Quick Update from Niya

Hi everyone! I'm writing as a short eye-strain break from doing the Powerpoint presentation for my research talk on Friday. It's going to be a tough weekend, trying to finish this presentation and...(drumroll please)...the final draft of my thesis!! I am hoping to file the thesis sometime next week! Please, if you are reading this, cross your fingers for me.

I also wanted to draw your attention to the fact that my blog-name has changed from my initials to Niya, a combination of two of my names. I like it so much better. I'm slowly trying to find a good balance between comfortable anonymity and personal narration! We'll see.

Clinical Clerkships are Coming!!

Today was the day our class found out what we would be doing next year. Clinical clerkships are the hospital rotations that medical students go through in their 3rd and 4th years, before they can take the 2nd boards, apply to residency programs, and hopefully graduate with an MD. At our school, there are five different "tracks" -- three of them are centered around one particular hospital for six months, one of them is very traditional (you rotate every couple of months from department to department at different hospitals), and one is the one I'm in! We stay at the same hospital all year round, we actually get our OWN cohort of 50-70 patients, and we learn all the subjects at once. We still have to take the same exams as everyone else, but the idea is to do a longitudinal experience that's more representative of actual practice.

Last Friday, we all entered a lottery so we could rank these five program in order of preference. And this afternoon, we each got an email telling us where we'd be!

For me, this means I can live at home, rent-free, for the next year. It means I know where I'll be all year. The sacrfices are: I won't have the 'traditional' clerkship experience, and I don't know WHEN I'll be on call -- the students in my track get called over to the hospital at pretty much any time of day or night. If one of your patients goes to the ER, you go to the ER. She has a baby, you go help catch the baby. Etc. But how exciting!! I'm so excited!!

I'm sublimely happy. I'm dancing on air. This is total motivation to study for the B-word that rhymes with swords.

Tidal Wave

I just came back from school. Oh my god, everyone in my class resembles a walking zombie: "Theeesiiiis....Boooarrrrds...OSCEeeee's...arghhhhh" (OSCE = scary clinical skills exams). I don't think any of them are getting enough sleep. I know I'm not. My friendships are on pause, no holiday cards went out this year, and I barely manage to keep my poor cat in kibbles and clean litter.

That said, even though I have work coming out of my ears and I'm working 17-19 hours a day, with maybe two meals and a shower thrown in if I'm lucky, other people still have it much worse than I do. For instance, doing all of this when one of your family members is struggling with cancer (it's happening to someone). Doing all of this when your partner is losing a loved one (also happening to someone). Doing all this while raising a child (will happen to people in the class below me).

So if you ask me how I am, I'll say I'm fine. Not ecstatic, but fine. And not miserable. I've seen worse. But I might not be able to chat for a while, sorry about that :(

Plus, working admissions is pretty fun!

This week:
-- Poster session for which I need to finish the poster & get it printed, like, yesterday
-- Lots of research meetings
-- Homework for class and review stuff I didn't get (oh, yeah, med school)
-- Figure out how to study for boards
-- Sleep enough to function
-- Read up on clinical skills before Tuesday
-- Revise thesis after aforesaid meetings
-- Feed cat. More than once.
-- Replenish contact lenses
-- Get a bunch of stuff done for the Admissions committee
-- Take a shower
-- Buy food, toothpaste, and other basics
-- Talk to awesome fiance
-- Thank big (jk) brother for gift of amazing mulled wine

The First Draft is In!!

Thankfully, the first draft of my thesis is in!!! Now I just have to sort through everything else. But yee haw! Now, maybe if I get a few hours of free time, I can watch a movie to celebrate.

Paraody Therapy

Please, everyone, watch where you put your umbrella. Or, as your mom said, "You could put someone's eye out with that thing!!" It's been raining and storming all week, and I'm a little overworked and underpaid.

Which I deal with by writing parodies. Here is my lastest, fresh from the oven. Don't worry, my data hasn't actually gone anywhere (yet).

It's My Thesis, by AAC

Nobody knows where my data has gone
Microsoft crap strikes again
Why must this happen to me?
Take a deep breath, count to ten...

CHORUS:
It's my thesis and I'll cry if I want to
Cry if I want to
Cry if I want to
You would cry too, if it happened to you

All of my classmates seem done with their work
Winning awards right and left
Meanwhile I'm struggling away
Sitting here, feeling bereft

[CHORUS]

I'll turn it in, not a minute to spare
Thrilling when I cut it fine
But, oops! You can't do that here
There's just too much on the line

[CHORUS]

One day they'll ask you what happened to me
Please tell them my tale of woe
For if I don't survive this
It's a tale that they should know...

Tired and Working

Hmm. When I'm both tired and working, as I am tonight, the strangest things occur to me. Like my latest pet peeve. Now, like most people my age, I sometimes order stuff online. But I read the description before I buy it. And under many items, people post reviews saying "Oh, it's so much smaller than I expected!" or, "Nice, but much bigger than what I was going for."

This would be absolutely fine -- if the dimensions weren't posted right underneath the item. In standard units. That we can all measure for ourselves. Unless you're straight up accusing the seller of fraud, which these reviews were not, you are just announcing to the world that you buy things without making sure what you want is what you get. Which means you have more money than common sense.

Hail to Pathetic Fallacy!

It's hailing. Outside. It stormed all night long, and now there is hail hitting the many windowpanes of my second-floor apartment. I really like it -- the whole world outside has gone from gray and blah to stormy, misty, and exciting.

And it's perfect pathetic fallacy, because today is the LAST day I'm giving myself for the first draft of my thesis. By day's end, I will submit what I have, come hell or high water. Or, apparently, hail.

Thank you to the kind folks who are helping me with ideas, edits, and opinions!

Oh, and if you read this, please keep my bro in your thoughts. He has a dislocated shoulder from a sports injury.

Update: Bless my curls, it's SNOWING!!! Or at least, the gently flurrying ice crystals that are as close as we get to snow here. The sun came out, the hail stopped, it's still partially raining, and there are little flurries floating in the air. I bet there's a rainbow somewhere!