Party girl...

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! I hope you all have a wonderful day whether or not you have someone to celebrate it with and know that you're loved SO much! This will be quick, because I have to get ready to go out and celebrate the day with special people and friends and also celebrate yet another test being over with! (I was just oh so thrilled that the school decided to give us the lovely V-Day present of a test; one of our professors was referring to it as VD day and was even wearing his "Syphilis/spirochete tie....disturbing. Please don't let me turn into that!)

Anywho...here's a few pictures of things that made me smile..

The first is the awesome card I got from Mom and Dad Kagarise about 2 or 3 days ago in the mail....

Next, this was my valentine's shirt...I got it at Old Navy for only $4 on clearance! Yay for cheap things when you're dirt poor! One of the OMT fellows asked me if I wore it on purpose today and I proudly said "Yes!" :) Hehehe... (In case you can't read it it says, "In tennis love means zero."

OK, I'm off to go spend a little time with my special valentine and then try to fix myself up (yikes!) to go out and celebrate! Love to you all!

I'm going to get the black lung....

Today after OMT lab, I heard a few people talking and someone said something about an explosion. This immediately caught my interest (well, I was really bored at this point so talking about underwater basket-weaving would have probably piqued my interest at this point). As I asked them what was going on, they said there had been an explosion near school and there was a huge cloud of smoke coming up right behind school. I went out with a few friends to look and minus the fire (because our view was obscured by buildings) the picture above is what we saw.

Evidently, a chemical plant less than a mile from my school exploded today and was still having explosions going on when I left school. There were also three railroad cars right by the plant that were filled w/ an "unknown flammable substance" that were likely to catch fire soon too. They evacuated the immediate area (which eventually included our school) and shut down highway 35 (which is a HUGE highway) going north and south bound. Thankfully I was able to get out of the city before traffic got too ugly, but it was interesting to see. We were all joking around at school about it (before we were all told to leave)....We're all pretty sure that any children we have some day are going to have horns or something weird from whatever chemicals we just inhaled...

So see...interesting things really do happen in Kansas City....like fires, gang wars, and chemical plant explosions....ah, I love the city life. :)

Updates

OK, so you all don't think I'm completely suicidal after my last post, I thought I'd just update on the past few days.

I'll warn you now, there really wasn't a lot that went on or is going on right now in my life that doesn't include studying, so there's not really a whole lot to update!

Friday night was pretty good...I decided that I was taking the night off after getting home from school and the gym. I just didn't feel like studying and I knew that's exactly what I would be doing. So, I rented a few movies, got some chinese food and settled in for a good night. I watched "The Devil Wears Prada" which was a fun chick-flick to just veg out and not have to think. I rented another movie, but by the time I through the first movie, I was tired so I headed to bed. All day Saturday and Sunday (about 11hrs a piece) were spent studying for the first endocrine test on Monday morning.

We've had a lot of biochemistry so far in this section; it's probably my weakest of all the subjects here so a lot of studying had to go into this test. I still felt completely unprepared, but we'll see how it all went when the grades come back.

Saturday night, my brother and I watched the Illusionist...this is hands down one of the best movies I've seen in a really long time. I really liked it. My key for judging that it was a good movie was that I was incredibly exhausted from studying all day and I didn't even come close to falling asleep during it! :) It was a great movie and Edward Norton is a fantastic actor, so I would definitely recommend it. It's always nice to be able to spend time with my brother too so that was fun as well.

Sunday night I kind of half watched the super bowl, but I was trying to study during it, which wasn't working out so well. Oh well....

