AUC White Coat Ceremony Photos January 2011

For whatever reason the individual photos aren't up, but to see the rest of them please click here
These are some of mine and of the class:

The Jan 2011 class!

Saturday Morning and an Anatomy Update

Image via Wikipedia

Oh Oh Oh To Touch And Feel Very Green Vegetables and Herbs ;)

I just got a good study session in this morning. When I drink the night before, I usually wake up pretty early the following morning so I was up, dressed, and out by 8:30.  Right by Note Services in the main AUC building there are a bunch of picnic tables stationed with awesome views of the lagoon, so I decided to sit there and do work. I wish I had my camera at the time. For the two hours I was up there, I went over most of my MCB stuff from this past week and now I have to worry about anatomy for the next few hours.

Speaking of anatomy, the start of this block is significantly better than the start of first. I actually know what's going on in class, which was not the case for the first couple weeks of school, and now I've learned to use the UMich site for extra questions and for going over things I don't quite understand. This block we are focusing on the head and neck of the body. I've heard from a few student that this is may be the hardest block because you have to remember so many details about the nerves and blood vessels, like what foramen they exit out of, what muscles they innervate/supply blood to, the clinical significance if a nerve or artery is cut or impinged upon, etc. So I've been staying on top of my work, I've got the general cranial nerves down thanks to the help of a somewhat dirty pneumonic (not the one in the brain caption) and now I just need to memorize all the bones and muscles of the head and face. Not so bad, right? I've been using a site that's been great for naming all the external and internal structures of the body called winkingskull. You can click to hide or reveal the name of a particular bone/muscle/nerve/artery/vein and after you think you've got the hang of all the names you can take the quizzes. If you want to use this site, it's free, but you will have to register your email address. 

In addition to lecture, my lab experience has also been better. For whatever reason, the smell has not been as pronounced and I want to say it's because I've gotten used to it, but I think it's because we are only working with the head right now (small exposed surface area) and we've been covering up the rest of the body. I don't even want to think about what's growing in our body's thorax right now. Since I haven't been having issues with the smell, I actually did some dissecting on Thursday! Shocking right? I feel like I outdid myself since I couldn't even handle the back, but I somehow managed to go ahead and dissect my cadaver's FACE. On one half of the face, the guys at my table were digging for nerves and on my side I was trying to clear the fat off to expose the muscles. We had a couple of awesome TAs at our table helping out with the parotid gland and clearing off fat, thanks Khyati and Qinshi! And also a shout out to one of our Head TAs Josh who was helping me out with the muscle half of the face, and showing off some finesse with the scissors and probes.

Island Music Mode

I've been sick of my ipod for awhile, so I've recently started listening to the local radio stations here and when I say radio stationS, I mean just one-- 92.5 Youth Radio. It's pretty much a top 40 station for Caribbean music, but I've enjoyed it so far. To listen live you can click here.

I also put some of the songs I particularly liked on my little pink ipod to the right of this page. It's a shame that I can't find half of the better songs anywhere on youtube! Oh well. I will try to update/add more songs from the islands as time goes by.

Enjoy :)

The First Step to Improving my Study Habits

Studying in the quiet lecture halls without a computer.

It was amazing. I sat down for three straight hours and reviewed all my histo, MCB and most of anatomy. I  need my computer to finish up my studying for that particular subject. For first block, I spent the majority of my time holed up alone in my room, and I would hardly get anything done. I would be chatting with my boyfriend, searching facebook, reading news articles, or checking out my blog-- not really conducive to learning. But today I went to LH4 and got away from all the distractions. I could just focus on my material and for the first time, I felt like I was actually learning!  I think I'll turn this into a routine.

Related articles

• My Newfound Study Method (medschoolcaribstyle.com) 

Block I Exams and Post-Show Festivities

They are done. 

Finally. 

And just when I think I have a moment to catch my breath, the force feeding begins again. Block II has officially kicked off with the usual round of classes this morning and lab in the afternoon. I also already have the results for my exams, but I think I'm getting a little ahead of myself here, so let's take a moment and backtrack.

