I'm an idiot, but its the only way to be

Let me start off by saying simply that I, Scott Lotz, am an idiot. I have built up this reputation over time with activities like the milk gallon challenge, polar bear plunge, riding a unicycle outside of the campus bars at night wearing nothing but riding shorts and a helmet while holding an umbrella, dating Jenna for almost 6 years, and other things of the like...

Well I am proud to announce that in my idiocy I have been able to add another thing to my list. Last night I took my fixie out for a ride in the blizzard. I went to study all day and on my walk back home I was having trouble seeing and walking straight because of the wind. I thought to myself, I wonder if it’s possible to ride in this weather. So I got home and checked the weather; 15 degrees, but feels like 1, cool, guess I’d better wear gloves. Oh yea and 28 mph winds with gusts at 40+. Ideal conditions, I thought. So I suited up, turned on my blinkers, and headed out. I feel like I don’t need to tell you this because you probably already know, but it... was…. AWESOME!! With a few inches of snow on the ground,the street, and patches of ice that were covered, it was a challenge, but I prevailed. Now on my fixed gear bike I basically have very narrow racing tires with no kind of tread whatsoever. These offer little traction except they do sink in the snow and allow me to steer somewhat, but on any kind of slick surface they get squirrely and I was constantly fighting the bike to stay up. However, I did not fall once. Unfortunately my hands went numb after about 15 min so I had to turn it in, but I see a repeat event in my near future. And I know what youre thinking, “you should be studying for tests,” but I went at about 5:00 and I had been studying since about 9:00 so I was due for a break.

Well I believe that’s all I have for you folks. I’ll see ya when I see ya.

almost there

I dont know what the opposite of P.S. would be, but because this is at the beginning it is the opposite of P.S. But maybe the opposite of post script is pre script, so it may well be P.S. still. I'm not sure anyone knows. Anyway, I wrote the following entry on Wednesday on word in my apartment where I have no internet and just haven't been able to upload it until now. So if some of the information seems outdated, I apologize. 

So I had a meeting with the one of the deans today. All M1’s have this meeting and it’s just like an initial progress meeting and talk about your future kind of thing. Anyway she was very happy with my grades and all that stuff. No surprise there, RIGHT?? Then we got to talking about future plans and stuff like that. I told her that im leaning toward ortho or ER. It felt very much like an interview, “why did you want to do medicine” “why ortho,” those types of questions. As soon as I told her how much I like to build stuff and work with my hands she was convinced. Also, she said that my grades are right on track for ortho as long as my step 1 and 3^rd year go well. However, apparently the residencies are different from what I thought. Apparently you have to apply for a general surgery residency that you do for a year or so and then have to get into a separate ortho surgery residency. This means 2 different locations most likely and more moving. Whatev, that doesn’t bother me. But applying to 2 residencies would suck. More paperwork, more interviews, more stress. Yes I may even stress in the future. Hard to believe I know, but it may happen one day.

Then we got to talking about you know who. Yea that ol’ brunette ball and chain that I’ve been dragging around for the past almost 6 years. Basically I told them that she does in fact play a pretty large part in where I end up for residency. They told me where I get in plays a pretty large part in where I end up for residency. We laughed. Oh deans, so cheeky. They laughed at me that I would be thinking about residencies based off of a girl. Then I told them that we’ve been dating for almost 6 years and they started to see my point. Anyhoo, the male dean, Joe we’ll call him, mostly cause that’s his name, told me that things can change and not to put all my eggs in one basket. “I mean hey anything can happen. There will always be that young cute nurse that helps you out a lot,” he told me. Hmm… that does sound nice. (receive slap from jenna) I also told them that I want to end up out west for practice. They told me that most of the time where people do residencies they end up living. I told them baloney. I don’t know if you’re supposed to spell it bologna or baloney when you use it like that so I went with the non food. Anyway it seems that I will have a lot of obstacles to overcome in the future b/c of her. Knew she would cause me problems in the future. It’s okay though cause she promised to make me dinners for the week every Sunday so I don’t have to cook all week, so that’ll help.

We eventually went over the projected schedule for M3 and M4 and all the stuff that I’ll be doing. She showed me how little time there is for weddings in that area. I promised her that it was not a problem. We laughed again. Needless to say the meeting went well. She even told me numerous times about how happy she was with how the Ecuador trip was coming along already, so that’s good too. Overall, good stuff.

Very very very long road ahead of me, though. Very long. It’s kind of daunting seeing it all on paper and in the open at one time. Holy cow I’ll be a “student” for a long time. Luckily this is the last year of just school and classes. Good cause I am downright sick of it.

Life is good. Other people keep telling me that they’re up till like 2-3 in the morning working and can barely stay awake in class. I don’t get it because I go to be, on average, at 11. Then I’m usually up at 6 to get to the gym by 6:30 for a morning workout. Then I have time most days to get an afternoon run/bike/row in and I’m still doing well. Guess I’m just so totally awesome. Oh almost forgot, I am planning on running the Illinois FULL marathon on April 30^th here in Champaign (assuming my knees hold up for training. If not I’ll do the half. Either way I’m running). Training is beginning next week for it. I say this because I would love to have other family participants whether it be the 5k, 10k, half marathon, full marathon, or marathon relay. I told my parents about the marathon relay and told them they should get a team. And yes, mother, 4 months is plenty of time to be able to run 6ish miles. So, for anyone slightly interested, strap on some running shoes, hit the track (too cold to run outside for now, even for me) and lets make it a family event. Welp, that’s all I’ve got for you today. I’ll see ya when I see ya.

