Whew!

Almost done with the first week of medical school. Here are a few of my thoughts concerning this epic event:

1. I am really, really glad that I took some advanced science classes in undergrad (I was an English major, so I wasn't required to take anything above the prereqs). While I do feel that I could have gotten away with just taking the standard prerequisites (biology, general chemistry, organic chemistry, and physics), I feel that my stress level right now would be much higher had I not gone the extra mile. The additional classes that I elected to take were biochemistry, cell biology, and genetics. Biochem and cell bio have already come in handy -- and this is four days into med school. Looking at the syllabus, I can see that genetics will be useful before the quarter is out. While I don't think it would have been the kiss of death to come in without them, it is nice that some of the stuff I am seeing this week is review for me... I would feel a whole lot more lost if I hadn't seen any of the material previously. As it stands, I've seen some of this protein stuff twice before, which gives me a feeling of confidence that I appreciate having.

2. I am finding embryology challenging but fun. I am not a very visual person and so I was apprehensive about histo/embryo stuff. Yesterday I was really frustrated because I could not make heads or tails out of my chick slides (a chicken embryo at 24 and 36 hours of development, both in whole mount and in sequential cross-sections). There is a website that the school gave to us to view but since I don't have a laptop yet I felt rather at a disadvantage compared to the students who were able to pull up the website while they were at their scopes. (Our lab manual has been relatively useless in this endeavor.) But I put in an hour or so on the site last night and over lunch today and lab went better this afternoon, so I am hopeful again. We are only spending 3 days on embryo stuff, but it's apparently about 40% of our first anatomy exam, so I really want to make sure I have it down.

3. I am stoked about physiology -- or, at least, I will be once we get through this initial membrane transport stuff. Yes, it is important but I have seen it before (thanks, cell bio!) and I am eager to get on to the cardiovascular system. I have discovered that I live for the clinical correlates, which is not exactly a surprise to me, but is something to keep in mind. Sodium transport? Zzzzzz. Why digoxin works for CHF?? Give me more!!!

4. The person who scheduled biochem after lunch should really be shot or otherwise disciplined. OMG. I never fall asleep in class but this has been dire. I catch myself falling into these weird half-asleep states in which Josh and Donna (my favorite West Wing 'ship) are interacting peptide domains... hopefully I will be better able to pay attention once we get to the hard parts!

5. I am a sucker for good salesmanship. We have our medical equipment sale tomorrow. The director of our Clinical Skills course is trying to talk us into buying really expensive diagnostic sets that I *know* we are not going to use that much. So spending $700 on a panoptic opthalmoscope and otoscope set doesn't really seem like something I want to do. Especially since I already have a diagnostic set. OK, so it's a hand-me-down from my boyfriend and it's from, like, 1972, but it still works! But then Dr. Harper starts going on about how our motto is that we are at "the forefront of medicine" and we should really equip ourselves with the best technology available, and I find myself ready to write the check. It *was* written into our financial aid budget, I must admit. I'd rather get a laptop for the money, but... I'm going to see if I can try one out tomorrow at the sale and make my decision then.

6. Speaking (tangentially) of my boyfriend, things are a little weird. I got a strange email from him this morning and I don't quite know what to make of where we are going. I know that part of our problem is that neither one of us likes to be the "vulnerable" one in relationships, having both been burned by that in the past. So we tend to try to one-up each other in the "I don't really need you" game. I thought I'd been doing pretty well at handling that part of us, but perhaps not so much. It would be a lot easier if there weren't so many solid, objective reasons as to why we as a couple are not a good idea. But there are, and sometimes just wanting to be with a person isn't good enough. I think we are both struggling with the decision of whether or not the cons outweigh the pros.

7. I have been working my ass off this week. I know that for me, beginning as you mean to go on is desperately important and as such I have been trying to err on the side of studying more rather than less. And so I have studied more this first not-even-over week of school than I studied pretty much all of last semester put together. :) Our first exams are about a week and a half away. After them, I will have a much better idea of what I do and don't need to do, I hope. The fire-hydrant meme is startlingly accurate -- I have been putting in a lot of hours and already I know that I could be putting in so many more, even now when most of the stuff is review.

