More Exam Prep...

I've realized I actually have to shut down my computer when I'm studying, or I inevitably waste hours on the Internet. Bad, bad me. So it's 11:15 pm on the Saturday night before my Monday morning test, and I've done 2/7 of my work. Hmmm. This does not compute. Oops. Now I have the special type of panic that can only occur the night before the night before your exam...the one all the articles say is the crucial one for getting enough sleep before a test. Oh, well. When will I ever learn?

Yay!!

Now I have good news to report and friends to appreciate! I am officially 1/7th of the way through my studying. For someone who is not a procrastinator, this may not seem like such a big deal; for me, it's huge. I never, ever, ever actually get any work done the Friday before a Monday exam, but now I can tell you all about Wilson's disease and portal hypertension. Woo hoo!

Also, my friends are so awesome. A while ago, we had dinner together, and they cooked real Ethiopian food, and a real King Cake (it was Mardi Gras)!! I was completely lost in admiration. Plus they are funny and brilliant and flexible and understanding at the same time?! I am super lucky. We were going to go out for a dinner/music thing tonight, but we postponed hanging out till after the exams.

While I'm appreciating people, my mom and dad have each called me (they don't live together) to wish me luck on the exams, and my boyfriend is giving me personal study skills assessments so that "you can be less stressed out." Awww... and my cat is being elegant and fluffy and shedding everywhere, as usual.

I was thinking of moving from this apartment, because it's getting expensive, but I might just get a roommate (bf) for the summer and a summer job instead. Plus, I'm two blocks away from the girls and I like it!!

Now that I've actually done something with my day, I might go to bed. Hopefully, this productivity will continue into tomorrow. Long live the liver.

Yikes.

So now I'm having the kind of exam crisis that can only come at noon the Friday before a Monday exam. I have NO desire to study at all. I want to go for a run, and play, and blog, and sleep, and eat, and repeat. I need to turn off this computer. Then maybe I'll get something done.

Wow...I'm actually studying!

Okay, so my update is sadly that I *haven't* been studying. I've been doing endless useful things that are not actually the same thing as studying for exams. I've gotten up, gotten dressed, eaten breakfast, checked my email, checked my bank accounts, checked my phone messages...you get the idea. Today, we decided not to have classes so we could study. Um. Maybe I should use that time to -- well, you get the idea.

I wish I had a cure for procrastination. And don't say, "Just do it." If you aren't a born procrastinator, you have no idea what I'm talking about. You're probably a natural morning person, too.

Two things that have always worked are 1) getting excited about what I'm learning, and 2) getting scared at the idea of failing an exam, or doing poorly and feeling crappy about myself.

"I can't believe I'm actually blogging about something medical, but here goes. We have an exam coming up, and unlike all the other medical students I know, we are covering the hepatic system this time, not renal. I'm so excited. I actually am reading about portal hypertension and hypersplenism and all this stuff that fits the pieces of the puzzle together in ways that make sense. Score! I will edit this post with more later. But thank goodness I'm actually studying.

Finally, shout out to my mom, who was maligned on a previous post. She's a goddess in disguise, actually. Yup. Be jealous.

Love to all my fellow medical student exam-preppers."

Califorganification

So I'm much more upbeat now...and what I want to write about is being swept up in the California organic movement. After reading the well-written but not-so-well-edited book 'Gorgeously Green' by Sophie Uliano, I became a slow convert. It's not just the health benefits, which she emphasizes. It's good not to have pesticides and hormones in working environments, it's good to be eco-friendly and not consume in ways that can't continue for our kids and their kids, and it's good to support small and independent businesses, which are often the ones developing eco-friendly, organic products (especially in beauty).

Even in a down economy, people still care about the environment, and farm laborer working conditions, and not putting pesticides on said workers or into their own (the consumers') bodies. I know Alice Waters and Chez Panisse put the whole 'local, organic, California' thing on the map eons ago, but now it is so mainstream that there are a million Whole Foods chains in the Bay Area alone. And the parking lots are always crowded, may it remain so.

Which brings me to my next point: although popularly known as Whole Paycheck, I have not found Whole Foods to be that expensive. In fact, when I comparison shop at Safeway, I get a much better value for money. Today, I bought the following:


Produce: All local, some organic
-Baby spinach, pre-washed in a recyclable container
-Oranges
-Apples
-Mini bananas
-Carrots

Dairy:
-Plain yogurt, organic low fat
-Milk in a recyclable gallon jug, organic nonfat
-Cottage cheese, organic low fat
-Goat cheese

Grains:
-Cereal, Kashi
-Couscous, organic
-Whole wheat english muffins
-Whole wheat bread
-Whole grain crackers

Meat:
-Canned tuna, no preservatives
-Turkey bacon, no preservatives
-Boca burgers, organic (okay, not real meat, but whatever)

Cleaning supplies:
- Two boxes 100% recycle, 80% post-consumer face tissue
- Eight rolls of recycled toilet paper from 7th Generation
- Earth-friendly dishwashing liquid

Other:
-100% cranberry juice
-Honey bear
-Face scrub
-Dark chocolate, fair trade 88%
- Baby bib, powder, and toy, all organic or eco-friendly & talc-free

This is enough food to last me and whoever comes over for food for at least two weeks, some for a month, and it's good quality food. Not a single item in here contains high fructose corn syrup or trans fats, and a lot of it is whole grain and either organic, local, or both. The baby stuff is part of a gift package for a new-mom friend of mine.

