And We're Back

I wasn't prepared for this summer. I wasn't prepared for how fast it was going to pass, I wasn't prepared for how fun it was going to be, and I especially wasn't prepared for how depressing it was going to feel to return to my career, my life as a student. The drive up to Rochester is always beautiful but this time it was particularly gorgeous. I must have still been experiencing some kind of a traveler's high because the following day I experienced serious withdrawal. Tremors, panting, sweating, flushed face, etc. The realization that I was a student, not a researcher, not a traveler, not an explorer; yes, an abused, debt-riddled student was a little to much for my mind to handle.

And then it happened. I walked into class(we started back on the 10th), fifteen minutes late of course, just in time to catch the closing remarks of the Dean. Five hours later, I was feeling pretty good. And the next day, I felt even better. And the third day, I even got out a pen to take some notes. The notes came so easily and everything about my schedule seemed so routine that I figured being a student was a lot like riding a bike. Now that I think about it, there are more similarities than its ease to pick up again. Both activities make it very difficult to keep let alone gain any weight... Uh, well those are all the similarities. I'd say they were both detrimental to the crotch but the soreness is more generalized from studentry than with cycling. Oh, another similarity, they both are extremely tiring.

Not only the lectures (very tiring to listen to people talk; I thought I was a good listener but it turns out, no, not a core strength for me) but the assignments of a student are draining and are usually carried out in the wee hours of the morning. After merely three days of class, there I was on my living room floor working on a way to teach my colleagues about the circulation of the brain. Pictured below is my answer. I went to the craft store. Yes, that is true. I went to the craft store and bought enough pipe cleaners for me to practice building a couple of models and to cut up pieces for everyone in my group to build an arterial blood circulation model the following morning in our PBL group. It was a huge hit. One student who was not in our PBL asked me later in the day if he could buy my model. I laughed at the idea and offered him another for free, but hey, there is a business plan circulating here!

Oh yeah, appreciate how the anterior cerebral arteries arch back to give branches to the cingulum and frontal lobes. Que Belleza!

uh, yep, this is really what we medical students do after everyone else has gone to bed