1 week

1 week

You can start praying for me...now

No update until then

Adios

3 weeks

Wow, I am an awful person. I feel as if a lot has happened? Did I talk about taking the Basic Science Shelf? Well I did. Got a 77? Don't know if that is a percent or what, but it correlates w/ a 217.5 on Step 1. National average on the actual Step 1 (not practice 5 weeks beforehand) is 221. HOPEFULLY I will just keep going up. I am going to take another practice test tomorrow. Whoop. We also took the Pathology shelf. Got a 540? Again, who knows what that actually means. Using the scale for a different test (basically I am just searching for something to hold onto here), that is about a 228. Those tests were a week apart. 10 points in a week. I'll take it.

Why do I talk about studying so much? Because all I do is study right now. My last "break" from studying until the test was going to Denver. It was tons of fun. I put on weight. Imagine that. My family, eat a lot? Weird. Back now though...have been for a while. Sigh

Last Saturday was Matt's prom. He was in charge, so I got to go help set up and then actually go to the dance. I was actually quite helpful w/ ideas when setting up. It wasn't too bad. The dance part was...interesting. Nothing too bad happened. We found one girl almost passed out. Claimed she had "too many energy drinks." Uh...........I don't know if I believed that. I was hoping to hear some music I hadn't heard before. False. I swear they played some of those songs at my senior prom. They did play that sond "Sandstorm" or whatever. Oh. My. Goodness. I thought the floor was going to collapse. I could see the headlines, "Jumping teens injure beautiful med student...and her boyfriend :D" Really though, I was looking for something to hold onto just in case the floor gave way. I mean....1000 students jumping up and down. Scary. I got to wear a dress though. Yay! They played a fast song for the last song. How lame is that? Matt said he would have danced with me to the last slow one, but he didn't want all the students starring. They would have. That's okay though, we had a good time. Okay, off to bed?

Sad day

Sigh. Sad. We have gotten rid of Netflix. Sigh. So...not a lot of movie reviews in the near future. Not like I was good at keeping up with them but still. Instead, for that same $14 a month we got mlb.com as for to watch the Mariners. We bought some cords and hook Matt's computer up to the TV. The image is great, and the signal is sometimes even before they get it back home. Woohoo. It was a tough decision, but I knew that on any given night, Matt would choose watching the M's over watching a movie. Plus, it is easier to study when the the M's are on than when a movie is. One day we may get Netflix again, but my nights shall be full of books for now.

Speaking of studying.......blah. We took our last final on Monday. It was kind of lame. I did just fine though. We took the "Comprehensive Basic Science Shelf Exam" today on the computer. These are retired (??) Step 1 questions; 4 blocks of 50. 4 hours total to take it. I took about 3h and 20min. The real deal is 7 sections of 48 each. It used to be 50, but they have added new audio questions. On the real thing we can also take breaks when we want to. On this one you had to be escorted out of the room, only one person at a time. Oh man to I get antsy sitting for that long. On my first 3 sections I had about 10min left in each block; on the last one...25. Talk about wanting to leave. I need to not do that though because that will only really hurt me.

You may be wondering, "Becky, what do you need to know for this test? What type of questions do they ask?" Well, to answer your questions: I need to know everything about the human body that I have (tried) to learn over the past 2 years. There is a bigger emphasis on the clinical type of things (such as was covered M2 year) and less on the "basics." I still need to know the basics (biochem, immuno), but they are often times tested in more of a clinical setting. As for questions...they are usually 2 or 3 "step" questions. What does that mean? I'll explains. So, they'll often give you a clinical setting - person came in w/ this and that and history of blah
1 step: what do they have?
2 step: what drug/treatment would you do?
3 step: what are the side effects/what should you warn against with the medication?
You have to make all those jumps in your head. From time to time there will be just a simple 1 step question, but then you panic b/c you are pretty sure it isn't supposed to be that easy...and then you start overthinking everything....ahhhhhh. Or at least that is what I do. I won't get the results from the CBSE for a few days, which is weird. It has been so nice at Creighton having my test results in my inbox the moment I step out of the computer lab. Alas, the wait for my actual step 1 score will be even longer because of some sort of new system or other. Blah.

Of to Denver this afternoon for Bo's graduation!!! Yay! Matt went to Seattle, so you don't have to feel bad for him! I took him to the airport at 445 this morning, so feel bad for me instead!

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.

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

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.

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