The Weekend Before The Exams

Its tough, trying to think of exams from next week, precisely, next Friday. And I'm not exactly completely prepared. So I'm in major soups of all sorts. I'm really worried about Physiology. But hopefully I'll manage somehow. What I really wanted to write about was the dissection we started this week. Its the Head and Neck, and we dissected the scalp and even the brain. AND I LOVED IT ALL!!!!!! Its like one of the biggest things in my life really! Me and liking dissection and even doing it. The brain looked amazing! It looks just like the way we draw it. The other body parts differ, but this looks exactly the same, as the diagrams we take mintues to master. Guess, that really took me by surprise. I was thinking of sitting in the library today. Unfortunately, the maintenance work had to come up today itself, so well, my experience of studying in the library has to wait a little longer. Maybe Monday. I'm thinking of trying to finish with Biochem this weekend. Hopefully I'll be successful in this attempt at least. I've put pictures of our brain dissection.....Its not as gross as it looks!

Seminar Over!! Oh and also the Submission

It wasn't all that bad. In fact, I think I would have given a great presentation had I not been told to finish a 15 min gig in 7 mins. But, I enjoyed doing it. I wasn't scared at all, as I thought I might be, and it was amazing to come up with a presentation which garnered comments like, " The slides were amazing, the animation great. I wish you'd had more time." We had a situation in the middle, with one of my friends fainting and going into a fit on stage while giving his presentation. He really scared us all. But, thankfully, we got it all back. Basically, it was a good seminar. I wish we'd communicated more with the teachers. It would only have turned out better. The audience was about 50 people. We expected less, but thought that people would attend the seminar at least for the sake of attendance. Guess the thinking was wrong, but the expectation right.
The gist of it all is that I'm thankful that I took Therapeutic Uses, really grateful to Mom for doing what she did and simply enjoyed presentating my entire slide show. Even the laser beam, which hadn't worked throughout the seminar, worked for me!!
Moving over to the submission, I really thought I'd go blank when I stood in front of our batch-teacher. But, luckily, he called us in groups of three and asked Prajakta, Prabhjot and me questions whose answers we actually knew. We all got 24 out of 30, the highest in our batch. I know, I don't really deserve it, because I'm basically still clueless about Abdomen, but for the sake of a good day, I wanted the submission to go well. Didn't want it like last time, where I got a 12 and was left cursing myself all through the remainder of the day. So, 20th Dec, considered to be a sort of landmark in the last few months of year 2008, has passed and passed well. No real regrets , just a terminal exam to look forward to. Not a nice thought, but if I could manage today, I can manage that too.

4 Days For The Seminar

I know it sounds strange, but I'm more worried about the seminar than my abdomen submission, which happens to be on the same day. But I guess, when I take something really seriously, I do get worked up.
The presentation has turned out beautifully. Its actually what I wanted it to be, when I gave my name for the seminar. All thanks to my Mom, who's converted my average presentation into a delight to read, watch and teach. I'll never say this to her, but she's actually done something I can never thank her for enough. She's given yet another instance to say," You're the GREATEST Mom in the world!" Thanks a ton! I know how much work she has, and yet she can come up with time to sit and turn my presentation into what I wanted it to be. And look at me, after all the 2 o'clock nights that I put in, I came up with something that did need fine tuning. Any way, at least its done, and I'm sure it won't bore people to death.
We had revision of all the microscopic physiology pracs today. I just couldn't bring myself to prick me, and when i did, well, I simply had to do it all again. Its so wierd. Only on sunday was I thinking of how I'd managed to prick myself months back, when now, I couldn't even think of putting a pin on my skin. And hey presto!, the entire package just came up!! Well, as happens every time, my ring finger is blue-black again, and pains at a slight touch. And I'm pretty disgusted with myself and the teachers. Will definitely be glad when all this gets over.

