4 months ago

wow--I realize that it has been 4 months since I last blogged. It seems that blogging kept appearing on my list of things to do, and now I'm finally doing it.

What's happened since last October? A lot of things, as you can imagine.

a peek at January/February--

To add a little variety to the daily mix of running/biking to and from school, I started playing on an intramural volleyball team at our school rec center. It's been really fun to be hitting the ball again, and a great way to connect with classmates outside of the lecture hall.

Dustin and I celebrated a year of our relationship together on Valentine's Day with an outing after a long day at school to the Spaghetti Factory on the riverfront and a fun movie of "the Absent-Minded Frofessor" which is now known as "Flubber." We're both big fans of old Disney movies (not the cartoon type but the silly ones with people that Disney keeps re-making)--good for clean laughs, and sometimes they are just utterly ridiculous.

I had the opportunity to again be on the worship team for our CMDA NW Winter Conference in Cannon beach, only this time, I was co-leading/organizing with my housemate Julie, who played cello. We had the task of picking out music for the retreat (so difficult because there is so much good music out there!), organizing practices, and then of course, leading at retreat. We had quite the worship team--guitar, piano, djembe, bass, cello, and violin and vocals. It was a really nice weekend (despite the grungy weather) to relax at the beach, hear some good talks, and the Christian conference center there serves phenomenal food! It was also of special significance to me because that was where, a year ago, Dustin and I started to really connect with each other.

Other than that in school we are finishing up our course in neuroscience, which is really a combo of neuroanatomy, neurology, and psychiatry. It's been fascinating!!! There are probably 10^12 neurons in the brain, and each other them has a special set of connections all over the brain and some outside the brain. No wonder it's hard to replace them once you loose them because even if you could put the neuron back, it may not make the connections it needs! It's also been neat because we've had patients with different neurological diseases come in so we can ask them questions and see their exam findings (Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease).

I finished up a preceptorship in emergency medicine. It's a very interesting environment--fast paced, lots of variety, but also kind of chaotic. I had a great teacher and I got lots of opportunities to use the medical knowledge and skills I have learned so far. And I was consistently reminded of how far I am from where I will need to be..there is just too much! Our third year of practical training is coming up fast--we will soon move out of the safe classroom environment into the clinics and hospitals to interact on a daily basis with patients and actually enter into their care. I'm nervous and excited--it's going to be lots of hard work and hours, but the excitement of really learning the practical skills and art of doctoring will hopefully make up for it. We'll do rotations in teams, in everything from surgery to obstetrics to family medicine and psychiatry. In addition to looking towards third year, we're gearing up to take the USMLE (the first step in becoming a US liscensed physician). This is a gi-normous test assessing our knowledge from the first 2 years of medical school. I have a hard time remember what I learned last block, nonetheless from the beginning of anatomy last year! That's why they give us a month to study our brains out in May/June. Oh joy--more sitting at a desk! but it will be neat to finally bring all this knowledge we've acquired together and very humbling to realize that all that knowledge has been so quickly forgotten.

I was also blessed with the presence of my parents in January--they came and stayed at my house. It was a new experience for them to come and have me "play hostess" and cook for them and take them around town. Last weekend I visited Jess and Derek and Cynthia in the Eburg for a relaxing weekend of hanging out, watching movies, and enjoying a beautiful walk up Manashtash ridge overlooking the valley with a great view of the snow-capped peaks.

Whew! And that's only January/February!

November/December had the usual visiting of family at the holidays and enjoying good times together there. We had the entire Teeny family to our house for Thanksgiving--wow, that was a lot of people! Also had some fun birthday-action with Dustin and I's birthdays being pretty close together; this included a delicious cranberry cheesecake, and a candle-lit picnic in the back of a truck. My family also enjoyed a snow-shoe adventure up near Snoqualmie on Christmas Eve with our new snow shoes that we got for Christmas. On New Year's Eve I ran P-town's "First Run" with 2 of my housemates. Basically you take off at midnight downtown--it was quite cold, but I ended up running my fastest time for a 5K which I was proud of.

Hm...well, I'm sure there's more I could say, but I need to hit the sack so I can make it to class with some assemblence of awakeness.