This week has been spring break, which translates to a week and a half of uninterrupted study time. With my fiancé in Mexico for the past three days, you'd think I would get in a ton of study time. Well, it's good to make plans. Work has gotten done, but there have definitely been a few days were instead of working the 10 hours a day I intended, the hours add up more to a modest 5. One day I spent the entire time on the couch watching House. It turns out that the house writers in season 1 LOVE vasculitis…. apparently its in the differential for everything. Also caught a pretty blazing error in the first season, they refer to Toxoplasma (Toxoplasma gondii) as a fungus. It most definitely is not a fungus, and in fact is a protozoa that spreads through cat feces. It's generally not a problem unless you are pregnant or immunosuppressed.
In other news, my mom, brother, and sister (who flew in from Oregon) are driving up from DC for my bridal shower/bachelorette party tomorrow. I decided to put them both in the same day because 1) I couldn't afford to lose two study weekend this close to finals/Step I and 2) My sister/maid of honor lives in Oregon and I wanted her to be able to attend both without breaking the bank of air fare. Because the wedding is so close to my Step I date (5 days after), I couldn't put the events in the wedding week due to fear of being massively hungover on my wedding day.
Showing posts with label studying. Show all posts
Showing posts with label studying. Show all posts
Friday, April 18, 2014
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Test week truth #2
Things I've withheld from myself in order to increase productivity (ie no X until you finish Y):
-Breakfast
-Shower
-Chocolate
-Sex
-Sleep
-Exercise (only works because I like to exercise)
-Booze
-Changing in to comfortable clothes
-Coffee (diminishing returns)
-Internet access
-My Facebook password (requires the help of my fiancé)
-My cell phone
Friday, March 7, 2014
Study Snack!
Lately I've switched to being the student who never goes to class and studies from home. This is partially due to the fact that my med school FINALLY agreed to camtasia (where they record the powerpoint/smartboard slides with voiceover and post the videos to the internet) all lectures and partially because I've completely lost my ability to pay attention to 3 hours straight of lecture (or more accurately, I never had the ability, and finally recognized that not paying attention in lecture for 2 hours was a waste of 2 hours).
My new system is to watch lectures from home on camtasia. It takes me a little bit longer because I pause to take notes, go to the bathroom, search Facebook, slam my head into the desk…. but overall I think it's a time saver because I only have to watch/read (via transcription) the lecture once. Added bonus, my dog is SUPER happy about the situation.
Another bonus of studying from home is I save a ton of money because I don't have to worry about forgetting/not having time to pack my lunch. I have a pretty fast metabolism, so I usually get hungry around 10:30-11ish and need a snack. Today I'm trying spin on a recipe I found somewhere on Pinterest- Roasted Chick Peas. They are super healthy, a great source of protein, and take a minimum amount of time to make. Plus, in the winter (especially this polar vortex fueled winter from hell) I find myself craving something warm.
Here is the recipe I went with today (The nice thing is when you get tired of one flavor, you can change it up!!):
Roasted Spicy Chick Peas: Active time: less than 5 minutes
-1 can chick peas drained (I use canned organic chickpeas from TJs)
-Olive oil (just drizzle it all over)
-pinch of salt
-1/2 Teaspoon each of curry powder, cumin, and chili powder
-dash of cayenne pepper
Toss all ingredients in the colander that you drained your chickpeas in (I imagine you could do the same with the can and save a dish)
Throw onto a baking sheet lined with tinfoil (I didn't do the tinfoil this time, but it makes the cleanup even faster)
Bake at 425 for about 30 minutes and VOILA!!
My new system is to watch lectures from home on camtasia. It takes me a little bit longer because I pause to take notes, go to the bathroom, search Facebook, slam my head into the desk…. but overall I think it's a time saver because I only have to watch/read (via transcription) the lecture once. Added bonus, my dog is SUPER happy about the situation.
Another bonus of studying from home is I save a ton of money because I don't have to worry about forgetting/not having time to pack my lunch. I have a pretty fast metabolism, so I usually get hungry around 10:30-11ish and need a snack. Today I'm trying spin on a recipe I found somewhere on Pinterest- Roasted Chick Peas. They are super healthy, a great source of protein, and take a minimum amount of time to make. Plus, in the winter (especially this polar vortex fueled winter from hell) I find myself craving something warm.
Here is the recipe I went with today (The nice thing is when you get tired of one flavor, you can change it up!!):
Roasted Spicy Chick Peas: Active time: less than 5 minutes
-1 can chick peas drained (I use canned organic chickpeas from TJs)
-Olive oil (just drizzle it all over)
-pinch of salt
-1/2 Teaspoon each of curry powder, cumin, and chili powder
-dash of cayenne pepper
Toss all ingredients in the colander that you drained your chickpeas in (I imagine you could do the same with the can and save a dish)
Throw onto a baking sheet lined with tinfoil (I didn't do the tinfoil this time, but it makes the cleanup even faster)
Bake at 425 for about 30 minutes and VOILA!!
