marsvampiress's Xanga

Bachelorette party!

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:48:16 GMT

This weekend was so much fun! Getting together with some of my most favorite gals to celebrate my bachelorette party in VEGAS! Somehow it ended up being a Mudder outing but it was definitely a good time. Plus, since I hadn't seem most of them in a long time, it was great to catch up! Check out the photos at:

http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=381291214785779819/l=400111357/g=2569203/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

Man, I haven't gone out to a bar for at least a year, I haven't been dancing in probably 2-3 years, and I definitely haven't had that many drinks in an evening in 2-3 years. Hooray for a weekend to just let everything go!

*sigh* Now back to sad med school world with studying for Step 2.

Whoo! Monsoon season seems to have arrived!

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 18:09:28 GMT

It's totally storming outside with decent sized hail coming down. I'm glad I'm indoors listening to the awesomeness of monsoon! I love monsoon season. I think it's what I missed the most about AZ when I was away for college. I'm gonna enjoy what may be my last AZ monsoon season.

Now let's just hope the dang monsoons don't cut out the power...

i dunno if this is good or bad

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:31:34 GMT

OnePlusYou Quizzes and Widgets

Help us pick a first dance song!

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 23:01:43 GMT

Give me your votes.

A Long and Lasting Love by Crystal Gayle
Endless Love by Diana Ross and Lionel Richie
Give Me Forever by James Ingram and John Tesh
Here and Now by Luther Vandross
I Do (Cherish You) by Mark Wills
That's Amore by Dean Martin
The Way You Look Tonight by Michael Buble

Hooray! Invitations found!

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 08:57:41 GMT

Stupid UPS. Good thing I decided to be a bit of a snoop today! I was taking out my recycling and decided to check outside some of my neighboring duplexes doors to see if there was a package outside one of them (Many of them are empty since we're all students and they tend to turn over pretty often). I saw a package outside one of my neighbor's houses who I'm not sure if they are out of town or have moved out. I got closer and look! It's got my name on it! Dumb UPS guy decided to drop it off in front of 1021 instead of 1025. It's hard to see the 1021 sign or front door but my 1025 num is way out in the open! Silly person. 1021 is sorta across this little yard (the duplexes are facing each other) and apparently they didn't turn around and look at my num which is right there.

at least they are now here! I should be more of a snoop apparently.

Grr! My wedding invitations are lost!

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 22:37:22 GMT

I was wondering where they were so Sat I emailed the place I ordered them from to see when they thought I might be receiving them since I hadn't received anything saying that they had been shipped out. Sun I got an email back from someone there saying that they weren't in the office that day but they would check on it for me Mon. By Mon night I hadn't heard from them so I sent them another email Tues morning asking them to check the status of my order. Tues afternoon they sent me an email saying "Your order was delivered on 6/13. Here's the tracking number". And that was it. Well, duh, the tracking num may say it was delivered but considering it was supposedly delivered on Fri and I emailed you Sat and Tues asking where it was, obviously I have not received it! They didn't even start to do anything or make the connection that maybe I hadn't received my invitations until I emailed them back saying that I had not received them and if they could help me track them down. The UPS website says they were left at the front door. I checked my order confirmation to make sure I had put in the correct address and it's definitely right.

So, who knows where my package is now. The dumb invitation people's reply to me saying I hadn't received the package and if they could help was "We have started the inquiry with UPS. The package was delivered and left at the front door on 6/13". What is with them that they keep insisting that it was delivered and that's all they can say? Yeah, I see that it says it was delivered but I HAVE NOT RECEIVED MY WEDDING INVITATIONS SO FIND THEM FOR ME! grr.

The invitation place better redo my invitations if they aren't found soon cuz it's totally not my fault that they were lost. I wanted my invitations soon so I could con my gfs at the bachelorette party to help me assemble all 150 or whatever invitations. Maybe one of them hid the box so they wouldn't have to do that! I dunno... grr.. I'm annoyed that my wedding invitations are lost.

I could see that if they were accidently delivered to the wrong house, and say it was something cool, like an Ipod or something, someone might be inclined to keep it for themselves rather than sending it back. However, why would anyone want to keep a box of wedding invitations??? I'm hoping that if it was delivered to the wrong place, maybe they haven't had time to send it back or something as opposed to them not wanting to take the trouble of sending it back. boo.

