight hours straight in months. It’s funny how the little things make me happy. I probably shouldn’t get used to sleeping through the night as I head to Dominica in January. As a good medical student, I’m taking these two months to do a little extra studying—you know, to try and review a little bit before the storm of studies hits!
I have so many people to see. I can’t wait to catch up with all of you!!

Good Bye Miami

On Friday, I went to the post office and dropped off four boxes of books, Miami goodies and such. I think I went a little crazy with the Miami food. Oh well, at least I’ll have some fun things from Miami once I’m home. After the post office, I went to a movie then to my favorite gelato place for one last GIANT scoop.
I’ll be leaving Miami tomorrow and I’m shocked to say how excited I am to get home. It’s been great fun down here, but I’m too old for some of these antics. I have no desire to go to clubs or to drink until I’m sick and I feel like much of Miami is overwhelmed with this party mentality. I’m excited to sleep in my own bed (with my 500 thread count sheets—boy, did I spoil myself when I had a job!).
I’m using my last day in Miami to do important things, such as catch up on Grey’s Anatomy and pack. I still have medical jargon all over my mirrors in my apartment so I’m still reading my mirror and seeing things like “the portal triad is comprised of the branch of the hepatic artery, branch of the hepatic portal vein and the bile duct.” Helpful information when I’m watching Grey’s anatomy.

The final is done!

We took our final yesterday and I think it went well. I could hear James Brown singing, "I feel good" for the first 171 questions, but then there were a few questions that I thought were tough. I think doing a THOUSAND practice questions helped me keep my staminia throughout the exam. It can be exhausting to sit for four hours and do 200 questions. It was worse taking the MCAT (8 hours of exam) and the the USMLE Step 1 will be worse (U.S. Medical Liscening Exam--Step 1, which is taken after the second year of medical school). To become an MD, you take the USMLE step 1 after the second year of school and USMLE step 2 (two day exam) after the fourth year of school. The USMLE Step 3 is taken during your intern year (first year of the residency) and the third step is also a two day exam. Then after you finish your residency, you have to take exams to be board certified, which you retake every seven years. Yup, the rest of my life is going to be filled with exams!!!! In fact when I woke up this morning, I thought to myself, "I wonder what I should be studying."

I was so tired last night. I could barely enjoy a nice night at the wine bar, and I love a nice glass of wine so that tells you how tired I was. It is still almost 90 degress down here. Boy, am I going to have a shock when I get home next week! I keep thinking it is sill July or August. I like the heat, but I miss the four seasons---I'll probably be eating my words next week. I am getting a bit excited to come home, sit by the fire, knit, read about GI physiology and drink tea. Can't wait to see you all next week!!

You know you’re a nerd when…

I was so excited and overwhelmed with joy when my copy of the “Board Review Series: Physiology—Cases and Questions” arrived this week. It is a book with case studies of patients and how it relates to the basic sciences (first two years of medical school) and specifically how it relates to the physiology for the first two years. All of the testing in medical school is in multiple choice format and this book is in short answer essay format. It is the most fun I’ve had in a long time. It’s like playing doctor. For example, last night I read about poor Melanie who had traveler’s diarrhea (more scientifically, she had Escheichiae coli with the enterotoxigenic toxin.) She got dehydrated which messed up her electrolytes. My job was to figure all this out. It was super fun! I am such nerd. I considered working on this case file (which is over topics for my final) as a study BREAK! Yup, I’m a nerd.

Well, I spent seven hours at the library on Friday, 11 hours at the library Saturday and almost 12 hours Sunday. I’m off to school to do a 200 question “pre-test” before the final today. Just another fun day in Miami, but I’ll be home before I know it! I’m sure I’ll be freezing my tail off!!

Less than two weeks....