At AUC, each semester is divided into 4 blocks. At the end of each block, everyone takes 3 or 4 exams pretty much back-to-back. As a first semester student, I took:

--Anatomy Lab exam, 40 questions, one hour beginning at 9:15 a.m. For this exam, the anatomy professors tag different arteries, veins, muscles, and nerves of the cadavers and you have to identify the structure or state what that tagged structure is associated with, or even apply it to a clinical situation. There's also another room (the dry lab) where x-rays/CT scans are displayed, as well as bones and you have to identify the structures. Each student is stationed at one question and we rotate around the room every 30 seconds or so. I suppose this is an efficient way of doing things, but once you pass a question you are done with it. There were some tags that I knew within 5 seconds and others where I wished I had more time (BPS of the lungs!!)

I was out at 10:15 and spent the next few hours reviewing histo, MCB and anatomy. The next round of exams started 1:00 and they were suppose to go till 4:00, but the thing I *really* liked here is that you could take whatever exam you wanted and spend as long as you liked on it within those three hours. The professors allocate an hour to complete each exam, but the thing is if you finish Histology in 30 minutes like I did, you use that extra half hour for the MCB exam. Roll over minutes at their greatest.

-- Histology exam, 50 questions, 1:00-1:30. I felt like this was going to be my easiest exam so I decided to take this one first and man did I burn right through those questions! I felt like I knew every answer and that never really happens to me during exams.

--Molecular Cell Biology I exam, 40 questions, 1:30-2:15. I took a little longer on this one. I felt fine throughout, but not like how I felt during histo. I could see which questions I was missing and I felt like I could have done better if it weren't for my laziness with detail in DNA replication. I saw what special enzymes and proteins I had to memorize the day before and decided I didn't feel like exerting the extra effort. No bueno

--Anatomy written exam, 40 questions, 2:15-3:00. Anatomy is my achilles heel and I knew if I took this one first I would probably lose a lot of my confidence going into the exams. I felt lost throughout this exam. I was frustrated because I felt I knew about the structures and subjects that were most stressed in class and lab, but for whatever reason there weren't many questions on what the professors spoke most of! For example, Dr. G spent the most time of any of his other slides discussing the Tetralogy of Fallot during his heart lecture. NOT ONE SINGLE exam question about it.  Because there were 3 professors teaching this block, each got to write at least 12 questions. I was so frustrated towards the end of the exam I think I was just blindly choosing C for every question I skipped over and preying I got a few hits. All I wanted was to just get out of there and enjoy a few hours without having to worry about studying. I thought to myself that tomorrow would be a new day, a new block, and I'd have to implement new studying techniques.

RESULTS:

Histology- seems like Histo is everyones favorite subject since we all did pretty well in it 

Class Average: 84%

Me: 92%

MCB I- Another good average for our class, but it kills me to think that if I had studied a little better I could have gotten somewhere in the 90s. 

Class Average: 80%

Me: 80%

Anatomy- a 69.5% and above is what's considered passing at AUC and I'll tell you right now, the average of our class was a failing grade at 68% (the written and lab are averaged together) The professors decided to throw out a couple of the questions in attempt to raise the average, which now stands at 74.5%. With that being said, I scored below the minimum passing grade for this exam and *gulp* I failed. Yes folks, I failed with a 65%. I needed an additional three or four questions to pass, but there you go. You know what this means? Study regiment overhaul. I need to actually follow my own rules I've already put forth on this blog and then sprinkle a little UMich every night with a heavy dose of BRS anatomy.  From this moment on, I vow to do this every single day. Failing is simply unacceptable. 

Lastly, when you're done with blocks please go all out Monday night. I went to Tantra with a bunch of my fellow first semesters/second semesters and I had a fantastic night. A little craziness is essential for the preservation of sanity. 

Related articles

• Block II Hits and Misses (medschoolcaribstyle.com)
• Goodbye Block III (Good Riddance) (medschoolcaribstyle.com)
• First Semester Done and I've Passed All my Classes! (medschoolcaribstyle.com)
• Semester 2: Block I  (medschoolcaribstyle.com)

Quick Study Break- Room with a View

Although my dorm room is on the first floor, I still get a pretty nice view of the island. Please notice my little stress ball doctor sitting on the windowsill taking in the sites.

