Block II

It has been a while, so I thought I would update. Block 2 is going well so far. We have had our first round of tests and I got to go home for Thanksgiving! YAY! It was great to be home and see family, even though I did have to study some while I was there.

Unfortunately, we are pretty much teaching ourselves pathology, which i think is a very important course, and I would like to have a professor for that instead of a bunch of 20+ page printouts each week.

Anyway, like I said, classes are going well so far this block in just a few weeks we have Christmas Break!!!! We have a week of testing before break, which is nice because it means we do not have to study for an exam while we are home.

After Christmas, it is just three more weeks of class, a week of exams, and the end of Block 2.

I think I am going to go to Chicago for break to visit my cousins, and enjoy the Windy City. It will be a nice change of pace.

In the meantime, during my free time that is, I am studying Spanish with Rosetta Stone. I decided it would be good for me to learn since I plan on going on mission trips with the school to Central America, spending one of my rotations in Honduras, and just working in America in most hospitals means that you are going to run into a lot of people who speak Spanish and not English.

Hopefully, this will make me comfortable with the language and be worthwhile.

Well, it is time to get back to Pharmacology and Pathology....I cannot wait for Christmas!

I passed!

I have passed Block 1 and I am now preparing for Block 2. This weekend is my White Coat Ceremony. I cannot wait. Grammy, Mom, Dad, Rebecca, and Joel are all coming to celebrate with me!

Break was a little bittersweet because I was not able to go home, but thankfully Thanksgiving is coming soon! I will go home then and have a wonderful break.

Things have finally come through for my Navy Scholarship and I will probably be getting commissioned next week. I did not think this was going to happen and was making alternate plans, but I am glad it finally did. I look forward to serving my country in this way.

Well, for now, I am off to rest. It will be a busy weekend.

Finally

I finally passed a Microbiology exam. I go into the exams every time feeling like I understand the material. I never feel like I know everything, there is too much information to learn everything for 9 exams in one day. However, I do feel like I know enough to at the very least pass. It has been very frustrating, but finally, I have passed my micro exam.

This week is going to be full of studying as next week is a full week of exams. Then, provided I pass all of my courses this block, I get a week long break!!! I cannot wait, and I definitely need this break.

At the end of the break is our White Coat Ceremony, another very exciting moment my medical school career.

Well, for now I need to get back to studying because I am determined to pass all of my courses, and am trying to do much better than passing.



P.S. There are baby sheep, baby cows, and baby horses in the pastures now! I have tried to get pictures, but they keep moving the babies due to problems with the fencing. I tried to go this evening, but it was too dark to get good pictures. Hopefully, I will have new pictures soon!

Don't Put All Your Eggs In One Basket

Or don't put all your time into one exam. Because then when you do badly in all the others and find that you did not even do well in the one exam you put tons of time into studying, it is a much worse feeling.

This set of exams went horribly. It looks like I will be sticking around Blacksburg during the week of break for remediation. :.(

Hopefully, that expectation will not come true, but I don't want to make any plans for my week off now.

This week and next, I will be spending a lot of time studying and trying to commit equal time to each topic so that I can do well on the next set of exams.

I promise, I KNOW VIROLOGY!!!! That test was not an accurate measurement of my knowledge. I am not very happy about it. But I know God will use this experience and the experience of this entire Block 1 in some way. I just want to get through it, pass, and get my White Coat....

Week 7

I had a lot of trouble concentrating this week. I was very worried about Micro, and spending most of my time on it instead of spreading time to everything. This weekend, however, has been very productive. Friday night I studied all of the courses that did not have many lectures or I felt would be quick to get throug. Yesterday, Jessica and Sierra came over to study Pharm and Micro. We spent most of the time from 10 AM to 4:30 PM studying Micro (took a break for lunch and later a quick walk down by the pastures). Then we started studying Pharm until about 6:30 PM when Raj came over to study Biochemistry.
This morning, I finished reviewing Ethics and Pharm then I went to church at Blacksburg Christian Fellowship. It was a much needed break and I absolutely loved the service. I just have to see what types of things they have for me to plug into and I might have found my new church home!
When I got home, I had a quick lunch, and finished up Biochemistry. After Biochem, I went for a run/walk down through the pastures again. I love running there! I cannot wait until my endurance builds up in this higher altitude. I am running further every time, but I still have a long way to go to get even where I was over the last few years in Raleigh (which was not far or fast). On my run today I saw some hunger donkey, birds playing leap frog, and some tuckered out sheep. :-) I have reviewed Nutrition again, and I am about to look at Micro one more time. I think I have everything covered, and I am ready to go ace Micro! :)

Hopefully, these exams will all go well!

Week 6

Well, I put a lot more time into studying for the exam this past weekend, and there was improvement in several courses. However, there were still some courses that I did not do very well in, and one in particular that needs vast improvement. I have spent time this week talking to the professors in this course about advice for studying for their course. Hopefully, these techniques will prove successful on the next exam.

The block is half over. It is hard to believe that in a few weeks we will be having our White Coat Ceremony.

This weekend, Morgan came to visit!! :) It was great to have her here, but unfortunately it meant I did not get much studying done, and it would have been a great studying weekend. Oh well, I definitely needed friend time and I was great to spend it with Morgan!