8. I do think that I made the right decision in coming to this school. Med schools have a really vast range of curricula. I chose to go to a school that is really intense as far as classtime goes -- we are at school from 8:30 am to 5 pm, with a variable lunch break in the middle -- and I think that's good. I'm an excellent traditional learner and I *like* lecture, so it's working for me so far.

9. Now that I've made it all the way up to nine, I feel pressured to go all the way to ten. I have a thing about nice, round numbers that borders on the obsessive/compulsive -- I can't stop what I'm doing and go to sleep unless it's on a :00 or a :30 of the clock, for example -- and so I think I need to come up with a thought for number ten.

10. I am loving living in Hyde Park. I have a beautiful 15 minute walk to school, which is just about ideal in my book. Everything I need (groceries, office supplies, hardware store, wine shop, drugstore, take-out food, bank) is within a 3 block radius of my apartment (although it's more expensive than it would be if I had a car and could go elsewhere). I feel perfectly safe during daylight hours, and there are copious transportation options for the evening if I should ever need to avail myself of them. The residents of my building are friendly. My apartment, while small, is suitable to my needs and I can see myself staying here for another year or three (I just need *one* more bookcase for the scary amount of medical texts I have already and will need to purchase). It's really a good thing.

So, anyway, those are my thoughts for this first week. I really couldn't ask for it to be going any better than it is. I'm quite content. :)

Officially MS1 :)

So, it's now official. I have started medical school.

I don't think there's anything I could type that could possibly express how happy I am about this.

Of course, that might be because I'm really tired. My insomnia kicked in last night and I spent an ungodly amount of time re-reading excellent West Wing fanfic (you can find it here, at the wonderful Jo and Ryo Collective, if you are so inclined). So I was yawning a bit in lecture this morning, but it was all good.

We start our days with physiology. The first topic in that class is going to be membrane transport, so we reviewed some basics in that area. Then, in our human morphology (to be called anatomy from here on out, because it's shorter and I'm lazy) lecture, we started out with basic development. After this luxuriously long lunch break, we will have biochemistry and anatomy lab. In lab, we'll be beginning with histology and so I think today we're just basically orienting to our scopes and covering the basics of staining.

My only exposure to anything histo-related previously was a horrific experience with cryosectioning and staining in my undergrad lab that I would just as soon forget ever happened, so we'll see how this goes. I'm awfully glad that I know a pathology HO. ;)

Weekend Update

I'm Tina Fey... well, not anymore!

Very nice weekend, which is fabulous because I needed the break. I cleaned my apartment, got stuff at Office Depot to organize with, read some books, watched a little TV, previewed the material for my first lectures on Monday, and found the pilot for Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip on the NBC website so I got to watch it after all. Yay! I *heart* Bradley Whitford almost as much as I *heart* Aaron Sorkin. It was pretty good and I think the show has a lot of promise. Perhaps it was my bias showing, but I thought it was pretty easy to tell who had worked with Sorkin before and who hadn't, or at least not as much. That style of speaking is hard for a lot of actors. Hopefully it will only get better. :) It bothered me a little that the font used for the credits and the title cards was the same as on the West Wing. It made me want my Josh'n'Donna, Jed'n'Abbey, Sam'n'Ainsley, and CJ'n'Danny (or Toby, I liked both pairings), dammit. Oh, well. At least I got Josh and Danny. Must be grateful for what I can get.

O-week, postscript

Friday of O-week there were no classwide event scheduled, but the Been Around the Block Society (aka BABS, the nontrad group) had a BBQ. Because of the weather the BBQ turned into a pizza and pasta party, but that was fine with me -- the pasta they got was fantastic. I got to meet a lot of other nontrads and we shared stories, etc. It was a lot of fun. Apparently last year this was the only thing that the BABS did, but this year the leaders plan on being more active and doing other stuff, which I would really enjoy.

And then I went home and took a five hour nap that was desperately needed. Sooooo sooooo short on sleep all week long!!

