4.23.2009

I miss lilacs

The biggest thing I miss from home in the spring time and early summer is the smell of lilacs. It really just takes me back to being young. Anytime I catch a small smell of them, I just melt. Sigh. Alas, I am in Omaha, who seems to have made a rapid transition to summer. I took a 2 hour bike ride yesterday and turned out rather pink. But it will look nice and tan in a day or 2. My rear also hurts a ton from said bike ride. It was great though. We have this 10 mile paved trail near our place. I took that out and back. I've been stressed and emotional (rare for me, I know :D) as of late, so taking this ride just felt awesome. I had to turn our AC on today. Matt doesn't function well (especially in terms of mood) when it is hot in the apartment. Sigh. Summer. It is supposed to be 84 today.

5 weeks from today I will be taking step 1. Oh. My. Gosh. I need to get my butt in gear. I feel as if I have some knowledge but no where near enough. We have our lame final on Monday and then 2 shelf exams 1 week apart. Other than that, it is going to be pure studying. And a weekend in Denver. And some other stuff :D. I just need to keep reminding myself that my future sort of is really on the line here. I am confident that I will pass (took a practice exam before starting my studies that had me passing, yay!), but I don't want to just pass. They posted Creighton's scores from last year. National average was 221; we got 224. National % of people scoring over 245 is about 14%; we had about 18%. Obviously my schooling has been above average; let's just hope Becky has gotten control of her bad standardized test taking.

4.16.2009

Easter

Have I ever told you how much I love Easter Vigil service? Well I love it. While no church has been able to live up to Sacred Heart back home, I still love this service. The progression of readings from the Old Testament are great; the lights coming on are great; fire is great. I love the 'litany of the saints.' I think I always will enjoy it. You need a strong singer though to be the main cantor. Our woman on Saturday night wasn't very strong. I really had a hard time hearing/understanding her. I swear she was making up names. Still though I enjoyed it. Since Matt was still gone, I had no one with whom to go to dessert. So I just went home.

I am over this last class. This week hasn't been as bad b/c it has been more "hard science" than touchy feely stuff. Trust me, I am a touchy feely person, but not when I am tested and graded on it. I will admit that my Behavioral Change Project is coming along very nicely. The apartment is much cleaner, which is a great thing. I am very glad Matt is back as well. It was very lonely around here without him. I did surprise him with a dresser though - helping with the behavioral change. Like the table we bought, it was one of those rare, nice finds on Omaha Craigslist.

Quiz tomorrow in this class. Meh

4.06.2009

And so it begins

Boards studying that is. Now, I've been studying for a bit already (mostly since spring break), but you can finally tell that the rest of the class is studying. Today, on the first day of an easy class, you would expect no one to be around school or in the computer lab. Not this time of year though. Pages of First Aid (FA) are flying. Blue and pink and yellow highlighters hit the page. Check Robbins...then give up and check wiki. Hang out on facebook. Panic when you remember you are supposed to be studying for boards. At least now I am not ashamed to say I am studying. I realized when taking the MCAT (and really with all my schooling) that I need a lot of "reads" of the material to remember it. I can read it once or twice and understand it, but in order to be able to memorize it, I need about 4-5 reads. Plus flashcards. Plus practice exams...this is my life for the next 2 months. Bear w/ me readers

Did I already say GI final went fine? Well it did. Friday afternoon I met some friends for lunch. When Amber and I went to leave, we had a true senior moment. We couldn't find her car for the life of us. She even beeped it; we still couldn't find it. I was cracking up, doubled over in laughter, especially when some wiser (read "in their late 60s) ladies asked us if we needed help. We politely declined and finally found the car. It took about 3 minutes though. Hilarious. Sunday morning we went to Annie's for a pre-Easter brunch. We also dyed eggs. I like dying and eating hardboiled eggs.

4.01.2009

I don't like 24

I decided I don't like the age 24. Not because of aging or anything like that. I just think it is a very "in between time." Sort of like 19. At 24 you are no longer really "college aged" or "just fresh out of college aged." You aren't an adult yet either (at least not in my mind). At 25, I'll go ahead and call myself an adult. Maybe. It is hard to call yourself an adult when you are still in school. Sigh. School

We have our GI final on Friday. Ick. I just want classes to be over. But they aren't. And we our last class is going to blow balls. It is sort of a new class; mostly it is a combo of 2 classes, one of which was spread out over the semester for last years M2's. The man in charge of this class is...irritating to say the least. Not only do we have to do this "behavioral change project" (w/ a nice little 4 page paper), but we also have to do this site visit thing. After that visit, we have to prepare a PPT presentation AND write a research paper (3 sources) for it. Now I know you are all thinking that I am a whiner, and I'll give you that. The thing is, I wouldn't mind all this gosh darn busy work if it had been 2 months ago. Now, however, is the time to start to crack-down for Step 1 studying. Not to be writing about my feelings and how I want to change myself. Grrrrrrr

Matt leaves for Seattle this weekend for his Spring Break. I'm a little jealous but am also kind of glad b/c I can really start to look towards my step 1 studying. Not much else is going on. I am still trying to find a dresser for the apartment. For 8 months I have had a good # of clothes in boxes on the floor. Kind of like a college student (ie...myself during college). Omaha's craiglist, however, isn't awesome. It isn't that people aren't selling things, it is just that they are selling not such nice stuff for too much money.

MOVIE time
Tropic Thunder
This was actually pretty funny. I like it when Hollywood makes fun of itself. The movie was 2 hours in total, which is a little long for a comedy. They could have really condensed the plot at the beginning - no one is watching a comedy for character development. I ran out of words in my head to say about this movie. 6.9/10

The Happening
Sometimes I think M. Night Shyamalan gets some tough criticism. He set the bar really high for himself w/ 6th Sense, and when his movies don't hit that level (which they don't), he gets a lot of crap for it. While I don't think this movie rocked, it wasn't as bad as everyone made it out to be. I do, however, have a hard time getting back into a movie once I have decided it is flawed. And it was. They were talking about a neurotransmitter/pathway in the brain that is there to keep people from hurting themselves because our natural instinct is to kill ourselves? Uh......no. That was said early, so from that point on, I had a hard time getting back into it. As always, he makes you think you are going to see monsters or poisons or what not, but you don't. It was okay, and at only 1.5hours, it was a good break from studying. 5.3/10