Our final is less than two weeks away (October 18th). I have my plan of attack documented and I'm ready to study. So far this weekened, I've done about 200 reivew questions and I think I can do another 700 before the final in addition to reviewing everything if I can stick to my schedule. Our final is 200 questions (50 from Microbiology/Immunology, 50 from Physiology, 50 from biochemistry and 50 from histology and anatomy). We have four hours to complete the task. I get a little tired after an hour so I'll have to put in extra practice talking exams (and of course you can take a minute or two break during the exam to relax).

Anyway, I better hit the books. I can honestly say that even though it's 90 degrees out, I'm excited to get home and away from my terrible apartment (I'm sure ALL of you know what I'm talking about!!).

By George, I think I'm becoming a doctor!

Last Wednesday, I had a bad start to my day. I looked and looked and couldn’t find my keys. Since I have a roommate, I was off to class. However, I didn’t concentrate as well as I should have because I was wondering WHAT I could have DONE with those stupid keys. Once I finally got back in my apartment, I started looking and looking and looking. I emptied my bag, looked in the refrigerator, checked the cupboard, looked in my laundry, under the bed, between my books but I couldn’t find them anywhere. FINALLY, after another twenty minutes, I found them underneath a paper by my night stand. I must have looked right past them twenty times.
Well, I headed back to school for a review session and decided to grab a cup of coffee and some soup. I made my order then asked the man to stop. When I was cleaning out my bag looking for my keys, I left my wallet at home. The gentleman owns the little shop (with white hair and I’d guess is in his 60s) informed me that I was going to have my soup and coffee and that I would just bring him the cash in the morning. I told him it wasn’t necessary and he insisted that I take the meal. It isn’t often that people are that nice anymore.

Well, it’s been raining down here a TON! I mean by the buckets! It is still so strange to me; it is warm! If I walked to school in a real downpour (which is six blocks away), I’d look like I just took a shower. I’ve been awoken several times in the last week from the sound of raining and the lightening, which lightens up my room enough to read a book, even in the dark of night.
I was down at the health district today and I’m sure that I’m becoming a doctor. A woman came in with a todler who had been exposed to TB and had a positive skin test (meaning you have antibodies). I think I could have counseled the woman on the differences of having a positive skin test and being VERY sick from TB. I felt so proud. However, I also was a little afraid of the little, cute guy because he started coughing and TB particles can go up to 10 feet when someone infected coughs! So, if you have to take the public transportation anywhere, stay away from people who are coughing or sneezing because they have a ten foot -circumference surrounding them full of germs!!!

Fall is strange in the south

It has been a bit cold this week...you know 78 degrees! I think it feels cold because the air conditioning at the school is set to about 65 degrees and it has been raining. The rain feels warm and it isn't too bad (there is a lot of rain when it comes down), but when you go into the air conditioning wet, it makes you feel EXTRA cold. I actually made chicken noodle soup and lasagna in the last week because I feel cold enough to EAT hot food. I'm going to freeze when I go home!

Well, I've narrowed down the fields I don't want to go into: cardiology, nephrology and pulmonary are OUT! Maybe I shouldn't rule out pulmonary because I've always thought that cystic fibrosis is VERY interesting; however, I don't like calculating the pressures and the bronchial equilibrium points, and etc. I do LOVE infectious disease and obviously cancer. I guess love isn't the correct word ... I find them extremely interesting. Speaking of interesting, I have to review more kidneys and histology before I get to go to bed! I have a great story to tell so I'll write again in the next day or two.

Kidney's and a cold

Last weekend was lots of fun after our exam; however, now i am dying of the common cold. It isn't any better to have a cold down here in this warm weather because you feel like you have hot and cold flashes everytime you walk outside!! I can't tell if I have a fever (which I don't think I do) or if I have air conditioning fever!!

We are starting the kidney's in physiology this week. My advice to you: don't mess up your kidneys! They are complicated and they are very important. Don' t do anything that may hurt your kidneys.

We are only a month away from the final and I started reviewing on Monday. I'm tired and looking forward to having this first semester behind me.