O-week, day four

Our last day of O-week was called "How to Be an Effective Medical Student," but everyone referred to it as academic day. It was on this day that we finally received our actual schedules, for which we had been begging for a while. There were two optional workshops in the morning -- one on finding your own learning style, and one on dual degree options. I went to both and quite enjoyed them. I sorta doubt I'm going to do a dual degree since I'm all old and stuff (kidding! but not really) but it is nice to know the many options that are there in case I change my mind. Next we had a curriculum overview. After lunch we got to break up into small groups and ask questions of second year students. They gave us great tips on book buying, how to study, what the different professors are like, and such things.

I am going to try to not be a crazy textbook buyer this year. I love books, and I always buy every book, required and recommended, for every class. Of course, I wind up not using half or more of them, and then I feel bad about wasting the money. So I really am going to try to reform my ways, especially as it seems to be very possible to do here with the voluminious and extensive class notes and slides we are given. Besides, multiple copies of all the books are on reserve at the library, so if there's one I didn't get that I need, it's not the end of the world. I have several texts already, and I do think there are two or three more I would like to get, but I'm going to try to pick them up used at the AMSA book sale this week.

The second to last thing we did was to have anatomy lab group icebreakers. I was so happy to learn that not only did I already know the three other people in my lab group, but I already liked them a lot. I think we are going to kick ass and take names... I couldn't have picked a better group if I'd tried. So that was happy.

After that, we had a sort of capstone/keynote/whatever bogus name you want to give it speech by a really phenomenal speaker... an invasive cardiologist (alumnus, of course) who basically did the abbreviated history of cardiac medicine and talked about all the changes we are going to see in our careers and stuff. He ended with tips and advice which included things like be nice to the ancillary staff and that nurses will save your ass, so of course I liked him a lot.

Everything he talked about really made me miss working in cards, though, and sort of brought to life the idea of going into cards as a specialty again for me. I just keep telling myself that I have a lot of time to sort it out. :)

Then we all had to race home and change into nice (and hopefully warm) clothes for our grand finale event, which was a boat cruise on Lake Michigan and the Chicago river. It was really, really neat -- much cooler than I had even anticipated. Nice appetizers and an open bar with beer or wine. I think we may have continued what is apparently a tradition of being banned from ever returning to the venue at which the O-week finale is held due to an unfortunate excretory incident on the part of one of my classmates, but, hey, we had fun.

Afterwards most of us went over to this really chi-chi club. Apparently the cover is usually $25, but our social chair talked them into letting us in with no cover and free Ketel One drinks for the first twenty minutes. I was exhausted but I figured this was probably my only opportunity for a long while to check out a bar with a $25 cover so I went for a little while. It was very nice and all, and the DJ was great, but damn. :O I only stayed for about an hour and caught a taxi home with the first group I saw leaving.

It was a fun night, though, and a great way to end O-week. Except it really wasn't the last thing for me. :)

O-week, day three

The third day of o-week was officially called "Introduction to Medicine as a Career." We started with an introduction to our society system, which is new to the school (only in its second year) and is sort of a Harry Potter-esque vertical integration of the school. The societies are social but have as their main goal career advising, which hopefully will be nice. I think I'm in Slytherin. ;)

We heard from a panel of alumni physicians about their experiences in choosing their career paths, and had lunch with a member of the faculty. I ate with Dr. Fromme, who is a pediatric hospitalist and apparently head of the pediatric residency program. Very cool lady... I was happy to find out that she was also going to be hosting the faculty dinner that evening.

After lunch we learned about some of the community service opportunities that we can participate in. Unfortunately the clinic I want to volunteer at is on Monday evenings, which is not so good for my Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip viewing. I hope they have episodes on ITunes or something... I'm going to have to check that out. (I don't think wanting to watch one TV show, written by the best writer of dialogue since, well, possibly ever, is asking too too much from life, do you?)

To close out the day, we had a financial aid presentation and found out we can pick up our checks on Monday. Whoopee!!! While the presentation was going on, I had this sudden cold chilly panic feeling that I had not made the first payment on my consolidation loan, which hasn't been deferred yet because we weren't officially registered yet because we start school later than anywhere else on earth. I leapt out of my chair at the end of the talk and powerwalked all the way home only to discover that I'm more on the ball than I thought and had actually made the payment three weeks ago, since I had been foresighted enough to determine that I would probably be too busy to remember it this week.