Monday is the New Friday

And I guess that would mean Friday is the new Tuesday. Block I exams are this upcoming Monday and I don't know of any AUC students going out tonight or even the rest of this weekend. People here are currently residing in the study rooms, library, lecture halls, or dorm rooms, and if there is any social interaction at all, it will only be during time spent in study groups or going out for a lunch/dinner break.

Me, however... I go crazy when I'm in my room or lecture hall for too long, especially when it's gorgeous outside. So, of course, I went to the beach by myself for 4 or so hours today. Another brave first semester student joined me halfway through my tanning session and it was nice having company to study with.  I brought my histology notes with me and I think I got through 1/2 of the material that we will be tested on Monday. My plan for tonight is to keep working on Histo and finishing it today, and then I hope to finish up MCB/Anatomy Saturday and Sunday.

After blocks, Monday night is the big going out night here. Right now I've got plans to go to dinner at Rare with a couple of my first semester friends and a bunch of people from the second semester class, and then to dance the night away at Tantra. Yes, we all have class Tuesday morning at 8 am. That's why I'm making sure I don't drink. Best case scenario is I get back to my dorm and sleeping in my bed by 1:30 a.m. Will I stick to this plan? Only time will tell. Wish me luck on my studying.

Gross Anatomy Lab

In anatomy lab, this is what your cadaver looks like after you get through dissecting parts of the thorax, back and face. Haha well...at least this is what it looks like to me. And that may be part of the reason why I hate anatomy lab. I'm not a huge fan of being near dead things, because I'm not entirely sure they won't come back to life. I heard from a second semester student that last semester, the power went out during after-hours lab time and the ten seconds it takes the generators to kick in, the hand of her cadaver grasped her wrist. Duh duh duh. Yes, anatomy lab at night is something out of a horror movie. That's why you will never catch me dead (pun INtended) using the lab after 4:00 pm even though it is pretty much open 24 hours a day.

All joking aside, I'm definitely in the minority when it comes to lab. Most people absolutely *love* getting in those bodies, cutting things up, and pulling organs out. Yesterday I held a real life (well, dead) human heart in my hands. I enjoyed it for a few minutes and was equally happy to pass it on to the next person. I spent most of my lab time yesterday digging out the branches of  a very juicy left lung. I'm hoping it will get tagged for the first round of block exams on Monday since that will be the only thing I may be able to identify! Lab really isn't as bad as I make it out to be, but the one thing that really makes the experience particularly unpleasant is the smell emanating from the cadavers. The formaldehyde stings my eyes and nose when I'm close for too long and I hear this is when the bodies smell best. After the third or fourth month dissecting the same bodies, I can only imagine how repugnant things get. 

Some Passing thoughts

--I wish the dorm room had cable. I have a flat screen and a non-functioning blackbox. booooo

-- Anatomy starts off really hard in med school if you don't have any background. From my "It begins" post, I hope I successfully conveyed that taking anatomy for the first time is basically learning an entirely new language. I need to find myself some Netter's anatomy flashcards. I've got a couple sellers lined up, so I'm going to get on that tomorrow.

--Magic jack is amazing

--Carib Lager is a good light beer, but I prefer Presidente. A 24 pack of bottles costs $14 here

-- I'm in desperate need of groceries. Meanwhile, Pizza Dan right by campus has been good to me. I've got half a pizza stowed away for lunch/dinner tomorrow.

--I need to start getting to bed at 10 pm every night. But of course, saying is easier than doing. It's 10:54 at the moment.

Patriots Lost

And now I'm depressed. I was one of the few patriot fans in a sea of New York folk. For sporting events most AUC students head to the casino right next to campus because they've got quite a few flat screens showing the games and they set the seating up like its a sort of theater. I would like the setting except there are way too many smokers. My clothes and hair smell like cigars at the moment.

:(

White Coat Ceremony January 2011

We officially started with 116 in our class, but now I see that we are down to 112 people for the January 2011 semester. I guess four people never made it to the island. The ceremony was about two hours long, and I know some of my family had trouble hearing anything at all from the webcast, but my boyfriend made it home from school just in time to see me get my white coat. Apparently his sound at the end of the event was fine.