We had our second BIG exam on Thursday. I am SO tired! The physiology section of the exam was extremely difficult, but I felt great about the microbiology/immunology, histology, anatomy and biochemistry. In fact, I think I love microbiology/immunology more every day!!! We went to the beach after the exam and it was wonderful as usual! I don't think I've ever been a beach person, but if your in Miami you must go to the beach. I'm excited for this weekend as a group of us are going out to dinner and to a great wine bar.

Holy Smokes: Mass was CRAZY!

I went to mass with a few friends today. It is a cute little church with a huge grade school. They seem pretty laid back, especially for Catholics. Since we have a big exam on Thursday, we decided to go to the earlier service. BIG MISTAKE!! It was the special kindergartener’s mass: they did a special progression and sang songs. The music was changed for the younger audience (and by young I mean the kindergartener’s all had younger siblings). I felt like it was a PBS special: “Barney does Mass.” The Father presiding over the mass even got up and danced with the kids while they sang---I mean he and his cane danced! This church generally finished mass in 45 minutes or less (and the extra special mass today only took an hour), but what amazes me about it is the music. I think that it must be the Hispanic influence. They are practically dancing in the aisles and they do some special clapping (they also have coordinated movements to go with the songs while they dance). Let’s just say it was an experience today. I have never heard so many crying children—I couldn’t take it and I want to be a pediatrician! I think that attending mass today confirmed that I couldn’t be a grade school teacher: I’d poke my eyes out with a spoon!

Our big exam is on Thursday. I am feeling okay about it, but I’ve decided I as wrong about pulmonary. I don’t like pulmonary as much as I did at the beginning of the unit. I think I’m going to learn to love high altitude this afternoon! I’ll write more after the exam, when I get a little bit of my life back!

Consumerism in Florida: It's different than at home.

Well it’s been a busy week and my internet has been erratic so I haven’t been able to write! We have another big exam on Thursday the 13th so I’m taking this long weekend to review and prepare. It isn’t as much fun as it sounds!! We are working on viruses in microbiology, which are actually interesting. I don’t partially enjoy the memorization of them; however, I think it is fun to play detective and try to figure out what a patient in a review question has. I’ve been surprised how intuitive the microbiology and immunology has been for me; don’t get me wrong, I still have to study but it makes sense to me.

Some things are very different in Florida, for example Costco has a liquor store. I realize that liquor is not regulated at the federal level; however, it is the weirdest thing to me to walk into the Costco Liquor Store. It is outside the main store, like the tire shop is at the Spokane stores. They also must tax less for their liquor because it is dirt cheap. I really don’t need any liquor sitting around the house, but I considered buying some for a moment because it was so doggone cheap! There is a Nordstrom just one metro stop away from my apartment. It is also strange because they have different stock. I guess it is to be expected that the stock is different than in the Seattle and Spokane stores, but I don’t think it is a step up. Much of the inventory doesn’t look as classy as I expect Nordstrom to be; however, I wouldn’t describe Florida as classy—I’d describe it as flashy!

I think I’ve figured out the real secrete to the South Beach Diet. Honestly, it has NOTHING to do with the actual diet: it is the heat! Since moving here, I don’t want to eat because it is so hot. I usually love to cook, but here I don’t want to cook because I don’t want to heat up the house. Some of my friends have been resorting to eating lots of fast food; but for the most part, nutritionally it is terrible and I think that it tastes horrible. I’ve been losing weight probably because I end up snacking throughout the day and eating one meal because food just doesn’t sound good. Maybe if I wasn’t allergic to seafood, I’d have a different opinion of Miami. I’ve been surprised that the fruit here is so expensive, especially the oranges. Eating fresh fruit is one thing that I’m willing to pay a bit more for.

Anyway, I think it is time to hit the books again! I have a few muscles to memorize for anatomy class!

South Beach on a Friday Afternoon!