If only I could have remembered my brilliance.

After that adrenaline rush, I was kinda tired for the faculty dinner. It was still fun though... we went to Dr. Fromme's very nice condo, and she and her wonderful husband had deep dish from three different pizza joints (one meaty & one veggie from each) for us to try out. There was salad to go with, and a choice of Chicago cheesecake or brownies and ice cream for dessert. I learned that brownies originated in Chicago, which I did not previously know. Unfortunately, I've forgotten exactly where. However, I'm sure that information is available somewhere on the internet if you are really that curious.

And then we went home, and I was exhausted. As such, this entry is actually being posted on the weekend. :)

O-week, day two

Today's theme was logistics. All morning (and morning started at 7:30 am) we ran around campus taking care of various tasks... getting our pictures taken for our hospital ID cards, taking a quick tour of buildings that will be important to us, paying our various fees for things like microscope rental, having the second step of our TB skin tests, being fit-tested for respirators for airborne isolation, being fingerprinted for our criminal background checks, getting our locker and mailbox assignments, etc. Over lunch we had a HIPAA training session (and wow, that timing was not well thought out... I'd say at least a third of the class fell asleep, although we did ask some good questions). Then we did our basic life support (CPR) training session -- we'll take the test next weekend. In the evening we had the option of going to a pub crawl, a GLBT event, or a game night (you could just go home and crash if you wanted, and I think a few people did). I was a little bar-ed out, so I elected to go to game night. We played a rousing game of Taboo with a pretty big crowd of people and it was a lot of fun. Our medical student-ness was painfully apparent with our explanations of some words... "media" being something you can grow bacteria or cells on, for example. My team won (yay!).

Aside from a poor footwear choice for the running around this morning (something that is sadly chronic in my life), it was a great day. Tomorrow I don't have to be there until 9:15!!! Acclimation must be proceeding pretty quickly since I'm already thinking of that as decadently late instead of painfully early.

O-week, day one

First day of O-week! And man, was it long!!

We started with a nive breakfast with our small "Transition Teams," or T-teams, as we call them. There are twelve of them, with about 9 students each. Each T-team has three or four MS2's to guide us, answer our questions, etc.

After breakfast we were rather mysteriously told to line up single file and we then entered the main lecture hall. As we started to move inside, we were greeted by a thunderous standing ovation from the staff, deans, department chairs, and as many MS2-4's as could make it today. It sounds rather corny, but our "clap-in" was actually really, really cool and a totally moving experience. Apparently when the MS2's finish their classroom work this spring, we will clap them out. It's a fun tradition -- I like it!

We were welcomed to the school by what seemed like God and everybody (today's theme was welcome) and we talked a lot about professionalism, which sounds dry but was livened up by a funny little skit-type thing and some great speakers.

At the end of the long day, we got our O-week T-shirts, a gift bag from the alumni association, and our facebooks. I appreciate corny humor, and so I thought the T-shirts were great. Our unofficial school motto (though usually applied to the undergrad portion) is "where fun goes to die." Our med school motto is apparently now "where fun comes to be resuscitated." There's even a fabulous little logo underneath that is a VF/VT rhythm that feeds into the words "class of 2010" and comes out in NSR. I thought that was an especially nice touch even if I'm probably one of the only ones in the class who can really appreciate it at the moment.

We got an hour to run home and change (since it was professionalism day we had to dress professionally) and then we went to a BBQ with our T-teams that was hosted at a MS2's house (there were several different ones, of course). Afterwards we met back up at the school and took buses to an excellent bar called North Beach. There was indoor sand volleyball, basketball, pool, air hockey, foosball, darts, an ice cream sundae bar, and it was really a blast. I taught some of my new friends how to play cricket. I lost. But it was still a most excellent time.

We've got to be back to school in less than seven hours, so it's probably time to call it a night. :)

Proud new owner of a white coat

Lots of stuff going on this weekend.