The entire bill? $134.32. Including the baby present.

I also am excited about the gradual organification of my bath & beauty routine. I try to buy things without parabens and synthetic fragrances at the very least. I also avoid petroleum-based ingredients wherever possible. The cosmetics safety database, known as Skin Deep, rates cosmetic products based on available safety data:

http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/wordsearch_free.php?query=facial%20scrub&&order=webscore&&start=240&nothanks=1

I try not to go above a 4. Sometimes I do. Oh, well. I'm trying. Right now, I'm experimenting with some products from Juice Beauty, which I think I like a lot.


I'm trying to wean myself off Clean & Clear's Dual Action Moisturizer, which was my favorite as a teen. I think my skin no longer likes it as much, and check out the ingredients:

Active Ingredients

Salicylic Acid 0.5% (Acne medication)

Inactive Ingredients

Aluminum Starch Octenylsuccinate, BHT, Cetearyl Alcohol, Ceteth-10 Phosphate, Dicaprylyl Ether, Dicetyl Phosphate, Dimethicone, Disodium EDTA, Fragrance, Glycerin, Lecithin, Magnesium Aluminum Silicate, Menthyl Lactate, Methyl Gluceth 20, Neopentyl Glycol Diethylhexanoate, Neopentyl Glycol Diisostearate, Sodium Hydroxide, Steareth-2, Steareth-20, Water, Xanthan Gum

Because of the aluminum starch octenylsuccinate, fragrance (which, if synthetic, often contains known carcinogens), and salicylic acid, it got a 7 from the folks at Skin Deep, where 0 is non-toxic, 4 is moderate hazard, and 7 is high hazard. Huh.

New beauty lines I'm trying: Juice Beauty, Aubrey Organics, Terranova, Organix (this one seems iffy, it's just my hair conditioner so I might switch.)

I don't want to obsess over this, obviously, but I do want to vote with my dollars and support companies that are producing less-toxic, less-wasteful products that are not tested on animals, are better for the environment in both production and waste-management, and are better for me.

Plus they smell really good and genuine.

Ideal Bite is a good website if you're interested in learning more. I plan to be the kind of doctor who supports tea as medicine :)

What's up with this whole dog vs. cat thing?

Wow.

I feel so shitty today, primarily because I just sat through two-hours of (not so funny) cat-hating jokes. My professor pretends to hate cats (he says), and then two of my "friends" decided to run with it for a good half-hour after class by making fun of my cat and predicting what would happen to her soul after she dies (i.e. will she go straight to hell or will she possess me?). Honestly, with friends like that! You know, I don't understand this. Why must you hate cats if you like dogs? Why can't you like both cats and dogs? That's so mean. It brings to mind little boys throwing stones at cats, or drowning kittens, or kicking puppies in the ribs. How can you be so cruel when you just don't understand animals?

And I had had such a nice day up till then. I went for a run, which is part of my program to get my butt in gear and run 5K eventually. Then I had a nice shower, then a nice lunch. My work is going to hell in a handbasket because all my family is here and last week was crazy with "social stuff" (which I'm beginning to think is totally not worth it)...

Anyway, I feel like crap. I tried to tell my mom about it and her reaction was, "Um, it's not big deal. Get over it. Why don't we talk about me?"

Whatever. I'm going to go feel sad for a while.

Whew!

Thank god exams are over. Right after Thanksgiving, which was really fun because we had a big get-together at my house with family and med school friends who couldn't go home for whatever reason, exams started. I definitely ate dessert before dinner on that one -- Thanksgiving was dessert, with all the fun and party planning and cute photos, and then the exams were dinner. Really godawful, indigestible dinner. They stretched out over two agonizing, sleepless weeks, to end just a few days before Christmas. We had a lovely, quiet Christmas at home, although my poor dad had to work. But I baked gingerbread and cookies from scratch, and cooked a jambalaya pasta dinner, and generally had fun in the kitchen.

I spent my break relaxing, sleeping, unwinding, and seeing family and old friends. I traveled quite a bit, to India and Singapore, but hopefully jet lag won't get in my way. We saw Singapore, which hasn't changed nearly as much as I thought it would have since we were last there, and India, where my uncle has started an organic farm. It's really beautiful, but it seems tough to manage. I saw cousins and uncles and aunts and nieces and nephews (!). I can't believe I'm old enough that my cousins are having babies. But then again, even my good friends from college are having/expecting kids already.

Work is going to pick up soon, but I haven't posted in a long time so I thought I would. For Christmas, I asked Santa for canvas and paint and stuff, so maybe I'll eventually be able to post my procrastination attempts.

I just got my grades back -- and, in spite of my best efforts, they're fine. It was so dumb -- I took way too many credits, thinking I could handle the workload, and then signed up for all kinds of activities, and by the time the end of the semester rolled around, I was miserable and sleep-deprived and trying really hard not to get sick. I'm really excited about the spring term, but I'm trying hard to minimize the number of activities and stuff I sign up for. One creative thing (painting), one athletic thing (riding) and one service thing (homeless clinic). That's it. Nothing else. All other commitments, except the most minor ones, will be curtailed. And I'm not taking any electives. None. Zip. Zero. Nada.

Okay, my computer's dying, so I'm going now. Bye!