Apparently...

I'm high maintenance.  

I truly never knew.  I always thought I was as un-high maintenance as they come...I mean hello, I like wearing sweats, hate showering, and would rather go play tackle football with the boys than go shopping with the girls.

But when "high maintenance" girls came up in conversation the other day, my guy friends all informed me that I am the epitome of high maintenance.

Devastated, to say the least.

"You're the worst kind.  You're high maintenance but you think you're low maintenance."  ~When Harry Met Sally

"Turkey" Day? More like Sweet Potato day.

If it were up to me, I would say leave the turkey out.  What makes the Thanksgiving meal so great is not the meat, I say shamelessly.  No, I believe it's the vegetables, casseroles, and dessert.  Corn pudding, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce.  You can even leave out the stuffing.  Yeah, that's right, I just said it.  No turkey and no stuffing would actually make me a happier person because I would have more room in my belly to savor the pumpkin pie.  The only reason to roast a turkey on Thanksgiving would be to save it for the leftover turkey sandwiches that you eat for the next week.  mmmmm, now THOSE are high quality.

Round 2

Ahhhhh....you smell that?  It's the delightful aroma of a new beginning.  Spring is in the air.  And clearly by "spring", I mean biochemistry and genetics.  I officially survived my first block of medical school, scraping by with B's in both anatomy and histology.  But I'm told B = MD, so I'll take it and move on.

Today was the first day of class for biochem.  (I personally like A&M's shorthand for that class (BICH), which I will be using from this point forward, which means take a mental note and store it away in that little brain of yours.)  I'm excited about studying a new subject, I just wish it wasn't this one.  The class is graded on a curve (not a bell curve, mind you, one where only 6 people get A's and the majority get C's - and for those who don't know, C does NOT = MD).  My teacher for the first exam is an angry, angry soul.  I can't imagine living with such hostility towards life.  Needless to say, I miss good ol' Professor Tsai already.  Dr. Spielmann won't be wearing any crazy hats, or showing youtube videos during class, or inviting me out to play soccer with him.  I used to have such fond memories of BICH, but I'm afraid, my friends, that this is soon to change.  Alas, I realize that this is no longer undergrad and it's time to buckle down.

Although the thoughts of studying glycolysis and protein folding does not make my spirit flutter, I must say that I am relishing this new beginning.  My slate is clean.  I feel as if I have been given a second chance to prove myself.  And hopefully with the help of Mr. Genius himself, Eduardo, "tutoring" me every day, I can do half as good as he does.

For those of you who don't know, Ed is a member of the "family".  I believe I have not blogged about family, which is quite remarkable.  In fact, they would probably disown me if they knew this.  Gross Anatomy Table #5 consisted of Cara, Carol, Mary, Mike, Ed, and Steve.  From the beginning, they hit it off as a group and formed a tight, cohesive study group, but more importantly, became best of friends.  I was fortunate enough to be one of Ed's Histology lab partners, and after him listening to me wallow in self pity about how poorly I was doing in Anatomy, his dear soul invited me to join their family in a study session the following day.  Well it worked, my grades started improving, and I became a permanent groupie of table #5.  I knew I had been officially adopted when I was included in their super secret list serve of emails.  We recently adopted another member, Rachel, into our family, bringing the grand total to 8.

For those of you who care (which I know is all 5 of you who read this blog), here is an exaggerated, quick break down of the family (in order of the picture above):

Mike: high maintenance California boy, super sweet, "dad".

Carol: the artsy fartsy, always smiling one.

Rachel: reserved, witty, athletic.

Ed: crazy army dude, ridiculously smart, "naughty uncle".

Mary: the "tall girl", makes sure everyone is happy and well fed ("mom").

Cara: miss popular, outgoing, token liberal of the family.

Steve: outwardly a stud, inwardly a huge nerd. 

In celebration of finishing the anatomy block, we packed up our cars and took a mini road trip to Mary's cabin at Lake Cumberland this past weekend.  It was raining/sleeting the whole time, but that was fine by us because it made the hot tub that much more endearing, and cuddling up on the couch in front of the fire so much more enjoyable.  But it is now back to reality, and although our family is no longer tied together through lab, we aim to remain one with our weekly Grey's Anatomy parties, Friday night family dinner, and study sessions throughout the week.  No one can break us apart, for our family "hit the freaking jackpot".*

*actual quote by an outsider who is jealous of us.