Yesterday I did the 5K AIDS Run/Walk with some of my classmates. It was a gorgeous day for it, the setting was beautiful with the downtown skyline and the lake, and we had a great time. Afterwards, we went out for pizza. And then I came home and totally crashed... it's been a busy week and I was just done.

I managed to get up early this morning though, since I had stuff to do. I did some laundry and went grocery shopping. I wanted to get a new pair of shoes to go with the outfit I was planning on wearing to the ceremony but I decided that would be too extravagant. Unfortunately the shoes I had were really uncomfortable and I wound up standing and walking for far longer than I had anticipated and by the end of the night my feet were burning with pain. But I saved money. :)

I was rather ambivalent about the white coat ceremony to begin with, not for reasons intrinsic to the ceremony itself but because of my family circumstances surrounding it. My parents went through a bitter and nasty divorce a few years ago and things are still really rough. My mom told me that I had to choose... I could invite her or my dad but not both. Although she definitely has her reasons for being very angry with my dad, I thought (and still think) that this was entirely inappropriate. So basically I told her that I wasn't going to play that game. I sent an invitation to each of them and I said that if she didn't want to come then that was fine with me, but that I wasn't about to take sides. She elected not to come, and therefore none of that side of my family came (I don't blame them for not wanting to get in the middle of this). She did call me this afternoon and told me that she wished she could have been there and that she hoped I could understand why she wasn't. I don't, really, but I just let it go. I wish I could make her see that this sort of behavior only hurts herself and hurts me, but I can't.

So, anyway, my father came down from Milwaukee and my boyfriend came down from Madison and I was very happy to have them there, especially since they both just had to turn right around and drive back to Wisconsin, so it was pretty much a giant pain in the ass for each of them. Sunday evening seems like a pretty silly time to hold this sort of event to me but, whatever. It was very well done and I'm glad I went.

Afterwards, I went out and met a bunch of second and fourth years, along with a smattering of my first year classmates. It was a great time and I met some people from my class that I hadn't really had a chance to talk with before, so that was good.

O-Week, here I come!

Yawn.

I suppose I should write something but I'm pretty beat.

I had caffeine in the evening yesterday (never a good thing for me) and as a result slept for crap and have been tired all day. Fortunately we got out a little early today. I took care of some more things around the apartment, worked a little bit on my portion of the poster presentation my group is giving tomorrow on Medicare and Medicaid, had a lovely virtual dinner with a friend (mwah!) , and spent the rest of the evening relaxing, listening to music, and dicking around on the Internet.

The presentations today were very good, as usual. One on LGBT disparities, one on translators and limited English proficiency, one on race and ED care, and one on Type 2 DM.

I can't believe the first week is almost over already. =O

Whetting my appetite

We had lots of excellent lectures today. A little more break time in between them would have been appreciated, but it was really mostly fantastic quality so I can't complain. An MD/JD came to speak with us about public insurance (Medicare/Medicaid) and the uninsured, and I enjoyed that presentation a lot. I learned so much stuff that I didn't know... did you realize that states spend, on average, 20% of their budgets on Medicaid? And that of that 20%, fully half of it goes to only 5% of the Medicaid population? The amazing upshot of this is that basically what this works out to is that less than 1% of each state's population consumes 10% of the entire state budget. I was aware that a vast amount of money goes to a very small amount of truly sick people, but I had no idea it was this ginormous.

We also had a presentation by two social workers who explained a little bit about what they do as far as addressing disparities, and we heard from a researcher who is studying free clinics in the US. We also had a lecture from the ACCESS group that runs the clinic that I visited yesterday... the more I hear about their organization, the more impressed I am. Rounding out the morning were lectures on breast cancer and hypertension in the African-American population, both of which were excellent. Dr. McDade told us about a current theory (as yet unproven, though there is some evidence in support) that one of the reasons that African-Americans are disproportionately affected by hypertension is that the ability to concentrate and hold on to sodium may have had a protective effect during the slave trade which caused a differential survival across the Middle Passage, thus concentrating those genes in this population (people of African descent from other areas are not nearly as affected by hypertension). Really interesting to think about.

