Micro-Blog-a-Thon

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

If you don't like the weather now...

We all know the saying. 'If you don't like the weather in Indiana, just wait a couple of minutes!' That's definitely true today (except in reverse). This morning it was nice and warm, and even all through the day it was warm. Then tonight came, an it's cold, snowing, windy (I love winter!) and my car had ice on both the outside and the inside of the windows when I was coming home tonight. Which was awesome. It's times like these when I think to myself, "Matt, you COULD have gone to school somewhere warm. Good work!"

Big news. I joined the AMA-MSS (American Medical Association-Medical Student Section) today! Which pretty much rules. Actually, I'm not sure just how great it is, but I do get a "free" Stedman's medical dictionary (the best one), and a subscription to JAMA out of the deal. So, I guess those are good things.

In other news, I've got the big Neuroscience National Board "shelf" exam coming up in about a week. However, more importantly, my intramural basketball team won last night! 2-1! I think we only have to win one more game to make the playoffs!

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Interview Day!

Today I had an "interview" for the "Hospital Medical Education Program" at a hospital in Elkhart. Interview is in quotes because there never really was an interview... Ordinarily that would be a bad sign. However, it was just an "interview day" in the sense that they had everybody that applied for their Hospital Medical Education Program there for a tour of the place and to get information about just exactly what was the Program would be like.
At this point, you are probably asking, "Hey, what's a Hospital Medical Education Program?"
To put it short and sweet, what it is is a program where medical students (like me) between first and second years get to spend a lot of time in a hospital observing real medicine. Its been billed as "a great way to see a lot of medicine without the stress of a grade coming at the end of it, like during rotations third and fourth years." In English, that just means that I would get to watch a whole bunch of different parts of medicine, and hopefully get a better idea of what I want to be when I grow up.
Which is always a good thing to figure out. Now this isn't the only hospital that does this, and it isn't even the first one that I've had a interview at. Although the other one was a real interview. And that hospital is right outside my door. Like, right across the street. So it would be nice to be at that one, and not at Elkhart.
Well, I guess that's about all I do got right now.

Monday, January 21, 2008

I love intramural basketball...

I guess the streak had to end sooner or later. Our winning streak in GFS (graduate students, faculty, and staff) basketball, that is. We were 1-0 until tonight. Unfortunately, we lost pretty badly. I think one of the compounding factors was that we only had 5 players, and all of us are medical students who spend about 37 hours a day studying (oh, its possible...). So, yeah, we lost to the law students. They also had a pretty clever name (and about 12 players, plays, and even people who came to watch), but I don't think I can repeat it here.

Oh yeah, I forgot. We had the Neuroscience midterm this morning. So, that was fun. And by fun, I mean it was like getting hit by a car.

Well, I hope you enjoyed Monday as much as I did.


Also, just FYI, when you go to the polls this spring, I heard Ron Paul eats baby kittens. I'm just sayin'... that's what I heard.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Good thing I wrote THIS one

Here we are again, at the end of another Saturday... I'll give anyone one guess what I did today...!

Did you guess?

Did you guess that I went on a crazy adventure, and met a wild grizzly bear that was about to eat me until I offered it a piece of my granola bar I just happened to have with me and then after that he didn't eat me but instead we became friends and he took me on a grand tour of the "Great Outdoors" (or as the bears call it "home") and most importantly taught me how to catch salmon with my mouth?

I hope not, cause if you did guess that, you were wrong. I studied all day.

Alright. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. (yet another song...)

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Check out my awesome new post

Today has been a day full of learning... and fun. I won't bore anyone with the details of my day, but I did spend the vast majority of it studying Neuroscience. What is that, you ask? Well, it includes everything from the anatomy of the brain, to the little pathways of individual nerve cells, to learning about things like Parkinson's disease. It pretty interesting so far. In a few weeks, we are going to be learning how to properly do a neurologic exam (reflexes, shining lights in eyes, etc.) Which I am looking forward too, mostly because it seems more like learning actual medicine. Which is what I'm supposedly in school for.

In other news, the floodwaters have receded! I have let all of the pairs of animals that I had in my apartment back out onto the streets, and things are pretty much back to normal here. Its even cold. Which is good news, because I was scared for a little while that global warming was HERE! NOW! And that would be bad (I guess...I kind of liked the warm weather). But seriously, it would be bad. Can you imagine what would happen to the price of ice?!? I can, and it doesn't look pretty (i.e. no more ice sculptures).

Anyway, I think I've spent enough time convincing you all that I've completely lost it. So...I think I'll call this one done. Except for this picture of a graffiti anarchy sign I took in the park just down from my apartment:


Classic...

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Just call me Noah

For the past few days, we've had some real unseasonably warm weather here, and also lots and lots of rain. Also, there was a lot of snow lying around before it got warm. Put those two together, and you get a river that looks like this. I'm pretty sure this is the St. Joseph River. Anyway, I took these pictures this evening just down the street from my house. I think they speak for themselves.


The end of the road...


From the bank. Usually the road goes along the river there, and then about a five foot dropoff, then the river. As you can see, all there is now is water.


From the bridge over the river (remind anyone of a song...?)


Also from the bridge

Monday, January 7, 2008

Some time later...

It's been awhile since my last posting. Since then, I have experienced winter break. And also the end of that break... My new semester is in full swing, and I can see that its going to be equally as tough as the last one, but this time, I have my new year's resolution. This year's new year's resolution is (drumroll please...): not go crazy! I think its been going well so far.
Last weekend was pretty crazy though (no studying either)... I went down to Indianapolis for my friend (cousin...?) Drew's wedding. I would say we partied like it was 1999. And it was a success... they ended up married.
And as it turns out, even with taking the entire weekend off, I'm still not even that behind in my studies. Which really just goes along with my new year's resolution, showing that I may not have to be doing school constantly to be able to pass.
So building on that, and also the fact that it was about 62 degrees today, I decided to take a little time off this afternoon and go for a jog. Which was a good idea, cause it was really nice out today, but unfortunately I'm a little out of shape. So I was feeling the burn pretty good. But it was definitely a good idea. In fact, I'm not quite sure now why I stopped running last fall. I kind of wish I hadn't... Oh well.

In other news, its really too bad about that national championship game...