The first portion of the white coat ceremony was pretty much a ceremony for the fifth semester students who ended up Honoring their classes by getting an average of 85-87% during their first four semesters here. While each student was called up to receive their award, the speaker also read little nuggets of advice that each of these successful students had for our class. Some of this "advice" included: "take the blue pill," "play hard, study harder" "What do they call you when you graduate last in your med school class? Doctor."  It was at the end of this portion of the event that my mom ended up leaving the webcast because she thought it was all the first semester students on stage! She called me an hour to two later saying she didn't see me and asked why no one had their white coats. I felt like smacking myself in the forehead. Come on, MOM! You left in the MIDDLE of the ceremony! Her defense is there was no sound, so she had no clue what was going on... I guess that's a passable excuse.

It's been a long time coming, but I'm here and ready to rock this place.

After that, there was a good and heartwarming speech by one of the honor students named Damien. He spoke of his time spent at AUC, how fast it's gone by, how we will fail at some point here (i.e. when you hold a human heart in your hand, words will fail you), and the close relationship he's built with many of the people at this school. He ended his speech by noting how he would be comfortable allowing anyone graduating from AUC to take care of him or his family in times of sickness because he knows how hard each and every person works to do well here and become knowledgeable doctors. He noted how much work it takes to even get here, and congratulating us for making it to the island.

Before coming here I know some people who have had completely different careers, or spent many years across the world doing something else, before realizing practicing medicine is what they want for their lives. I have a lot of respect for people who make it to this point. It can't be easy leaving your home, family (some people bring their spouse and kids here!), all that's familiar to come to an island and learn about medicine. I think that's a big reason why I write this blog. I want to let people know how it really is so they won't feel afraid or unsure about coming here. I was frightened before coming here, but reading accounts of student life on these blogs demystified some of my preconceived notions about Caribbean schools and allowed me to feel comfortable and confident about moving down here. I'm so glad I did because this is really what I want to do and I feel I'm with 112 other people who feel the same exact way.

 Damien's speech was a tough act to follow, and to be honest I had a hard time focusing on the keynote speech afterwards, so I won't be able to give you any real details about it. Once that last speech was done, the first semester students stood and read aloud the AUC pledge and then the actual ceremony of giving us our white coats began. Due to my last name, I was the second-to-last person to get my coat. Wooooo Y!

P.S. GO PATRIOTS! TAKE US TO THE SUPER BOWL!!!

White Coat Ceremony Live Webcast

Every semester in the first couple week of class, the first semester class has a white coat ceremony to induct them into medical school, medicine in general and our ceremony is today 4:30 eastern time. For anyone who sees this post in time and wants to check it out, it's right here. I wonder if any of you will catch me.

It will be two hours and I'm sure it will mostly be boring but yea... friends, family, curious parties please enjoy!

I'll have more info/pictures on the ceremony tomorrow.

It begins

You walk into class 5 minutes before it starts and take a seat by the aisle. You look around and see some of the familiar faces of your classmates talking, smiling, all and all having a good time. The professor is in the front of the class setting up his computer and clipping the microphone to his Tommy Bahama shirt. Now that's how you know you're at a Caribbean med school, you think.

The professor begins speaking to silence the class and dims the light so everyone can see the powerpoint slides projected onto the screen. The professor introduces himself and goes into where he's from, where he studied, what he has done with his research and life... and then he starts lecturing.

You stare at him for a moment. He's speaking, but it can't be English. No, no this is definitely not in English. You're in the wrong class. You don't have a clue what he's saying. Is it his accent that you're having a hard time with? No, no that can't be it because you can recognize some words like, "the" and "and". The pictures projected on the screen look somewhat familiar but all the text written is unintelligible. Is this all in Chinese, you wonder. You continue to stare dumbly at the professor who's gesturing, pointing, and speaking animatedly of what's on the slides, but you can't make sense of what he's trying to say. His words mean nothing to you, his whole sentences mean nothing to you. Someone raises a hand and asks a question using the same strange language. You don't even know what the question was. Everyone else is scribbling notes or typing furiously and you look down at your empty piece of paper. After 50 minutes of this nonsense, class ends and you are able to understand the people around you again. Most are discussing what's next, what to study, their hunger, their sleepiness, etc and the few... the few just like you, are pale with that look of horror on their face, thinking exactly what you are thinking.