In the afternoon we visited the emergency department. Except for when my mother had her thyroid surgery in January, it's the first time I've been in a hospital for a year. It completely felt like going home. The smells of the cleaning solutions mingled with the smells of the patients, the sounds of the pages and the tele monitors and the shift report going on, the cadence of the movement of the staff around the station and in and out of the rooms and the curtains... it was all so comfortingly familiar. Of course, in keeping with the course, our tour was focused primarily on policy and public health sorts of things -- nothing clinical at all, really -- but I'm afraid to say that I pretty much tuned that all out and let my attention wander to the rest of the environment. I absolutely did not want to leave. In a week that's been full of new things and new people and new places and new stresses, it was sort of jolting and strange to feel like I belonged there. While it wasn't my home exactly, still, I understood it.

Gah, I'm doing a bad job of describing what it was like. All I can say is that it was really powerful for me and I really cannot wait to get back into some sort of clinical environment, and preferably a hospital. Cannot possibly come soon enough.

Blind as a bat.

Today was OK, I suppose. I went to the bathroom during our morning break and as I was taking off my glasses to fix my hair, one of the temples snapped right off. :( I've got fairly bad myopia and astigmatism and, without my glasses, I'm one of those people who can just sort of vaguely see something where the eye chart is supposed to be, so needless to say, this made for an interesting remainder of the day. I'd be lying if I said it didn't put me in a bit of a bad mood -- it's really hard to talk to people, especially people you don't know well, when you can't see their faces -- but I tried my hardest not to let it get to me.

The content of today was really very good. We had great speakers who talked about:

• the Tuskegee experiment and its implications on health care for African-Americans, especially in research
• Health care issues of Latino populations, especially the Hispanic or Latino paradox
  
• Health care issues of Asian-American/Pacific Islander populations (with an emphasis on Hep B)
• The obesity epidemic, especially as related to African-Americans

Many of the speakers shared their families' experiences with health care disparities and how they influenced their careers as physicians and it really was very moving. In the afternoon we visited a community clinic (which was a FQHC, or federally qualified health center). This clinic is part of an association that operates more than 40 community clinics in the Chicagoland area and is the largest such provider in the US. They provide care to anyone who walks in the door, regardless of their insurance status. For uninsured patients, they charge a sliding scale fee, which at the bottom is $15 per visit and includes anything that can be done at the clinic, including lab work. Approximately 25% of the patients this organization serves are uninsured, which works out to about 70,000 people per year (There are about 46 million uninsured people nationwide, of which about 1.2 million are in Illinois -- 860,000 of those are in the Chicago area.) They are able to fund this care because of a special arrangement (due to their FQHC status) with the government in which they are reimbursed extra money for every Medicaid patient that they see. They also receive grants and donations. None of my practice experience has been in underserved areas and so I had never heard of this program before, and the learning was time very well spent.

Semi-officially no longer a MS0

First day today. But not really. But really. :p

For the first time, my school is offering an optional class on disparities in health care during the week before orientation. Since it's a subject I'm interested in, I signed up. So did two-thirds of my classmates. :) So, while orientation doesn't begin for another week and actual official classes for another two weeks, I consider myself to have started medical school today with the first day of this class.

The course, which is the first of its kind, is intended to teach us about health care disparities, the reasons behind them, and potential solutions to them that we can incorporate into our own learning and eventual practice. It also gives us an opportunity to go into our community and to observe the facilities in which care is being delivered to a variety of populations that may be experiencing disparities in their health care.

So far I've enjoyed it quite a bit (though, again, it is totally up my alley). We had four lecturers today. Dr. Kim talked to us about cultural competency and how it affects quality of care and clinical outcomes. Dr. Chin gave us an overview of health care disparities with an emphasis on learning about the ways in which the problem is being examined, defined, and solutions formulated. Dr. Whitaker, the director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, talked about his path towards becoming involved in public health and the project he worked on in our community to address health care disparities for African-American males. Dr. Harper discussed health literacy and the effects it can have on health care quality and outcomes.

In the coming days we will be touring some community facilities and working in groups on a poster presentation about one of the facets of the disparity issue. My group is looking at Medicare and Medicaid, and the strengths and disadvantages of them as options for providing health care to Americans. We will also be having more didactic lectures, many of which will be presented by notable figures from around the area.