Sunday, February 2, 2014
Beer O'Clock
It's the night before the night before an exam at about one in the morning. My brain hurts- you know that feeling when you've been forcing yourself to learn for so long that you start to have a physical sensation inside your skull? I'm not tired due to the cappuccino I made fore myself around 7. The sum of this is that I'm too tired to study, but too awake to go to bed. The solution? Beer. Beer and maybe one more hour spent learning about the endocrine system is the answer. Sometimes you just have to know when to indulge.
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Long Weekends and Friday Night
Last week was our white coat ceremony. It was lovely and my parents came and we hung out with my boyfriends parents so the whole weekend was one big family fest. It was awesome seeing my parents and I was super sad when they left. What didn't happen was studying. Now, I did probably get in about 4 hours or so of studying over the entire weekend, which any medical student will tell you is peanuts. The sad truth is I've spent most of this week catching up (as have most of my classmates). Super unfun times for us all. However, the silver lining is this weekend is a holiday weekend which means we have an extra day. Now most people's minds go like this: "yay! I have a day off!!" for me the thought process is more like this, "Ha ha ha (continue maniacal laugh) they can't make me learn any thing if we don't have to be at school!!!!." So, while it's not really a day off, it is a day where they can't shove hours and hours of more material down our throats. Which makes me envision those geese that get force fed so they develop delicious fatty livers. That's how I feel most of the time. Like a tortured, force fed goose. At least my school makes a special effort to make sure we have natural light in our study spaces.
I would like to close with a conversation between my friend (F) and I (Me) at the end of the day Friday.
M: What are you up to this weekend
F: Flying to california to see my girlfriend.
M: What are you doing in cali?
F: Studying mostly but we might actually get in a whole 22 minutes of tv too. You know, on the internet so there are no commercials. What are you doing this weekend?
M: Studying mostly, but also moving. My boyfriend wanted me to come into the city tonight for drinks but I think it's a bit much with trying to catch up from last weekend and also moving
F: Yeah, going all the way to the city for drinks sounds pretty awful.
M: Totally, way too much time and effort. That's what I told my boyfriend, but he's not in med school so it's difficult explaining these things some times.
F: Yeah, he'll learn to just not even ask. Asking just makes you sad.
M: Totally.
End
Saturday, August 18, 2012
The MCAT really was useful!!
I just wanted to write a quick little post about how the MCAT really does come back in med school.
When you study for the MCAT, the studying is more about dissecting questions and coming up with the correct answer based on basic information than it it is about stuffing facts into your brain. You have to be aware of words like ALWAYS, NEVER, NOT, ect. For pre-meds suffering through the MCAT, I promise all your work and toil will not go down the toilet when you get to med school. Med school exams are not comprised of simple questions. You have to be able to break down the terminology, decide what is really important in the question and what isn't. (ie. you see the name of some random disease you have never heard of in the question, but you need to replace it with "some pathology" in your head to make the question make sense). This isn't because the professors are trying to trick you (once you are in, they are all on your side, they want you to graduate and become a good doctor), it's because, for the rest of your life, you will need to be thinking through complex, multi-step questions.
As many of us are preparing for this first exam, I keep hearing people say "oh I feel like this is MCAT time all over again." Most of us probably lived out 3-5 months of really intense study time. You will need to sustain that when you are in med school, so not only is the MCAT good practice for dissecting questions, it's good training for developing effective study skills. Remember, med school is about organizing a lot of material in your brain in a short amount of time and then being able to turn it around and apply it to real-world situations. Sound familiar?
When you study for the MCAT, the studying is more about dissecting questions and coming up with the correct answer based on basic information than it it is about stuffing facts into your brain. You have to be aware of words like ALWAYS, NEVER, NOT, ect. For pre-meds suffering through the MCAT, I promise all your work and toil will not go down the toilet when you get to med school. Med school exams are not comprised of simple questions. You have to be able to break down the terminology, decide what is really important in the question and what isn't. (ie. you see the name of some random disease you have never heard of in the question, but you need to replace it with "some pathology" in your head to make the question make sense). This isn't because the professors are trying to trick you (once you are in, they are all on your side, they want you to graduate and become a good doctor), it's because, for the rest of your life, you will need to be thinking through complex, multi-step questions.
As many of us are preparing for this first exam, I keep hearing people say "oh I feel like this is MCAT time all over again." Most of us probably lived out 3-5 months of really intense study time. You will need to sustain that when you are in med school, so not only is the MCAT good practice for dissecting questions, it's good training for developing effective study skills. Remember, med school is about organizing a lot of material in your brain in a short amount of time and then being able to turn it around and apply it to real-world situations. Sound familiar?
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