A Month To the Exams

I know I haven't written in a long time. I've been trying to catch up with all the work I missed and trying to study hard for my exams which start on the 2nd. Luckily my batch has a great time-table. People say it is cramped up, but we finish off in a week and nothing can be better news than that. So 2nd is Anatomy, 3rd is Physiology and 5th is Biochemistry, followed by pracs on 6th, 7th and 9th. On the 6th we have Biochem, so its lucky us. We'll be able to answer decently.
In the past few days, I've been trying to work on my presentation. The Seminar's quite close and I have to get it ready by Friday, so that I can have enough practice and can pull off the coup well. I have a feeling I'll do a great job with it. Mom and Dad are helping out too, so obviouosly, it's exciting.
Which reminds me, I have officially now started watching Dad's operations. A bit of a surprise coming from me, but I had to do it and it turned out to be quite a treat. Well, not a treat, but after the dissection hall, anything is better. Only the spinal anaesthsia sucked a bit. I've had a dread for injections and that sorta shot that dread to at least 10 times more. I took the video and according to Dad it has turned out very well. I even attended a workshop on hernia, which was full of live hernia surgeries. I watched three of them. Not that I understood much, but well, all a part of the experience.
And another good news is that our street play was selected for the finals. They are to be held today, and hopefully we should win. I basically gave up on it, after a week, because it took up a lot of time and I got very tensed about my terminal preparations. But I did go and see the end product twice, and I'm glad they did what they did. Watching that street play made me feel for the first time that I was a part of BJ and proud of it.
Overall, college has been good. We don't ,or rather, are not allowed to do much of dissection. mostly its our Batch Teachers who do it all now. Leaves us a lot of time to revise. Everyone's got into the habit of getting B.D. Chaurasia to the dissection hall and read it in there. Officially speaking, its not allowed and and we got a hell of a firing from our HoD of the Anatomy Department. I have never seen him as angry as he was yesterday, screaming at us and the teachers as loudly as he could. Guess he'll never even consider liking our batch now. Just three more days to go before a glorious weekend. Looking forward to that.

Wow, Thats Pretty Unlike Me

Taking on a Biochem Seminar to work for and then a street play to work in is quite unlike me, you know. Especially when that means that two hours of my everyday routine will be gone and exams start in the first week on Jan. But there's another voice in my head which says: College-life is there to enjoy. You didn't exactly do that in Junior College, why don't you do it now?
And my point is, doing all this will just help me. Having 6 friends is not enough, especially in college. Participating in these things is gonna help me get to know more people and in turn, evolve me as a person. Besides, I've always wanted to participate in plays. Its another thing that a street play is way out of my comfort zone, and not exactly my style either, but then thats what Life is, isn't it? Getting out of what you do well to do something you've never tried out before and give it a shot. Its makes you feel adventurous and spices up life a little. Otherwise, what was my life before this? get up in the morning, get ready , take the 8 o'clock bus and reach college. Then, spend the entire day in college cursing the lectures, getting bored of practicals and looking forward to a frustrating 3 hrs of dissection hall. Come back home at 5:30 pm and then study for about two hours or so, write my blog, go off to sleep. Thats it: Day Over, before you even know it.
Now at least I have some things to look forward to, to make college a better place to go to. Ahh well, lets see how things go. The topic is Effects Of AIDS. We've gotten a few themes down, today we'll be doing some more mind-searching for creativity. The auditions were supposed to be yesterday, but that didn't happen. And may be it'll happen today, or maybe it won't. Just don't know.
Apart from that, college is the same. We've started with the clinical pracs in Physiology, so its definitely a little more interesting to check each other's pulse and Blood Pressure. All my parameters are normal, so there's nothing to worry about in that department any way. We had an interesting lecture on Synapse yesterday. I actually read it from Guyton before sitting to write my blog. Still got some pages left, but the fact that I read it on the day when she taught it, is definitely a thumbs-up for the lecturer and the topic.
And a last minute note about the Spanish Sports year. They just seem to want to add on more and more and more. Being an avid follower of Tennis and a loyal fan of Rafael Nadal, I did not believe Spain could win the Davis Cup. But their rally to come back into the game was very inspirational, and awe-inspiring, really. Congrats to spanish sports. Its been a heavenly year for them, and something that all other countried should look up to and try to gain.

A Weekend

My first since coming back, and I feel so great about it. Medical education is really stressing. And thats not about how much you have to study, but just about the going to college, listening to the lectures, doing your practicals, going into the dissection hall; you hardly get any time to sit down and think. So a good holiday on Saturday and Sunday really rejuvenates me.
We're gonna have a Biochemistry Seminar on the 20th of December. On the topic of Enzymes. I decided to participate. Its Chemistry after all, and I have a good feeling that I can make it all more interesting than our teachers in college, so I decided to have a go at it. My topic is Clinical Aspects of Enzymes or Uses of Enzymes. I think it'll be a very interesting topic to speak on, and I'll learn a lot too. Luckily for me, I had a choice and I was the first person to give my name from my batch, so it all really worked out well. Now all I have to do is work hard on it. And since I'm pretty excited about it, I think I'll do well.
Moving on, I also registered for the Arts' Circle. I dunno how much there is for juniors in it, but I've given my name and that means I'll at least be notified about it. So actually, I've managed to do all that I had to DO as such in college. I'm glad. I was able to take off this weekend without the thoughts of the left-overs......Now its time for enzymes to make way into my small head and then their uses. Go Enzymes!!

