Am alive.

Test was pretty tough. 110 questions long, some very pinpoint. Not sure what to think of this one. Other than that, we're right back up to classes and Self Directed Learning.

Brain Drain!

Pathways are weight-heavy. These nutrition lectures make it a lot more stomachable, but it feels like I'm somewhat stuck in a rut trying to memorize everything. Will go back and learn individual pathway lectures again.

Had a mili-med Pathways on Monday. Have a DO school today.

Diabetes Patient Panel

Today was a nice lecture on diabetes with a patient panel. We have fewer and fewer lecture and more and more SDL for this class, so a lot of it is spent listening to online lectures which take up a lot more time than a normal lecture would. However, topics are varied and the SDL is very interactive and easy to use, allowing for easy transitions and portability. You can in effect, stop working on campus and immediately pick up at home if you so desire.

Back from the Weekend!

Studying a lot this weekend. Managed to memorize pathways using mnemonics and other strategies, am steadily catching up. Today's lecture switched to fatty acid synthesis. Much heavier material that will require a few hours of rereading to handle. Test is in exactly 1 week. We also get to review our exams to see what we did wrong today during a separate session. Definitely going to attend those.

It's mah dorm!

Visited the dorm area of GT yesterday. Good times. Remember it from NYLF a paltry 8(?) years ago.

Anyways, finished up with all the pathways today. Gotta memorize them and I'll be good for the most part. More nutrition is inbound.

Win or lose...

Heard in a lecture about homeostatic glucose management of the body:

Sumo wrestlers are not hyperglycemic despite their insulin resistance because they work out and maintain homeostasis well. However, when they retire, they simply become diabetic... and die.

Got my final grade for MCP today. Not great, but given my first test, it's a nice wake-up call that tells me exactly what I need to work on post-hiatus. Going to be studying for about 3 hours post-class while I wait for Pathways to start.

Fat synthesis and nutrition

Following 2 lectures of glycolytic pathways and fatty acid synthesis: nutrition! An interesting discussion to further the understanding of general nutrition that would not normally be provided in a medical school, I guess. Very interesting.

More Nutrition and Glycolosis

Things are shaping up. The Self-directed learning portion of the course is provided as an online-lecture style. You browse slides at your own pace while a lecturer talks. Unfortunately, it doesn't read word for word and as a result, listening to it isn't helpful as it simply confuses you, and reading it seems to take up a lot of time.

MNE seems to be short stick, with most of the morning being devoted to classes while the afternoons for free studying. That's fine.

I'm sorry I've been so terse, it's just that I really don't have that much to say in day to day life. My bagels are the same as always, tasty and chocolatey, but the professors we have are fantastic!

Tee-Cee (A Cycle)

First day of Metabolism, Nutrition, and Endo! Yay for TCA cycle!

Two hours of class, then a Q&A session. This class has an SDL session that is like online learning. I'll post commentary about when I do it.

The Re-View

Today's the last day of classes before our MCP final, and to top that off, we have 3.5 hours of back to back review. 2 hours of professor-mediated, 1.5 hours of student-mediated. This is going to be a long day. Planning on studying till 3 and then attending the super-long review. Wish there were more practice problems.

Unexpected Break after Line 9!

Today's commute was interesting. School buses are out again! School begins for MoCo and DC, though traffic wasn't horribly bad except for when a car decided to break down on CB Pkwy in one of two lanes.

Class today was about hematology and hematopoeisis. Ironically, I actually did hematology centrifugation in high school! So I understand the basic concept.

That being said, we had a 1 hour break between the first and second part of lecture. It's kind of weird, but the M1s had another class while we piled out and semi-studied for 30 minutes and then waited awkwardly outside for their lecture to end. Could have been scheduled better, but meh. Anyways, apparently the textbooks are now ours to keep from the locker based on the finders/keepers rule and the cleanout deadline. Score!

Test on Thursday. Hope I don't get flattened.

I do partake!

This second test is already gearing to become much harder than the first test, which I didn't do too hot on. I've decided to go ahead and order a book that'll teach me how to study better for multiple choice tests since my last major test was the MCAT a year ago. Also ordered a USMLE book so I can practice multiple choice questions, since we were majorly lacking on actual practice questions. Managed to stay focused during class with a lot of Java Monster.

Il fait l'ecole buisonnierre.

Class didn't start till 10 today. Pretty relaxing, considering I slept late. Ugh. Anyways, lots of stuff to study for in the next few days with the final being next Thursday and all. Compass be bucklin' down for that day off on Friday to handle administrative stuff.

Back to membrane potential!

Case Studied

Still studying a lot. Being in the scary lecture hall is not fun. I thought I was going to fall down simply by walking down the stairs. We had speeches for nominations for class council. For the record, I was not one of them. Listened to a speech from Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine from Virginia. Enjoyed free pizza from Domino's. Billw as apparently $650, which consisted of about 65 pizzas...