"How the hell am I going to pass anatomy?"

AUC First Semester Classes

I apologize for not posting on the subject of classes sooner, but I simply couldn't based on the fact I only had MCB on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of last week. I just had my first classes in anatomy and histology today and I'm about to leave for anatomy lab in the next twenty minutes. I'll be more than happy to write a detailed account of what's up in a few hours. Until then, ciao.

***

Some of you may be wondering what a typical day at AUC is like and I'm willing to comply. Let me first highlight that the following schedule is only for first semester students at AUC and this schedule may be very different at other Caribbean schools.  Alright then, from Monday to Friday I've got the following: 

8:00-9:20     Molecular Cell Biology I Lecture

9:30-10:20   Anatomy Lecture

10:30-11:20 Histology Lecture

BREAK

2:00-4:00     Anatomy Lab (No lab on Fridays)

DONE/Study Time

Doesn't seem so bad, right? I've only had my first full day yesterday (sorry, I posted this later than I intended) so I would have to agree with the presumption there, but I'm definitely going to revisit this question in a couple months. I've got a sneaking suspicion that I won't be thinking the same thing at that point in my medical education.

The way classes are organized here are by blocks. There are four blocks in a semester and at the end of each block you take back-to-back exams in each of the classes listed above. Exams are always on a Monday. Then the rest of the week is spent learning material for the next block. With this structure, you can have different professors coming in to teach different blocks. While AUC has many professors that are here permanently, the school also lures professors from the US/Canada by allowing them to come to St. Maarten for 3 weeks with their families, all expenses paid, to teach a section of the course that they specialize in whether it be genetics, anatomy of the brain, or cell biology. Many of these visiting professors who do come here to teach a block or a semester are usually from US medical schools, but what they all have in common is their love for teaching. Professors at AUC aren't focusing or concerning themselves with research and writing papers... their sole purpose of being here is to purely TEACH.

Today, we had a visiting professor from Columbia University (Dr. A) teaching the anatomy of the brain and spinal cord. He was an excellent and knowledgeable speaker, and I know I'm going to have my hands full when I start going over what we did in class today. The anatomy department overall is set up a different way from the other classes. There are 5 different professors who will be teaching anatomy this semester, switching off different days to lecture on the area they know best. At first I was afraid of redundancy and confusion among the professors, but I realized today that all the professors sit in each other's lectures to be sure they aren't repeating covered material and they sometimes refer back to a lecture of another professor from the day before (this was the case today). For the last 4 lectures Dr. N had been teaching our class and he is from Nigeria. He spent 15- or so years dissecting and teaching anatomy in his country before he was brought to AUC to work as a professor. At first, I had problems understanding his accent, but once I moved closer to the front of the class, I've had much better luck comprehending him.

MCB will be taught by three different professors switching off at each block and so far I'm really enjoying the professors we had/have. Dr. M is from Scotland and he taught three classes last week about genetics... he will be returning for a full block at the end of the semester. One of the other students mentioned that he reminded her of a Ricky Gervais and I added he was a of a cross with Sean Connery... haha yup. Not only is he an avid Ravens fan, but he does have a dry wit that I think the class really enjoys to break up the monotony of the 80 minute lecture. The professor we will be having for the rest of this first block is Dr. V and he is from the Netherlands. He got his degree and doctorate from the Utrecht University (this university dates back to the middle ages!) and got one of his post-doctorates at Temple University in Pennsylvania (I know all about his education because he spent a good 20 minutes of lecture yesterday discussing his research and education haha).

Histology will be taught by a visiting professor Dr. Al for this first block. He is a professor from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia and I've enjoyed his lectures, and perhaps this is due to the fact that he's been covering material I already know and I don't feel quite so overwhelmed right now (as opposed to anatomy). He's friendly, knowledgable, and I'm really liking his pace for lecture, not slow, but not flying through slides like some other professors (cough anatomy profs cough).