Obligatory post-election thoughts

1. It's not the end of the world. And even if it is, heaven will be a much better place than this.

2. I am grateful that I will be a student/resident for the next 8 years of my life and won't be making any substantial income. None of my wealth will be redistributed.

3. I absolutely, 100% can't stand people that made this election out to be about race. Who cares if he's "black"? He's also half "white". And he hasn't rubbed shoulders with the black people of America since...never (see Harvard, University of Chicago, Senate). Fact: every one of my black friends on facebook has the following as their status: "MY PRESIDENT IS BLACK!!!!" That is messed up. If I said something like, "at least my governor is white", I would be shot dead. Double standards. I hate 'em.

4. It saddens me to see all these people now say that they are for the first time "proud to be an American". I don't think I need to explain why this one hurts my soul.

5. Why did the Republican party choose McCain in the first place?

6. I believe there is Someone upstairs that still is in control.

Halloween ain't happy

I've never understood why people get so hyped up about Halloween.  As a kid I enjoyed it because I got free candy, but since I stopped trick-or-treating, I've sort of despised the holiday. Maybe I've hated it ever since my favorite pet of all time, Chadwick, got killed on Halloween by our rambunctious teenage neighbors for the simple fact that he was a black cat.  Or maybe I find Halloween to be offensive because it's every girl's excuse to dress like a whore once a year, and just blow it off by saying it's a "costume".  

Nonetheless, my distaste for the holiday just increased.  On UK's campus today, an effigy of Barack Obama was found hanging from a tree, with a noose around the neck.  

Deplorable. 

What is this?  1870's Georgia?  The thing that irks me is that you know there are some kids out there laughing their butts off, thinking it was hilarious.  I'm just embarrassed, to be honest. Kentucky really is backwards.

Apple = Dependability?

I am the proud new owner of a 15 inch MacBook Pro.  After years of lusting after one, I finally took the plunge and got one.  It was supposed to be my graduation present from my parents, but I took the advice of some computer guru friends that I should wait until Apple released their new product later in the summer.  Well later in the summer turned into earlier in the semester, and earlier in the semester turned into October, and I was still without one.  But due to my dedication to Apple, and the trust that I was putting in my gurus, I held out for it, and here it is.  My brand new MacBook Pro.  It's a beaute.

I must embarrassingly admit that I know very little about computers.  Besides checking my email and downloading music and pictures, I am an ignorant fool.  It's always awkward for me when fellow Apple owners get overly excited about me joining the family and they start talking about all the different programs and softwares, and I sit there and just nod my head like I know what they are talking about.  I don't even know what software is.  And how does the internet work?  I just don't get it.  Anyway, it's also problematic when all those Apple haters out there in the world ask me why I would change from PC to Mac, I enter pretender mode and say that it has much better media editing programs, it's "user friendly", and it is much more dependable than PC's, rarely ever crashing.  Cue change of subject.

But now one of my arguments is invalid.  I have owned this computer for 5 days, and it has already failed me.  I was having a great afternoon, enjoying this wonderful autumn Kentucky day at home, watching the Aggie soccer babes play CU on tv, and chatting away on gmail with an old friend, when my computer started making a funny noise.  I'm used to PCs making weird noises, so I didn't think twice about it, then all of a sudden, the noise stopped and the backlight on my screen went off.  No matter what I did, it stayed dim.  I then called Apple Care and talked to a very nice British lady for a while, trying to figure out how to get this working again.  She had me take out the battery and hold down the power key for 30 seconds (again, I have no idea what that was doing) and then she told me to put the battery back in.  Hmmm, well, I tried, and I tried some more.  All the while I am on the phone with her, and I ask her if there is some trick to this.  She tells me to put the phone down and try it then.  So I do that, and as I am trying to put her on speaker phone, I hang up on her.  Oh well, no big deal, I'll just call back when I get the battery back in.  Well the battery doesn't go back in.  I end up getting it jammed half way, so now I am stuck with a computer that barely lights up in the first place, and now has to remain plugged into the wall since the battery isn't properly installed.

I must say though that Apple's customer service is first class.  They were extremely nice and stayed on the phone with me for an hour trying to get my computer working.  When they realized it was a hard drive problem, they told me to ship it back in, and they will send me a completely new machine.  I can't really complain about that, except that if there was a week I needed a lab top all year, it's now.  With my first block coming to an end in the next two weeks, I have studying galore to do, and much of that studying is done on the computer.  I guess I will have to stick to my poor ol' Dell desk top to get the job done.

So thanks, Apple, for the warm welcome to the family.

War wound

Pretty, ain't it?