St. Patty's Day Med School Style

Before I begin I must say Bill blog email updates is the best idea you have had since you decided to let Suz build up the confidence to develop a relationship with you by falling backwards in an Old Schoolesque 'youre my boy Blue' style (minus the death thing) in an incident now referred to as 'the tackle' soooo thanks.

I have just learned what med school St. Patty's Day is all about. If you're a first year like myself we wake up mad early (kinda like last year) but there are no lines or beer, just respiratory infections to cover with a lecturer whose idea of a joke involves the overestimation of the swine flu epidemic. This goes on for 3 wonderful hours, and fortunately in my 20 minute preparation for class and dash out the door i have remembered that it is St. Patty's Day and I need to wear green because people are decked out. Remember in grade school how you used to get super dressed up for school because this was the most likely place people would see you out? Yeah its like that again. I may add there was a classmate of mine dressed as a leprechaun who managed to crack the same joke about leprosy infection in said costume on at least 3 separate occasions. The rest of the day has been spent at the normal library hot spots for me. If you think I spent too much time at the library in undergrad, I've reached new lows on that front here. I apparently study at one library long enough that some asian kid who I didn't know felt comfortable enough to ask me if I could help him with his calculus homework (aren't you the asian one?). In other discouraging moments, the security guard at the late night library know me by name and no longer asks to see my ID when he checks everyone else's. This would be nice if it wasn't followed by the looks of horror when said security guard says oh thats ok James and people realize the sad existence that my med school life (or lack thereof) is.

I've been told that 2nd year gets better, but today was unconvincing. I had to watch my housemate's stuff at the library while they ran over to the hospital to practice two things I never want to be involved in, a male genital exam complete with urethral discharge and oh wait the digital rectal prostate exam. I also do have my question about how desperate for cash and/or twisted you have to be to allow some 50 med students per day stick their fingers in places that

are strictly exit only, but thats probably meant for another post.

Ok in all seriousness though things are interesting here. I got off to a bit of a rough start and am now finally getting settled (if that is what you would call it) into med school pace/life. Its been a relief living with other UofMers and being able to share my disgust of all things Ohio State with them. In related news, if you have not yet seen this, please take the time to visit www.universityofmichiganrejects.com. Our schedule is actually pretty nice as far as med schools go and we are only in class for 3 hours a day (and the library the rest of it) and we have all our exams on the same day so the weekends after are completely free. Im living super close to class/the hospital (as in about a block and a half) and as some of you have seen now have the cutest stafforshire bull terrier mix as a house pet. This summer it looks like ill be staying in columbus to do a research project at the med school on the effects of splenectomy on spinal cord injury and inflammation which should be fun/interesting. And also give me weekends and nights off (which means i would love visitors or might be coming to you kiddies). Unfortunately this also means at the end of the summer i will be eligible to become an Ohioan :(.

Ok im going to stop trying to write the longest post on sybil blog ever and leave that task up to Naynay. I'm really glad we got this going again and cant wait to hear more about whats going on for everybody.

James