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.