new (kid on the) block.

biochem started last thursday. i should be excited about this, right? i live and breathe PCR, ketoacidosis, and the lac operon, don't i?

forgive me if i am out of line, but spending a whole hour on "DNA contains the bases adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine" to ten seconds on "yeah there's this thing on DNA polymerase called a beta sliding clamp" seems more than a little incongruous.

one textbook, one professor, one coherent presentation format, one detailed set of objectives--all i want.

do i read the powerpoints? do i sit through lecture? do i read my old biochem text? do i actually waste a minute of my life writing out 'DNA contains A, T, C, and G'?

i'm just not a fan of having to learn how to learn each time a new block starts. it's a huge waste of time and energy.

we're not diagnosing rare t-cell lymphoma yet. keep it simple kids.

i miss anatomy.

what really is 'havering'?

so i finally took the 12:16/12:36 opportunity.

the kelly drive loop is purportedly 8.5 miles which would have been my usual sloppy 10:30 pace. the math works out.

i need new running shoes. maybe that will be next weekend's project.


i would walk 500 miles
and i would walk 500 miles more
just to be the man who walked a 1000 miles
to fall down at your door.

~the proclaimers. what a great song.

i just don't know what to do with myself.

in order to run in the park on sundays i must a) catch the subway southbound (:16s) to catch b) the westbound R6 train to east falls which comes once per hour (:36s) to the north broad station.

i slept through the 7:16/7:36 opportunity.

i missed the the 8:16/8:36 by mere seconds since i can never leave the apartment without forgetting something. today it was the watch.

so the Day of Glorious Running is now in shambles as i had hoped to be back by 10:30.

maybe it's better. maybe i would have gotten mugged or broken my leg. maybe i'm just going to sit here pissed off at myself.

it's lovely outside. perfect conditions. bollocks.

kickoff's at 8:15 tonight and i've got two full days of rather boring, pointless material to study this afternoon.

what to do, what to do...

do i run around the cesspool (a.k.a north philly) to save time, sacrificing any chance at pretty scenery?

or do i go back to the park now and tell biochem to sit tight for another three hours?

or do i head to the track next door to do intervals?

or do i simply forego running today altogether and go to the park tomorrow after doctoring?

do i skip out of doctoring early?

why this maddening indecisiveness?

mama, look...she's got purple shoes.

-a little one i passed on the way to the subway. :o)


much has happened since that lovely morning along kelly drive.

anatomy has come and gone. eight very tumultuous weeks culminated yesterday in one hell of a final exam. the practical was slightly evil and the written was just long.

a few reflections on my first eight weeks of medical school:

anatomy was a completely different style of learning--much more three-dimensional. the hardest part for me was spatial relationships. it's not enough to simply say that the pancreas is the abdomen. the pancreas is behind the stomach, next to the duodenum, in front of the left kidney, atop the aorta. you get the picture. plus arteries and nerves do all sorts of fun things like branch and loop around stuff and go through little holes and notches. and everything has a name. even the holes have names. oy.

the cadavers. god bless. our eighty-eight year old homemaker did what she could. i learned more from her than all of the professors combined.

my lab partners. oh dear. what a motley, dysfunctional crew we turned out to be. out of the twenty-eight groups, we probably accomplished the least in terms of teaching each other anatomy. but oh was it funny.

i'll write more later. (ahhhhaha what the hell am i going to do with all this time???)





tomorrow i get to go for gelato with a favorite....yay :oD