I think this post is long enough for now. I can cover anatomy lab some other time. I need to spend ample time on anatomy because I've never taken it before. Right now I feel a bit lost and overwhelmed with the material. I spent my time looking over lecture stuff yesterday and I'm going to have to do lots of it this upcoming weekend. Block 1 exams are fast approaching...

AUC Beach Party

The beach party went from 12:00 to about 4:00 pm and was organized by the Phi-Chi/AMSA clubs at AUC. Venue: The beach on Mullet bay. A great majority of the first semester students came out and I met some new people from the upper semesters. I also got to engage in a bit of trash talk with my one of my MCB professors, Dr. M. He's a huge Ravens fan, and although I do think they'll come out with a win tonight, I don't see them moving much farther in the playoffs. When I told him what I thought, he threatened to fail me haha. (Side Note: How the hell did the Seahawks win? Matt Hasselbeck is not dead apparently. Congrats to the BC grad, though. I can't help but feel good about his 4 td performance. Matty Ice isn't the only BC alum to be reckoned with.)

Burgers, hot dogs, beer, soda, juice, and water was provided at the beach party and there was even a volleyball tournament. $10 a person was a little steep for me, but I think I saw at least 4 or 5 teams partaking in the competition.

And finally for all you freezing in New England, yes I've got a good tan going overall, but my nose continues to burn! I anticipate some "peel-age"happening in the next couple days, thank god I'll only have to deal with a small surface area. 

Mullet Bay

Mullet Bay is five minutes away and easily the closest beach to AUC. And the beach, weather, waves were all just fantastic today. I ended up spending a good 3-4 hours with other first semester students swimming and talking about ourselves and what we think of the school/island so far. What's interesting about the beach at Mullet is 1. You can see the airplanes landing in Princess Juliana Airport and 2. the beach hosts quite a few men wearing speedos, and women without tops. I was taken aback seeing some of these women because I thought the beaches on the French side of the island was where the naked and topless reside, BUT I suppose some of those beaches are for the completely nude. What more, but many of these women were young, seemingly in their twenties, and a couple with pretty heavy boob jobs. It's strange seeing breasts so upright and perky without a bra. I don't think I'll even contemplate being a plastic surgeon.

                                    ***
You know how you can never tell how much color you've gotten till you're indoors in front of a mirror? Yeah... when I got home I noticed some burns. My feet, shoulders, nose, and cheeks are pretty pink, but things could have been much worse. Lotion has been applied and hopefully the color will fade for my marathon day of classes tomorrow.

Why I like Caribbean Medical School

I had one class from 8-9:20, and now I'm going to the beach for the rest of the day!

After this first week, I'll be taking all my classes complete with Molecular Cell Bio, Histology, Anatomy, and then Anatomy Lab. I'll take advantage of the time I've got now.

Study Habits in Med School

I realize I just had my first day of class today, but with block 1 exams happening in three weeks, there's no time to waste when figuring out how do well in med school. For the last three days during orientation and MCB this morning, the professors could not have stressed enough about the importance of attending all lectures, reviewing all the lecture material of the day later on in the afternoon, and getting enough sleep.

1. Go to all the lectures.

AUC has an 80% attendance policy, however professors encourage students to attend all classes. I don't think it's difficult to figure out why. When you're in class I know you're just going over the slides, but because you are there, you can see what the professors emphasizes during lecture, thus making it easier to determine what's important come exam-time. In addition, being an active listener and writing notes for each slide definitely helps. 

2. Review all material you learned that day in class ON THE SAME DAY.

For the most brilliant analogy to learning in med school I've read, please click here (This is one of my favorite blogs). The sheer volume of knowledge is hard enough to deal with, but the speed at which we cover material is just going to make things that much harder. If you try putting off review for even a couple days, you will be left behind.

3. Take some time on the weekend to review everything you've learned during the last week.
Self-explanatory I hope, and also try  quizzing yourself with questions from the textbooks or even from the USMLE Step 1 Kaplan books you are given here.

4. Sleep.

Not only is sleep good for recharging your body and mind, but sleep is the time when memory is preserved. When you study hard during the day, try to get at least 7 hours of sleep at night to allow for the memory preservation process to go in full effect. 