By far, the best part of being in Miami is the beach. We went down to South Beach on Friday after class and had a great time. I can't get over how warm the water is. It was winder and a little cooler than any other time I’ve been to the beach, which was okay. Someone thought to bring a volleyball so we played a few games. I played volleyball (poorly) in high school, but I haven’t played at all since. It was SO much fun! If I would have grown up around beach volleyball, I may have become a beach volleyball player (or attempted to become a beach volleyball player--I'm a klutz and not very athletic). The sand on South Beach is so soft; I just can’t get over it. It was so much fun to play with the soft sand between my toes and to dive into it. At one point, I looked up at the net and thought, "this is so strange, I'm playing volleyball on 13th and Ocean Ave." It is like something you see on ESPN!

We were out there late enough to see the sunset. Well actually, I was standing in the ocean (that feels like a bath) watching the sun set. It was like my own little piece of paradise. However, getting out of the water at dusk, was the first time I’ve felt cold since moving to Miami (there was a breeze and it was only 85 degrees out!). It is amazing how exhausting it is to lay on a beach for hours at a time. I’ll have some new pictures up as soon as my friend emails them to me. We got some great pictures of the sunset and ocean.

One of my worst nightmears come true!

After a long night of studying, I was finally in bed. I was just about asleep when I thought that I felt something on my foot. I figured it was nothing until I felt I on my leg, at which point, I threw the covers off (my sheets are a light color) and noticed a quarter black moving something in my bed. I FLEW out of bed and turned the light on...sure enough it was a bug. I tried to be brave. I grabbed the raid, but it ran back under the covers. I just couldn’t bring myself to deal with the insect, as I feared that he would have many, many friends in the covers with him. So, I called upon my insect killing roommate. With the precision of a cardiac surgeon, she threw the covers off the bed, grabbed the insect in a paper towel and squashed him. It took me so long to fall back asleep. Since the event, every time I get tickled, I go into a panic and search for an insect. I have my flashlight within arm’s length so that when I fall asleep if I feel a tickled I can investigate quickly. Having a bug crawl on me in bed was one of my fears about moving to Miami. I guess I was just lucky to have it come true!

Well, cardiac has started to grow on me a little, but it is definitely not my favorite. We started pulmonary and it is MUCH more intuitive for me. I guess all of those asthma attacks and upper respiratory infections are coming in handy. When talking about the pressure in the lungs and how it changes, I can recall when my pressures have been out of whack! There is an Arabic proverb that says, “No man is a good physician who has never been sick.” I think I’m ready for medicine!

I LOVE my immunology class. It really is my favorite. It is so interesting and for some reason comes easier to me than anything else. The nomenclature can be a bit confusing because it is all so similar, but once you get that straight, it just makes sense. I had a feeling that it would be my favorite, but I’m a little surprised how much I love it. When I have to study it doesn’t even feel like work. It is great!

Insects and Leo the Lizard!

Well it was another exciting weekend in Miami…or not so exciting: I am a medical student! I stayed home most of the weekend and studied, which in my opinion is pretty exciting! I did go to a friend’s house on Saturday night and watched “Bourne Identity” and “Bourne Supremacy.” Something came over me when I got home; maybe it was all the testosterone in the movies, but I no longer feared the insects and turned into an insect a killing machine. Perhaps, I’m making myself sound too courageous, as I wasn’t brave enough to kill them with a shoe, I used raid as my weapon of choice. I probably should say that I only killed a couple red and biting ants, but that is impressive for me. So far I’ve been lucky to have only seen one cockroach and two centipedes in our apartment and my roommate with her supreme bravery has killed them all. The fact that each time an insect has enters our apartment my sympathetic nervous system kicks in (which is responsible for “flight or flight”) and I levitate out of the room and end up on a stool in the kitchen probably has made her realize that I’m not helpful when it comes to killing insects. It should be no surprise that we have several male friends on speed dial in case an extra large insect enters the house. For those of you who don’t know, the cockroaches in Florida will FLY toward you when you try to kill them; it really does takes unparalleled bravery to face one of these fierce creatures.