Monday we had the quiz (that the previous post talked about); it was just about all I was expecting, so no surprises there. Overall, I've been pretty productive in the past few days. I finally got a board studying schedule planned out, and if all goes as planned I should be able to get about 260 hours of studying in before the COMLEX (and if they cancel one of our sections, like it looks like they will that gives me an extra 1oo hours!! Sad that this is what excites me) so I'm hoping that's enough. I'm trying to study an extra two hours each weekday for boards and an extra four each weekend. We'll see how much I'm able to keep it all up! :)

Nothing else too exciting to report...my brain is too tired to think of anything profound or I would write about what I've been thinking about. Sadly, I've been so busy (and it looks like I will be for a little while) that I haven't really thought about (or had the energy to think about) anything not related to school, the boards, endocrinology, etc... I'm becoming VERY boring VERY fast! :)

Tomorrow night I'm going to see Matt Wertz in Laurence, KS so that should be fun. I've planned my studying around it so I should still get as much done as I need to! It will be a good little break...

Well, I've got to go study some more, so I'll catch you all later. I just wanted to let you know that things aren't always bad as I make them out to be the night before the test and that I'm surviving! (for the whole 2 people that read this!) Love you and miss you all...

Imagination....

Imagine with me for a second...

Imagine that the train in that picture is my first endocrinology test tomorrow....It's big and strong and packed with useless facts about biochemistry, hormones, diseases, and all sorts of things I just don't understand...it is packed with SO much information that it weighs a ton...It's gonna hurt when it hits.

Now imagine that I am the person on the bike....The bike is old, (at least it feels like it!), worn out...and has a flat tire....Oh yeah, and the person on the bike has spent the little time this weekend she wasn't studying (and should have been sleeping) dealing with the most wonderful food poisoning of all time (Chinese food's revenge!).....

I'm gonna get killed tomorrow....Oy.

Some days I just love med school....today is not one of them. :) Gotta love spending this much time studying only to feel LESS intelligent when it's all said and done.

I'm off to go give my tired brain at least a few hours of sleep. Adios.

Big Dates...

No, not of the fun kind...I finally got my scheduling permit for the USMLE-Step 1 and I was able to schedule my USMLE exam. So here are the two most important dates in my life for the next 4 months....

May 29th, 2007--COMLEX Step 1; 9am-4pm

June 5th, 2007--USMLE Step 1; 9am-4pm

Any and all thoughts and prayers on those dates are greatly appreciated! :)
Yikes...I have to get studying!

Happy Birthday Laura!

Ray of Sunshine...

Today has been a pretty fabulous day so far. It was just one of those days where so many things just made me smile or laugh that you can't help but love the day. It was definitely appreciated because I've been having a string of weeks it seems like now where I've been stressed, overwhelmed, and not knowing which end was up. Today it finally felt that at least for a little bit, things had turned around. Here's just a few things that are making me smile right now.

1) Our first batch of loan checks came in today!! While getting money is always an exciting thing, this was DESPERATELY needed. I have over a thousand dollars (board fees) on my credit card just waiting to be paid and I couldn't currently pay it with what I had in my account. I also had the countless bills that we all face waiting to be paid as well, so having this money takes a HUGE load off of my back.

2) I found out that they're most likely making our Integrative section in April optional with no tests and no required attendance. This is amazing for me because it gives me three more weeks of MUCH-NEEDED study time for the boards which will be wonderful!

3) I love that I have friends here that make me laugh on a daily basis. At one point this morning, Matt and I were laughing so hard at a conversation we had been having that we couldn't even look at each other during lecture because we'd start laughing again. Sigh...fun times...I'm going to miss these people next year when we all move!

4) Apparently I remind Justin of Elliot from Scrubs...I laughed at this. I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing, because she's such a wreck, but we were cracking jokes all morning and it was good to just let loose and laugh!

5) I woke up late this morning, but for the first time in a while I felt like I had actually slept. I've been too exhausted for too long, so to wake up mostly rested, in a good mood, and without a headache was a huge thing for me.

6) Jeanna put up new pictures from New Years which had me cracking up. I loved them!

7) In a little over four months all this craziness with boards should be over and I can head out for a weekend to Toledo to find a place to live.

8) Bentley's just too cute and making me smile...keeping me from studying, but making me smile!

9) It's just one of those days that I can feel that through it all, life is good....and I'm happy.