Pictures of my AUC dorm room

It's my first night in the dorms and at last I'm done unpacking. I've spent the last 4 nights at my parent's hotel in Orient Bay on the French side of the island, so this trip has felt more like a vacation than an actual move to my new home. But I'm here now and settled, so it's really starting to set in that I'm living here for the next 20 months to study medicine.

Here are some pics of the finished product (slash I need some posters): 

My kitchen area

Dining room table

My "living space"

The bedroom

More of the bedroom

Related articles

• A Quick Tour of My Dorm (caribbeanmedstudent.com)

Registration Day

My parents and I arrived to AUC around noon and the registration process began. All registration stuff was happening in Lecture Hall 2 where I got two different packets consisting of school policies, schedules, safety info, etc, I also got a "free" bag, a "free" leather folder/notebook, received my ID number, got my picture taken, received my complete set of Kaplan prep books for USMLE Step 1, and I bought my prepaid notes for the first semester. My parents and I went on a mini tour of the main building which was very nice and my parents really liked what they saw from the school. Our tour guide  who's name might be David, was friendly and helpful. He is currently a 4th semester student who used to work on Wall Street. I'm sure the recession wasn't very kind to him.

Picture I took during the tour

Other noteworthy events of today include: Finally getting my internet to work in the dorm (we had to get a new ethernet cable), but unfortunately I just recently found out that I don't have cable for my new TV! I need to buy a cablebox from someone leaving or find some other way. Without the box, I've got three channels coming in cleanly and although ESPN has no picture, the sound is perfect.... so I've got 3.5 channels, I suppose. 

I had the opportunity to meet some of the other students today and everyone seemed really nice, but I'm struggling with names! I can feel that this is going to be like freshman year all over again. I would be shaking hands with someone new and the moment they say their name, it's completely gone from my mind. It takes me at least 3 meetings before a name actually sticks and sometimes even more. I wonder how good I'll be in med school with my awful memory.

After I finished all the registration stuff, my parents and I went to the Alantis Casino 5 minutes from school to watch the Patriots game. Needless to say we won. They've got chairs set up like a theater in front of 10 different flatscreens. There were some other Pats fans in the building, one being a very boisterous, semi-drunk/high guy who introduced himself as DJ Martial. He was Dj-ing at Tantra nightclub on New Years eve and claims that he spins in St. Maarten 3 times a year. I also met his "manager on the ground" who happened to be a BC grad! Small world.

View from the school

January 1, 2011: A New Year and a New Chapter

For the lat couple chapters of my life, I've felt like I could actually FEEL the last lines of my chapter being read and then the page slowly turning over to start the next segment of my life. I'm not sure if my words made any sense to those of you who are reading, but I'll try to describe it better in the following scene.

The day before I left for St. Maarten, I spent hours gathering all the things in my room--clothes, shoes, sheets, my blanket, pillow and even my alarm clock. My room was a disaster zone with my things thrown all over the place, waiting to be packed and the closer I came to finish packing, the cleaner my room looked, and the more I realized what was happening. Although I've spoken about leaving for med school in a Caribbean island for months now, I don't think it quite hit me until that moment when I zipped up my last bag. I stood in my room and looked around at the emptiness. The things still remaining were arranged and put away neatly. The rest of my life was packed away in four suitcases and a backpack. The chapter of my life post-college was finishing in those last seconds and an overwhelming sadness filled me. I looked around at my room and thought about the year I spent there, all that's happened to me and my family, and what it all meant to me.  I could feel all those things, that life I was living, slip away from me and there was nothing I could do about it. When I switched off the light and left my room, this chapter of my life lasting the last 1.5 years, officially ended.

Now that my new chapter has officially started with the New Year, I figure why not think of a good resolution.  I've never been one to make New Year's resolutions and in fact, I completely forgot to even think of making one last night before the ball dropped. It wasn't until 5 minutes ago that I realized it's probably a good thing to do, especially this year. So my New Year's resolution is this: to study hard, stay focused, and do well in all my classes. I know it's nothing creative or interesting, but it's what I have to do if I want to succeed in becoming a doctor. I think I spent too much of my time in BC being distracted and I'm not about to let that happen to me again.