As many of you know, I really hate anything that is creepy and crawls, such as lizards. However, upon moving to Miami, I’ve decided my hatred of insects far outweighs my hatred of lizards. Therefore, I’ve made an alliance with a gecko that I like to call “Leo the Lizard.” I figure as long as he doesn’t crawl on me, he can live in our apartment. I think he is REALLY afraid of humans because I see the fear in his eyes every time our paths cross. I hope that he doesn’t get too scared because lizards are known for dropping their tails when they get scared—that would gross me out!!

Classes are going well. We learned about disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) today in biochemistry. DIC is a life threatening condition that causes excessive clotting (thrombosis) or bleeding (hemorrhage) throughout the body and can lead to shock, organ failure, and death. I think that I was one of the few people in class who had previous knowledge of DIC. Our biochemistry professor has a Doctorate of the Arts and is a lab rat. He was discussing the treatments for DIC and made it sound like a somewhat treatable disease, but from what I know about it; it really isn’t curable. It was exciting to learn about something that I saw while working in the hospital!

Well, I have a quiz in clinical medicine tomorrow so I better get back to the books! Goodnight!!

Cardiology isn’t for me and neither are the Miami mosquitoes!

This week we started cardiology in most of our classes: physiology, anatomy, clinical medicine, and histology. It has been nice to have the overlap, but I don’t think that I will become a cardiologist. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t underestimate the importance of the heart, but I really am not a huge fan of physics and circuits. If I liked circuits, I would have become an electrician! I am a little intimidated by cardiology because it is an area of medicine that I have no prior experience or knowledge in. I spent a good chunk of the evening studying the cardiac cycle and pressure-volume loops and it is starting to become more intuitive.

I think that I am still adapting to Miami. There are just some strange things that happen down here. For example, every washer and dryer I’ve seen has been outside on the back porch. I guess it makes sense since they release so much heat and it is already hotter than heck in Miami (also there aren’t any basements down here). In our complex, the washers and dryers are in little closet sized rooms that are below the staircases. Today, I was smart enough to think to put on insect repellant BEFORE doing laundry. I didn’t get a single bit while moving my laundry, which is amazing. I never thought I'd have to put insect repallant on before doing laundry.

The mosquitoes down here must be a different species than up north. They are black with white stripes; I’m not sure if that means anything, but perhaps I will check out my books to see if it is indicative of mosquitoes carrying the West Nile Virus. At any rate, these mosquitoes are almost as aggressive as the men in Miami! For example, I stood outside talking to a friend for 15 minutes two weeks ago and I had about 35 bites on my legs. These bites are so intense and so fierce that I still have residual marks on my legs. It’s been a while since I’ve been attacked my mosquitoes at home (as they don’t allow mosquitoes into the Davenport Hotel nor into Nordstrom), but I swear that these mosquitoes leave a much itchier mark. I’ve even woken up in the middle of the night itching my leg. I don’t ever remember doing that at home!

Miami is a whole different world!

Before I moved to Miami, many people warned me about the diversity; however, they should have warned me about the men! I could care less that I live in a predominately African American community or how many Cubans there are. By far, the largest culture shock has been the extremely, aggressive men! A woman can't walk down the street without being stared, whistled, honked and yelled at. They don't discriminate down here, they even yell when you’re with a group of guys. Moreover, there are no age restrictions on these oglers: they are 14-114 years old. They even slow down or stop their cars (or bikes when appropriate) as to get a better look: it is unbelievable! I've been offered more rides in the last six weeks than I have in my entire life. On Friday, I was walking to the train and a body builder in a Corvette yelled, "You shouldn't be in the sun baby; let me give you a ride." At least he wasn't old enough to be my great grandfather!!

