jenniferhawke.com

a med school blog

Archive for November, 2007

MED 1 classroom

“Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another.”
~ Walter Elliot

usually it’s nice to pretend i have time to keep up with the Online World. and we have been doing so many amazingly cool things (like poking around in eyeball sockets!) that i wish i had time to share every little story. but i’m not going to even bother trying to pretend that i have time to write this weekend.

or to put it another way: i have a few minutes for the computer each day. should i spend it writing Jonathan or you? no brainer, right? ; ))

tomorrow is yet another starting line. the fourth this semester. and only one of many, many more to come.

morning at MUA

and i love school.

ever wake up and just know that life is good? that you’re exactly where you’re meant to be?

yeah, me neither.

… until a couple of months ago. ; )

crazy going slowly am i... 654321 switch

“Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.”
~ Newt Gingrich

starting this Friday, we have three weeks left to “earn” our Christmas holidays. in today’s post title, one of the numbers refers to how many exams we have left. and the other refers to how many weeks we have left. do i wish they were switched? sort of. but i’m also looking forward to what Jonathan calls The Gauntlet.

Friday [Nov 23rd]: Embryo Block 4

Sat/Sun… block weekend that really isn’t a weekend because we spend all day both days studying for Monday and Tuesday anyway.

Monday [Nov 26th]: Histo & Anatomy Block 4 Theory
Tuesday [Nov 27th]: Histo & Anatomy Block 4 Lab

… final lectures & in-class review.

Monday [Dec 3rd]: Evidence-Based Medicine FINAL

Friday [Dec 7th]: Anatomy NBME SHELF

Sat/Sun… another “fake” weekend.

Monday [Dec 10th]: Histo Theory FINAL

Wednesday [Dec 12th]: Histo Lab FINAL
Thursday [Dec 13th]: Embryo & Anatomy FINAL

Fri/Sat/Sun… 3 days of people celebrating and leaving the island. and celebrating the fact that they get to leave the island.

Monday [Dec 17th]: Jonathan ARRIVES (thank goodness!)

are you comfortable?  would you rather be?

“What does it take to be good at something in which failure is so easy, so effortless?”

~ Atul Gawande: “Better”

Ho Ho Ho!

November 17, 2007 | 4 Comments | Daily

one month till my Christmas present Jonathan arrives!!

you should use your zygomaticus major and minor muscles more!

“She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.”

~ Raymond Chandler

Night off?

November 14, 2007 | 1 Comments | Daily

not officially off. just officially distracted.

November has been a really great month so far. let’s see…

i’m finding time to be social off-campus and making some amazing new friends. there are some pretty incredible people in our class and i’m looking forward to seeing them all become super cool doctors someday. have i mentioned yet that easily half (more than half?) of our class is from Canada? and i’m the only west coast representative! unfortunately, i have met more than a few Americans who don’t even know where Vancouver is. you should be ashamed of yourselves! ; )

i expect to have my bike back on the road by next week (at the latest!) and plan to share a “How to Enjoy Cycling on Nevis” guide outlining some of the bumps i have (quite literally) encountered. i’m expecting both airfree tires and a beeauuu-tiful floor pump with slime-sealed tubes in the mail any day now… any day now! i don’t mind the bus too much, and often take the island bus instead of the school bus for about $2EC. but i really miss my bike.

one month from today we will be finished with MED 1! i only know of three people in our class (myself included) that are staying on the island over the Christmas break. everyone is SO excited to get home. and people who don’t normally even like snow are a little nostalgic for the white stuff.

thank you all for your wonderful and lovely comments on the long-distance relationship situation. it’s really not bad overall… some days/nights are just harder than others. we’re both extremely busy and surprised at how the time is flying. it will be more-amazing-than-i-can-express to have him here for three whole weeks. i have my ticket home in April and will likely be going back in August and to Saskatchewan (Maddy!) next Christmas. not having Maddy here frees me up to travel home a bit more. well, as long as i can find decent flight prices… !

i hope everyone is having a positively lovely week. it’s Wednesday. life is good.

and lookit! Helvetica!

“did you get the beef jerky? we always need beef jerky on a road trip.”

“yah, i got it. do we have the Google map and GPS coordinates?”

“of course. what do you think i am, a dog?”

“wait a second… is that a squirrel over there… ?”

“abort! abort!”

[photo by my second dad, Jack]

essentials not found on Nevis

“A wise woman puts a grain of sugar into everything she says to a man, and takes a grain of salt with everything he says to her.”

~ Helen Rowland

sugar-filled “We Care” package from my mom. oh, and *invaluable!* printer cartridges too!

i am impressed that that she remembered pretty much every comfort sugar snack i enjoyed while we lived together in PG last year. it’s a little disturbing to see all that sugar all together at once though.

… good thing i’m not studying to become a dentist, eh?

moms are awesome. : ))

Sail away

November 13, 2007 | 3 Comments | Quotable

sail away

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

~ Mark Twain