Of course, a good bit of the day was involved with meeting and talking with our new classmates. Of course, there were the standard "where did you go to undergrad" and "where are you living" questions, and some awkward silences, but I had fun. I met some really nice people and I'm looking forward to getting to know them better.

All in all, I have to call it a success. :)

Relaxation

I have a hard time going to sleep on ordinary nights. The night before something big it's truly problematic for me. And so I've got some lovely scented candles burning, some relaxing music on, a nice drink, and I'm just going to breathe deeply in and out.

As promised, a photo of my new place. This photo is significant for two reasons -- the art and the bookcase.

The bookcase is one of two that I stuffed to the gills and am very happy about (see previous post). The art has a lot of backstory.

In March 2001 as a birthday present to myself I bought this print of The Wassail, by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, a Scottish architect and artist whose work I am inordinately fond of. I of course meant to have it framed immediately. Life, however, intervened and it wasn't until almost a year later that I managed to have the time and the money simultaneously to get it done. But I finally did.

Shortly thereafter my relationship with P. became rather more serious and we began to talk about me moving to Madison and moving in with him. I decided to hold off on hanging the print until I knew for sure if I was staying or going (why make holes I'd just need to clean up in a few months?).

I did wind up moving in with P., and I toted my little print with me to Madison. When I moved in, P's apartment was completely bachelor paddish and had a sort of black leather and chrome thing going on that I think he meant to be sleek and modern but wound up being rather frighteningly S&M-y. My picture didn't really fit in. I wanted to hang it up anyway, but I ran into some fierce opposition both on stylistic grounds and because P. has some weird OCD thing against making holes in the walls, especially of rented places. And so my picture stayed in its box.

When P. bought his condo last year and we moved into it, I was so excited that finally I would be able to hang up my picture. Unfortunately we could not agree on where or when and as the application season progressed I began to sense that I probably would not be staying in Madison and so I put my poor little print away again.

Five and a half years later and I finally have the damn thing up on a wall. It looks great.

While there are things about living alone again that I may not like so much, there are some things that I have definitely missed. :)

I really like this for some reason...

This video is fascinating, hypnotically beautiful, and I love the music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B26asyGKDo

The Opener

I love beginnings.

If I played baseball, I'd be a starting pitcher. I am sooooo good in the early phases of things. I have boundless energy and ideas and enthusiasm and I dig in with a will. The world is my oyster when I'm starting something. I become an awesome vortex of productivity and passion.

I hate endings.

Somewhere around the 7th inning, instead of stretching, I just want to take my ball and go home. This is where the Procrastinatrix comes in. I am horrible at finishing things. Projects, classes, hobbies, relationships... it's all the same. All my motivation seems to get sucked dry about three-quarters of the way through anything. I really don't have any insight into why I am this way, I just know that it's the way I am and have always been. I will put off finishing anything until the last possible moment. Packing for a trip, writing the conclusion for a paper... only the imminent threat of the deadline can get my ass into gear.

I think one of the reasons I'm feeling so ambivalent at the moment is that I'm experiencing a beginning and an ending all at the same time. Everything is changing all at once. I'm eager to get started on my new life, but I'm dragging my feet about saying goodbye to my old one.

Fortunately time has a way of moving on, with or without my input on the matter. :)

My personal seal

At a fun website, the Official Seal Generator, which I found on Ben's blog, I made my own official seal. I like it -- check it out!

Funny!

The Fake Doctor has a hilarious post up. Check it out!

Reuniting with some old friends

Another round trip today. Many of my goals were accomplished but I was not able to set up a savings/checking account at any of the three banks I visited today for a variety of stupid reasons and that made me grumpy.