I think that in many ways, I'm an old woman in a young woman's body. I like to cook, go wine tasting, hand write letters, and I love to knit, which is clearly the strongest piece of evidence that I'm an old woman. Well, I decided on Friday night to join my friends and go out to one of the hottest clubs on South Beach, Mansion. I'm really glad that I decided to go. I had SO much fun (which is hard to imagine since there was no knitting involved, ha-ha). As most of you know, I'm a terrible dancer, but that didn't keep me from dancing the whole time I was there.

We all car pooled there and some genius decided that we should park at a lot on the corner of Lincoln and Michigan, which was approximately one mile from the club. I don't have a car in Miami, but even I know that there are parking lots that are cheaper and within three blocks from the club. The car I rode in had one gentleman and three women, who were all wearing at least three inch stiletto heals. Needless to say walking back to the car after a night of dancing, we moved as quickly as a two year old leaves an ice cream shop on her own accord. I still can't believe it, but it took us one hour and twenty minutes to walk to the car. Our driver was complaining about her feet and the gentleman in our group took off his giant man shoes and gave them to her. I laughed so hard seeing this cute, dressed up girl in a man's size 12 shoes--her feet sliding with every step she took. To top it all off, men were approaching her on our walk and asking for number. If I wasn't laughing at watching her, I was laughing looking over at the gentleman walking in dress socks. One good thing about being in Miami is that it is still 80 degrees at 2:00am. It really was a fun night, even if it took us longer to walk to the car than it did to drive across Miami to go home. Two days later, I still have blisters on my feet in places I didn't realize that blisters could develop. Going out is fun, but I'm still just as happy sitting at home knitting, having a cup of tea and watching a good movie.

Welcome to Miami

It is hard to believe that I've been in Miami for six weeks! Miami is nothing like what I expected. There are all the things people expect: fast, expensive, sports cars, beaches, Art Deco, heavy rain, humidity, insects and lots of people with plastic surgery. There are also many things I didn't expect such as garbage EVERYWHERE, shopping carts in people's front yards, and the smell. Miami has a smell and it isn't pretty! It is a cross between hot garbage and a sweaty sauna. I probably sound like I hate Miami, which isn't true; however, I wouldn't want to move here permanently.

It isn't really shocking, but I've found that I don't have as much time to write friends and family as I thought I would. That is why I decided to start posting to this blog; however, my life isn't very exciting so I'm not sure anyone will want to read it! So far, the most exciting thing was the first day of class when the professor said, “Welcome to your first day of medical school.” Hearing those words was so overwhelming that I thought I was going to cry...then the work started!

I've always been a bit of a nerd, but I think I'm becoming nerdier by the day. Last week, I was beside myself with excitement over getting the Netter's anatomy flash cards and the Board Review Series for Physiology and Immunology/Microbiology. I immediately ripped open the box and started quizzing myself! I've even started flipping though some anatomy flash cards we aren't working on in class as a study break! The other night I was studying the cranial nerves right before going to bed. I woke up at 0400 dreaming of them and started reciting the cranial nerves and their functions before going back to sleep. I also did this several weeks ago with the activation and deactivation of PKA. I heard in class that memories are solidified during REM sleep; perhaps that is why I was dreaming of my studies.

We had our first big exam today. I think it went well; but the more I hear other people talking about it, the more worried I get. About one third of my class went to South Beach after the exam. This is the fourth time I've been to the beach since moving here (the other three times were all within the first 10 days of moving!). The beach is BEAUTIFUL. In fact, it is the best part of Miami. The sand is an amazing white color and it is extremely soft, unlike anything I've ever seen. Since we are so far south, the water is warm--like a bath. It was a nice, relaxing afternoon at the beach, but it is always so exhausting to be out in the sun. Despite my best efforts, I'm developing a bit of a sun tan.

I’ve been really lucky to have met a great group of friends and I’m excited for the next four years. I once heard someone describe medical school as the most fun one can have that she will NEVER want to live through again.