I Held Spleens!!!!

Not today. Yesterday. We had histology today. Yesterday, having seen our batch teacher, Uddhav Sir, complete the removal of the spleen, I was somewhat excited. It looked really clean and hygienic. So I thought " Why not try it out finally?" And I did.
Its a hard organ somewhat, the spleen. But the ends are soft, thats what Ekta and I noticed, after having held over 5 other spleens in our hands. And they vary. In size, in shape, in weight, in everything. In some, the vessels can be easily identified, in some they can't be. Rather, in most, they can't be. We had just one spleen in which we could actually identify the hilum parts properly. So it was interesting yesterday, for a change.
Physiology pracs have now the clinical pracs. We finished with the pulse, and all peripheral places where you can note the pulse. Needless to say, I got all of them in me. Sometimes you do have advantages of being thin. Its Blood pressure next, on Monday.
Today was fine. Just looking forward to the weekend. One more day and then a two day break. Really need it. So here's to a saturday which will come in one more day's time!!!

A No-Cadavers' Day

Yeah. Going back to college is tough. Gotta catch up on a lot and everything, but seriously, today was amazing! Worth the three days I spent, before today in college. We just had one and half lectures owing to BAMS exams and our college being a centre. And then, when we went into the dissection hall, there were torsos on the tables. Thats what they are, by the way, torsos.
Our batch teacher told us, that today was a reading and learning session so thats what we did. It was fun, to sit and read without having to look at the table and wonder what you are doing next to a dead body in the state that it is.
So it has been a good day. I'm finally studying really hard and am liking it. Just need to increase the blocks of time. One more day gone, another one to come!

Back To College

I've had a lot of time to rethink my life, and I think that's what's best about a holiday. You go to a place away from your regular life, and think. For me it was less about thinking and more of running around but thats what travelling stands for to my family. Basically, I needed this. To ponder on some things that have been plaguing me since my CET got over in May, I even got a few answers. It is quite something, that a change of scene can do so much. It seems ages since I attended college, and obviously thats not a prospect to look forward to. But my point is, that now I look at college from a different perspective, and that sort of makes it all more tolerable.
Of course, the climate's sickening. After having endured the cold, cutting winds of NY and Buffalo, coming back here to a warmer climate was one of the worst realities. I hate warmth, and after 18 days of shivering and clinging to sweaters, I now can't exactly heave a sigh of relief. Its strange, but my body just adapts to cold better than it does to warmth.
Coming back just makes me realise how much of a break it was. I didn't know what was happening around here, wasn't in touch with the news, the film reviews, the cricket, the football, and it felt good. Today, its almost like coming back to a new place because of whatever I've missed out on. guess you need that sometimes!
Jetlagged a bit, but not as much as I expected. Thanfully we have a holiday today for Gurunank Jayanti. I couldn't have brought myself up to the task of going to college early in the morning. But its college time, and I gues I should get ready now.

Time To Go!!!!

We’ve packed up, almost. Just the sweet stuff left, which we have to buy today in the evening. The fact that Diwali has come has been totally unheard by us , in this flurry of packing. Today, after watching all those shows celebrate Diwali, did I realise that Diwali is here. Its amazing, how much out of it all we are. There are no lights or diyas in the house. The refrigerator instead of being packed with sweets and dry fruits is almost empty, the last few things left are being packed to take away. I’m amazed at my own view. Diwali is a great festival, and I really enjoy it, but this year its just all so different! So surprising really. Any way, a very happy Diwali to all those who might come across this blog in the next few days. And my exciting trip of the US will be up in the other blog, Journey USA. I do hope its fun and exciting and that all that will be reflected in my blog. Do read it, random bloggers! Awaiting your comments on: http://myjourneyusa102008.blogspot.com/ ( or u could just click on Journey USA in my 'Other Blogs' list) Take Care all, and Happy Holidays!!!!!!

I was just surfing the net and found some very bright pictures to represent an even brighter festival of Diwali. Thought I'd put them up here, since there won't any of mine this year.