I'm trying to figure out your ethnicity..

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:33:24 GMT

"Your eyebrows don't look chinese and neither do your feet. What's your ethnicity?"

haha. I had this patient the other day who sort of got on a tangent about how he could tell someone's ethnicity by feeling someone's foot. He apparently used to work at a shoe store and he could be blindfolded, feet someone's foot and tell if they were caucasian, asian, african etc. He says it helped during his time on the police force because feet apparently tell a lot about a person. He thought I look like I have small feet. Now that's a compliment considering my mom and grandma always told me I had clown feet and they thought I would be taller based on the size of my feet. haha. Interesting guy. He was talking about feet for a while.. "a good foot massage will make you feel better than a good back massage"

And no, I did not offer him my feet to help him figure out stuff about me.

When I finally get him off the subject of my feet, I asked him if I could examine him. I told him I would examine his neck and his R calf cuz that's where his pain was. His response? "Well, ok, you can examine me but just know, I'm don't wear any underwear so don't go too high up!" Uhh.. yeah, no problems there sir. You're like 80 and your wife is sitting right there. Frankly, I thought maybe I should tell him his short cloth shorts with pink polo shirt weren't really the most flattering wear but I decided that a clinic visit wasn't the time to be the fashion police.

Man, good thing he told me to keep from doing anything like that! Cuz you know, sometimes when people are complaining of calf and ankle pain, I like to check out the groin. Silly.

Sometimes I wonder if medicine is really worth it

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:46:17 GMT

It would be nice to just be a bum and sit and stare at the wall and not have to worry about any more tests. I'm going to have to take tests for the rest of the time I work! That just sucks. I have the OSCEs tomorrow which in theory are not a big deal, but they last 5.5 hours and it's still a test I have to pass on top of studying for my medicine shelf exam in a few weeks.

Then, 3 days after the medicine exam, I get to start studying for the USMLE Step 2 CK. It's in theory easier than Step 1 but it's a 9 hour test that I have to take and do well on to up my competivity (is that a word?) for good residency programs. I have yet to pick a date for Step 2 CS but that will probably take place in October. It's an $1000 exam (a bit more actually)! Plus there's only 5 testing centers in the country, none of which are in AZ so I will have to travel for it. I'm considering taking it in Philly while I'm in the area hanging out between the wedding and the start of my rotation in DC. At least I won't have to do too much more traveling and I can crash at a relative's house to save on hotel fees. That's another day long test that is not going to be fun.

After I finish med school, I still have to worry about the USMLE Step 3 plus certification boards in whatever field. I think I have to get recertified every 10 years or so and take continuing medical education classes and stuff.

So, is it really worth all the headache? I love medicine so, most of the time I think it's worth it. It's just when I'm sleep deprived and stressed that it doesn't seem quite as worth the effort.

Med students spend a lot of money paying for medical school, for all the books they need, the study question banks online for the standardized tests, and the standardized tests themselves (come on! $1000 for a single test???). Some of my classmates are insanely in debt from the whole med school process. Then, when we start residency, we can expect salaries to start out around $40k and go up to about $45k by the time we finish residency. If we go onto fellowships, the salary continues to increase but not by very much. If you think about how there's an 80 hour cap on the work week so residents don't get overworked, you know that all residents pretty much average out to this cap, and they only get 3-4 vacation weeks off the whole year at most programs, then the salary/hour is about $10. Heck, my cousin working at the library makes more than that! How are you suppose to repay loans on that salary? It used to be that you could claim economic hardship and defer your loans until after completing residency. However, they are now getting rid of that and loans will have to be repaid after graduating med school. Boo. Granted, there's more room for salary improvement once I finish ALL my education, but that's still a LONG way away...

So, when some of my family friends and younger cousins ask me if I think they should go into medicine, my answer is, "Do it only if that's really what you want to do. If you're going into it for the money, status symbol or to make your parents happy, it's definitely not the right choice. it's just not worth all the work, stress and delayed gratification unless you love it."

However, I love it and wouldn't want to do anything else! It's just sometimes forgotten in the daily grind.

Saturday, June 07, 2008

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 20:59:31 GMT

pics from my trip to Bisbee with my folks

http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=315261211817060355/l=387182206/g=2569203/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

Saturday, June 07, 2008

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 10:12:03 GMT

Whoa it's crazy what the medical field can do now

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24999650/