Happy Birthday to me =) And lots of thanks to everyone who gave me hugs or called or emailed or managed to come out to dinner, it was very much appreciated =) Yay!! Love!!

MSK is over! It could've been much, much worse especially given that I didn't even start studying my dermatology (20ish% of our exam) until the day before. So after hibernating in my room for a week with pots and pots of tea it's time to start spending time with live people instead of studying dead ones. And just in time too because a big crew of Westside people came up this weekend for Breakforth and have scattered their various belongings throughout my living room (it's ok, my living room's far too big anyways). Above all I'm impressed with how considerate they've been. Don't get me wrong, I love the med girls and they make me laugh all the time. I love having them over but it seems like everytime they come I end up doing a good chunk of the work, buying food, prepping food, cooking food, running around serving people, then having to do most of the clean up by myself. It's fun but it's pretty exhausting.

So I'm absolutely amazed at how considerate the Westside people have been these last few days because not only did my guests bring PILES of their own snacks (and they shared =) mmm....)this weekend, they went out to T&T and bought their own eggs, milk, croissants, fruit and udon so that they wouldn't be eating my food all weekend. Then they made breakfast for everyone at 6 in the morning! And best of all, they washed every single dish and left my kitchen almost perfect. So impressed...

The first day post-MSK has been delightful thus far! Oh what a difference an empty sink makes.

Anatomy makes me want to cry. Literally cry. I went into the lab at 10 this morning and I was supposed to be out of there by noon, 1 at the latest. I didn't leave until 5. I was supposed to spend half an hour reviewing the leg and instead, was there for 3. By the time the 4:30 came around, I was done, finished, over and then we decided to look at imaging studies. And I. Just. Didn't. Get. It.

And then I just lost it. And when I needed them the most, not just one but two of my friends allowed me to wipe my tears on the only clean part (the shoulder) of their formaldehyde-scented labcoats and then offered to buy me coffee and another friend gave me a massage. And then I was ok. We'll all be ok. We'll make it through this test and the next one and the next one, through the comprehensive exam (all the material from the first 2 years), through the royal college exams (all the material from all 4 years), through CaRMS, through interviews, through our first call nights, and it'll be ok.

The other day, I dreamed that one of my friends was dissecting me in the anatomy lab. She wanted me to lie down on the table and take some analgesia so it wouldn't hurt as much when she removed the skin from my back. On the table beside me, another friend (who had obviously been a much more compliant patient) was trying to reassure me and told me that it wouldn't hurt at all - meanwhile another student was peeling the skin off of his back. A few instances later, I "woke up" only to my horror, my back was absolutely covered in bandages and I was leaking fluid from my wounds. I told my mother and she was absolutely livid, we didn't pay all of this money for tuition so that I could have my back dissected. Then I woke up for real. So in one dream I managed to incorporate all of my worst fears: my ever-increasing tuition (and corresponding increasing debt), anatomy, peer pressure and an extremely angry mother. I can't believe I've only been back at school for 2 weeks...

The flights are booked and it's official: WE'RE GOING TO EUROPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A slow blogging start to the New Year =) No worries, I'm chock full of excuses =) As always, the week between Christmas and New Year was a little crazy. So much food and little time! Throw in some Boxing Day shopping, New Year's Eve and the return of one very missed boyfriend and you have the perfect recipe for a week of non-blogging. Soon after, I was making the long drive back to Deadmonton as my faculty decided that since we pay double what undergrads do for our tuition, we should get a week less vacation. And of course, Kev was visiting and I was accomplishing nothing =) And since he left I've been trying to catch up on my accomplishments, namely anatomy which I successfully managed to forget entirely over the break.

The end result is that at the moment I'm completely overwhelmed. The start of waterpolo has decided to mingle with the end of MSK with its dreaded bellringer, a definite increase in the number of clinical skills sessions and the choosing of tracts (more to follow). Compounded by the fact that I managed to get formaldehyde (read: cadaver juice) in my eye this morning while de-skinning a thigh and you have the beginning of a mini-meltdown. But I'm not there yet!

Choosing tracts has been the conversation of topic of choice lately. In 3rd year, we all start our rotations. All of us will spend 6 weeks in surgery, 12 weeks in internal medicine/anesthesia, 6 weeks in pediatrics, 6 weeks in ob/gyn etc. But the order in which we do our rotations is different so each unique schedule is referred to as a tract (there are 8 combinations). So for the last 2 days, we've been scrutinizing the intricacies of each tract trying to find the one which will allow one to not look like an idiot on the rotations that matter (you will look like an idiot no matter what you do). in theory, every rotation matters but if you really want to go into let's say ob/gyn, you really want a good evaluation on your ob/gyn rotation. therefore you probably don't want to do it right at the beginning of 3rd year when you know absolutely NOTHING and are guaranteed to look more like an idiot than you would if you were to do your ob/gyn near the end of 3rd year.