Case Studies was interesting. A lot of these things were things I would have seen in the field to some capacity. That being related to pre-eclampsia and my sensitive case regarding an OB patient, which I will never tell you so as to pique your interest and then be let down over, sure brings back a lot of feelings. It's nice to know we have a few comedians in our class. Overall, not too hard, but made you think.

Back to the plasma membrane!

We're back after a short break for study into the plasma membrane! Sadly, though, there seems to be only 200 participants in a class of approximately 400 people. Guess the exam pooped everyone out and they decided to skip. Not me, though! I'm going to be taking a break Friday since I don't have any classes (I got lucky and have my small groups session Thursday night) and visit my alma mater and pay them... again... *grumble*

If any of you have Clickers at your school, Georgetown has them too. They're provided to you free of charge as long as you return them later. Basically, the lecturer will provide a question as a poll, and you vote ABCDE. Usually, these are like multiple choice test questions to gauge how well the class is doing, and since they're anonymous, you won't feel guilty if you guess wrong, and then depending on how many people get the question right determines how much time is spent reviewing.

Whee.

Pathways: Wounded Healers

We had an expert come in to talk to us about substance abuse and the medical profession. Interesting stats, and certainly important for both future and current medical professionals to know about, in terms of dealing with and reporting others for substance abuse and issues that may interfere with capability to provide care. It's quite interesting to be able to learn about how such issues are so prevalent yet under-reported.

Anyways, long story short. Drug abuse, whether it be alcohol, illicit, or prescription-related, begins any time, and if detected, results in stringent self-help and abstinence courses.

It was technically more of an informative talk than an applicative subject at the moment. Being a teetotaler and abstaining from all chemicals except for caffeine and MSG seems to have me pretty set in the non-drug-abusing group for now. Hopefully, it stays that way.

Where'd everyone go?

Seriously feels like people stopped coming to lecture. Compared to the other subject material, it feels like Devo is definitely my weakest link. I think I'm going to spend at least all of this afternoon and some of tomorrow focusing just on the developmental process. Now to see if I can find a public-use white board. Oh, wait, I remember! Public Science Building Lobby!

Yes!

Yeah, the last 4 Devo lectures are very dense. I pre-read them and everything and it's still not easy to remember. Maybe I'll watch some embryology YouTube videos to supplement my knowledge, since these static pictures aren't meshing well with me at the moment.

On second thought...

Leaving earlier might have been VERY bad for me today.

http://wtop.com/?nid=25&sid=2029663

D.C. Fire and EMS spokesman Pete Piringer says rescue swimmers helped rescue people stuck in cars on Canal Road. About people had to be rescued from several vehicles stranded in the 4400 block of Broad Branch Road in Northwest.

I would definitely not have liked losing my car to the storm.

Anyways, first lecturer got stuck on Key Bridge, came in 10 minutes late, but ah well. Got caught up after epithelium lecture. Relatively mild, which is what I definitely can't say for developmental biology, which I have never taken to completion...

Nucular!

Had to move half of my lectures to a separate binder last night. There was no way I was going to be able to carry all of it in my one binder, so I left the extra notes in the car if I need them.

Anyways, we started with histology today (the study of cells under microscopes, methinks.) Basically talked about functionality of light microscopes and electron microscopes. That was a nice, short lecture. We followed up with a longer lecture about the components of the nucleus and the ribosomes and moved on to other components of the cell, such as the ER and Golgi. All in all, a much more in-depth view of cellular components that you probably wouldn't have covered in college cell biology. That being said, a lot of this material is inter-linked with other discussions from previous lectures, such as the usage of the signal receptor protein (SRP) to target a ribosome's protein to be translated directly into the ER. We also went over the N-linked glycosolation we learned yesterday again, only at a larger scale. Then, an hour for lunch!

Class meeting today is apparently about class elections for semi-formal positions for event management. I can safely say that I will not be running for these positions.

Argh, my head!

Well, this afternoon's lectures were a bit more in-depth look at proteoglycans and system biology, which is apparently a very cool subset of Bioinformatics, right up my alley. We were introduced to biomarkers and their implementation, as well as the practicality of sensitivity and specificity. Then, we basically learned about how Mr. Mass Spec (if you get this reference, +1 cookie to you), in recent years, has been able to ionize larger-sized molecules, like proteins, into gaseous forms and fire them at detectors so we can analyze large-scale proteins by cross-referencing their molecular weights with known sequences, using trypsin as a reagent to cleave some of the protein bonds. Very cool stuff.

Problem-Solving Workshop was only half-full today. Half of me wants to believe that they are slackers and the other half wants me to believe that they are hardcore and have mastered the material. At this point, though, I'm pretty focused on my game alone. Gotta study, gotta study!

That being said, I got a migraine and had to find some medicine from the book store.

Seriously, if you're reading this blog, please leave a message. It's kinda weird talking to myself and I'm sure in another medium, such as out loud, would be considered a precursor to psychosis or insanity.