We went to the movies, and to Jefferson National Forest and walked around the pond. We had plans to go to Roanoke, but we never went, it was a nasty, raining weekend, so we decided just to stay in Blacksburg instead. I did show her all of my "backyard" animals! :)

Weeks 4 and 5

Well, last week I found out that I did not do as well as I hoped on several of my first medical school exams. The first round is over, and tomorrow is the second round of exams. I have been studying almost non-stop since I got my grades back, hoping to do much better on these exams. Tomorrow is the Block 1 Pathology Final Exam, and we have five other exams. The good thing is....we are done by noon!!!

This weekend I studied a lot with Brittany. It was really good to have another human being in the room whlie studying. For the most part, we were very productive while together, though we did of course get off on some interesting tangents. Yesterday we went to Jefferson National Forest and studied outside for a little while. It was very nice to get out, and quite relaxing.

Today, I finished going through my notes around 5:15 P.M. and went out for a run through the pastures. I have no idea how far I went, but I turned around when I saw a hawk fly away with a very large mouse....at that point I figured I was too far out in the country for today, though it was absolutely beautiful! I even met Eeyore (or some of his family) while out on my run this evening!

It has been a very relaxing evening. I am glad to have the time to give my brain a rest before the exams tomorrow. I only pray that I have learned enough and do well on the exams.

Thank you Lord, for your beautiful, amazing creations in nature and the intricacies of life. The more I learn and the more I see, the more you become real to me!!

I cannot wait for Thursday, September 24! Morgan is coming to Blacksburg, and we are going to have tons of fun!!! I miss Morgan so much, I cannot wait to see her.

The First Exam

Well, it was quite an experience taking my first medical school exam, one I am not likely to forget soon.

It was supposed to be a 7 hr long exam (from 7:45 AM - 2:38 PM), but instead it lasted until 5 PM. We began the exam decently, but less than 30 minutes into it, the server got overloaded with all the students (second years at VCOM and everyone at VT) logging in, especially to Scholar - we were taking our test on Scholar which is similar to WebCT and Blackboard. Well, we were sorting through that okay and they were going to add a little bit of time to the exam so that we could finish despite the slow page changes after every question. However, 10 minutes later we lost internet. The entire class was kicked out of the exam/and could not get back online. After we sat there for 5 - 10 minutes with no resolution for any of us, the told us to leave and come back when it was time to begin the next portion. The hope was that everything would be fixed and we would continue to take the exam on the computer.

However, an hour later, when the next section was to begin, there was still no internet. So, they quickly made paper copies of the exam and we took the test on scantrons. In some ways, I felt this was better. I like being able to write on an exam, cross out the answers I know are wrong, make notes that will still be there later if I go back to look over a question, etc. On the other hand, bubbling in all the answers is much slower and made my hand tired. :)

Right before we began the last section of the day the presented us with a choice about how to handle the first section we did not orignially finish on the computer. Either we could take it again today (on paper) or take it tomorrow. Either way it would be the same exam that some people had already talked about and others had looked up answers to, etc. Even though I had done neither, I knew I wanted to take it today, as tired as I was. I did not want to spend this evening studying again. I needed a relaxing night.

Thankfully, the overwhelming majority of my classmates agreed and we finished the exam this afternoon. Unfortunately, it was the longest portion of the exam that we had to redo making the day last an extra two hours.

The day is over, the first test is done, and even though I am not confident in how well I may or may not have done, I am very glad it is over.

Week Three

It has been a long week. I have been studying non-stop since Friday, Aug 28. My first medical school test is tomorrow and I have been trying to prepare for that and catch up with studying from the previous two weeks of school. Even though I probably should have been studying some more, I drove down to Wilmington for my family reunion this weekend. It was great to be able to see everyone, even though it was only for a few hours (with a round trip 12 hours driving time).

Saturday night, my parents and I stayed at a house of some family friends who were out of town at their own family reunion. I did get a little bit of studying done, and my mom helped me come up with some songs to memorize the CYP 450 inhibitors, inducers, and some other Red Flag drugs. The songs are to the tunes of London Bridge, Gilligan's Island, and Green Acres, respectively.

I drove back to Blacksburg Sunday night and memorized the songs on the way back. So at least it was a productive drive!

This evening, after I finished studying, I took a walk along Plantation Road and took pictures of all the animals in “my backyard.” I love living next to all these animals and seeing the horses and sheep every time I leave and return to my apartment. It makes me happy early in the morning or when I have had a bad day to pass the sheep and say hello. Here are a few pictures that I took along my walk.

This sheep walked over from the middle of the field and came to pose for me. When I was done, I thanked her, she baaaed and walked away again. :)

Well, tomorrow is my first test and it is 7 hours long. We have approximately 50 minutes per section with a 10 min break in between each. It is on the computer and we have a white board for any notes that we may need to take. In these respects, it is supposed to be very similar to boards. We will be having these tests every two weeks from now on. It is supposed to prepare us for boards by building endurance or something like that.

Well, hopefully I have done enough to prepare for this first exam. I am nervous, but ready. I will be very happy at 3 pm tomorrow afternoon because the first exam will be over.