On the brighter side, though, not only did I take down more stuff and shop at IKEA (I could spend a whole day there, but I didn't), I started unpacking. And glory be, I managed to unpack all twelve boxes of my books AND fit them all into the two bookshelves that came with the apartment. It ain't pretty, but I did it. (I'll post a pic sometime this weekend.) A good 75% of these books have been in boxes for the past year, since when P. and I moved in 8/2005 I knew that there was a decent chance that I'd be moving again and hence I didn't unpack them (having nowhere to put them was also a factor). Of the remaining 25%, probably 20% had been in storage for the last 4 years, ever since I moved in with P. to begin with. I was just so delighted to pull out all my old friends. I was finally able to verify for myself that my autographed copy of Madeleine L'Engle's A Swiftly Tilting Planet indeed did not burn up in the fire at my parents' house. I was pretty certain that I'd taken it with me and stored it but I wasn't 100% sure that it hadn't been in one of the four or five boxes I lost. So happy day all around. :)

I still want more bookshelves, though -- with the paperbacks stacked three rows deep, they're hardly more accessible than they were in the boxes. But it's not a STAT priority anymore.

P. says that medical school permanently caused him to have an aversion to reading for pleasure (he claims he read widely before that). I'm not too worried about that, though. I don't think the experience that could turn me off of reading has been invented yet.

I also picked up the self-installation kit for my cable internet (it only took an hour and a half). Hopefully I'll be able to get up and running quickly on Saturday.

The original plan had been for P. to take me down for my permanent residence on Friday, but his work schedule has become incompatible with that so it'll be Saturday morning instead.

So much to do between now and then!!!

A laborious weekend

While driving from Chicago to Milwaukee yesterday, I composed a great blog post in my head. Sadly, I didn't have any connectivity until today and at some point in the intervening hours I completely lost it.

Trust me, you're missing out. ;)

Long weekend. Lots of driving. Many boxes. And of course, my family.

I love my family to bits. That said, we are some of the craziest mo-fos ever. I think at some point over this weekend I wanted to throttle every last one of them. And I'm sure they felt the same about me. :) Every once in a while I realize that I have indeed become my mother in far too many ways to count. While in some respects this is good, in others it basically makes me want to claw my skin off.

But it's done. S. is settled in at college and her roommate, if not perhaps entirely compatible, seems at least relatively normal and is IMHO going to be good for S. by hopefully encouraging her to be a little less Daria-esque (not that there's anything wrong with that :p) and a little more willing to try new things. Most of my stuff is moved and the rest will be done this week. Mom was frequently tearful over her baby going off to college and about me going to school (I'm not really going to be much further away so I don't really get that but OK, whatever), but I think she's going to pull through.

I'm going down once more on Wednesday I think, to set up a bank account, get some shelves at IKEA, and perhaps start to unpack a little. Then on Friday I'm going down permanently. :O

New Digs

Picked up the keys (four, plus one of those RF doohickeys -- my poor keychain!) to my apartment today. It's teesy tiny but I think it will be sufficient unto my needs and it's a nice building in a convenient location and it doesn't break my budget so on the whole I am pleased.

Getting there was a breeze this morning... traffic into town was very light and even with the complications of getting off on the wrong exit because I was in the wrong lane and this jerkwad wouldn't let me over, randomly steering my way through Chicago in a vaguely south-easterly direction, and finding a parallel parking spot I could actually park in (I'm legendarily bad at that), I made the trip in 3 hours and 5 minutes, which is most excellent. (I owe it all to open-road tolling, I swear. Now if they would just finish!!)

In many trips, I wrestled the boxes from my car through the four doors, into the elevator, and down the long hallway into my place and eventually I did win. My stupid metal CD racks only crashed down onto my feet three or four times. I was pleasantly surprised to find more "furnishings" than I'd been lead to expect from my landlord, including a microwave, a coffeepot, and a giant fan. I'm a total convert to the whole furnished apartment thing. Especially since life seems to have been telling me for years to be less materialistic. My possessions tend to suffer from dire catastrophes like fires and floods. :( (None of which were my fault, even!!)

The fact that none of the shades roll up is relatively minor, I suppose. I'm fairly photophobic anyway. :)

I wasn't expecting much from the trip back, this being the start of Labor Day weekend and all. I didn't manage to clear out until 2 pm and that proved to be a bad thing. It took me 5 butt-numbing hours to get to Madison.

Please please please let the traffic be better on Sunday!!!