Efficiency

I've experienced my first true weekend in medical school, and though it wasn't terrible, things will definitely need to improve. The plan had been: "sleep in" on Saturday (until about 9), study, study, study, with efficient breaks that included fixing myself a healthy lunch and catching up on my New Yorker, go out to dinner with my mom and dad, and studystudystudy. This would be repeated the next day, with clear goals outlined, except that I would also hop'on over to the Pediatric Interest Group's Open House and BBQ at Dr. Gross' house and later on, after a few more efficient hours of studying, take another break with my friend Clotilde, when I introduced her to rock climbing. So what happened? I woke up around 11 am each day, and could barely get moving before noon. And then, I began to sssssss-ttt-uuuu-dddd-yyy . . . and . . . sssssss-ttt-uuuu-dddd-yyy . . . and anyway, you get the point. Things just moved very slowly. There seemed to be all these other important things to do (pay bills, check the level of my quickly declinging bank account, clean my house, fix food, wash dishes, check the never ending ucdavis.edu class 2008 email account, etc.) All of a sudden the weekend had passed. I didn't even make it to the BBQ. It was still a good weekend. The highlight, of course, was getting to see my parents, who brought champagne and took me out to a yummy dinner (oh boy, restaurant food!! real vegetables!!). Today, I also got the chance to stretch my arms and legs a little on the school's climbing wall for a couple hours, though I haven't climbed in so long that I feel that all that remains of my previous climbing skills and strength is my familiarity with the sport.

Maybe it's just that I have no interest in how the aponeurosis of the external oblique comes together with the aponeurosis of the other flat abdominal muscles to form the inguinal canal through which passes the spermatic cord. I just don't care that during development, when the testes drop in the lumbar region "deep to the transversalis fascia, they pass through the inguinal canal behind the gubernaculum" and that "A diverticulum of peritoneum, the processus vaginalis, evaginates from the anterior abdominal wall to form the inguinal canal" and that "the testes usually enter the inguinal canals just before birth and the processus vaginalis obliterates" while "the ovaries also descend from their sites of origin on the posterior abdominal wall to a point just inferior to the pelvic brim" and "the gubernaculum attaches to the uterus where it is divided into the round ligament of the uterus and the ligament of the ovary". (except from my syllabus for our friday lecture on the abdomen.)

Maybe, i'm just frustrated from trying to find the freakin' iguinal canal on a 91 year old woman for an entire hour, while trying to weight the cost/benefit of that hour exposure to that lovely noxious odor of formadehyde.

Oh, boy. I'm glad that we've moved on to the viscera of the abdomen. Funny how some subjects can make you feel grateful for the chance to memorize the vasculature and innervation of the intestines.

Well, it's 10:15pm on a Sunday, which makes it a perfect time to go grocery shopping. Really, I stocked up so well when I "had" money, that I just need water. The water here has the taste, consistency and residue of slime. You can never wash the soap off your hands (or the bathtub or your dishes) and strange things precipitate when the water dries. So my Davis friends have advised me to purchase my water. There's a first time for everything.