Almost forgot! Jenna is fast on her way to be able to do a pullup. Now this sounds kind of funny, working to get one pullup, but how many of you out there in internet world can do a pullup? HUH???? She’s been working her butt off and she’s really close. Her deadline to do one is the last week of her break, so sometime in January. The guns will be in full force for the next few weeks getting up over that bar. And she’ll be home this Saturday if you want to give ‘em a squeeze. Trust me they’re pretty robust.

K that’s it this time I promise. Sorry Aunt Wendy for the length. I like the sound my voice in my head narrating this as I type it. K bye. 

by the way it snowed a ton this week. heres 2 pictures of the results. 

Hello all

So it's been a week since the days of sitting around all day with nothing to do, not a care in the world. Back to reality. This week has been pretty laid back, actually. With only 2 classes a day, and 3 on Friday, it's been pretty chill. I've had a lot of time to get studying for finals in 2 weeks, but unfortunately I have found it hard to get a significant amount of studying done. I am just not in the mood to study and pretty much anything distracts me. But I have been studying all day today and a lot yesterday, so all is well.

So the week before Thanksgiving break my phone decided that it was going to slowly start dying. The buttons quit working one by one and then finally quit on the drive home from school, and is now dead. So I had to use Mark's old phone for the week, but he didn't have the charger, so I had to use Mom's. Not a problem until i get back to school and have no charger. It was fine, though, b/c there was a girl at school with an old iPhone that she was going to give to me... about a month ago. Then she didn't see her parents when she went home, for some reason, so she couldn't get the phone from them blah blah blah. Whatever, a free iPhone is worth waiting for. I sent her a text on Thursday (thanksgiving) making sure that she would remember to bring the phone back to school with her. I get a text Sunday from her saying that her dad already sold it. COOL! So now when I get back to school I have to get a phone asap. I ended up getting the iPhone 4, and yes, it is awesome. It was just about 100% more expensive that the original plan that I had. Oh well I now have a working phone and her parents have more money.

That was Tuesday. Wednesday my computer decided to die. I knew it was coming because it had been giving me hints for a while now that it wasn't going to make it much longer. So during Physio lecture on Wednesday it froze, so I shut it off and restarted it. However, it did not restart. So I left at the start of Micro (the next class), went home, pulled the hard drive, put it in my external case, went back to school, rented a laptop for a week, and got back in time for the latter half of Micro. I know I'm pretty awesome. So now I have another job over winter break: find a new computer at a reasonable price.

Other than that it's been a pretty awesome week. Even those events weren't too bad. I mean I have a new phone, a new computer, and all my data. All is well. Also, it snowed an alleged 8.5" Friday night/Saturday morning. Best thing ever. I went to Jenna's Friday night after coming back from the gym at 7:00 (where I had been since 4:00 climbing, running, and lifting). I got back to my apartment at 7:00 when there was not a single snowflake on the ground. I went over to Jenna's at like 10:00 when there was like a bagillion snowflakes on the ground. Now, I love snow. Love it. So this made me very happy. How it had snowed like 5 inches in 3 hours is beyond me, but it was awesome. The roads were super sketchy and I could barely see out of my car windows, but it was awesome. Also, the next day I was going to park my car and came across a girl who looked like she had done a 360 in the street and slid into the curb, almost into the stop sign. She was in an SUV, which was only rear wheel drive and therefore sucked in the snow. She had no idea if the car had 4 wheel drive and actually pushed the cigarette lighter b/c she thought it was a switch to turn on 4wd. No wonder she was almost driving into the stop sign. So I stopped and helped her get her car out and sent her on her marry way, although I feel like a similar situation would happen shortly down the road for her.

Tomorrow I have a meeting for Bienester, a program that I will be most likely doing this summer that consists of a 4 week stay in Ecuador working with doctors. It is different from my trips to Honduras, though, b/c it's not rural clinics. It is work in hospitals and even scrubbing in for surgeries. I also heard from past participants that we could get the chance to do some suturing in the ER. Good thing I had that suturing clinic. As long as these people's wounds are like scalpel cuts on frozen pig's feet, I'm totally going to rock it. It does sound really awesome so hopefully I do get to go. I am also the "president" I guess you could call it. I am in charge of setting up the trip and basically doing everything for it. I also heard that the person in charge gets a discount, although I need to find out more about that.

Here's a picture of a cat licking a snowcone. 

See ya!!

holy cow

Holy cow its been 2 weeks since I last wrote on here. What have I been doing all these days....?

Just finished my Anatomy and Stats exams and the anatomy skills portion, which is the portion where they tag structures on the bodies and we just identify them. Went pretty well, no big problems. Except they made the STATs exam super hard and virtually no one finished all of it, so that's uplifting. Especially since the TA said it was going to be pretty easy. Lies. But both portions of the Anatomy test were all good. Now we have 3-4 tests every Monday until Thanksgiving break. So that's something to look forward to. It is nice not having class on Monday, though, no stuff to go over that day. It's like another weekend day to study. I just can't believe that it's still such a long time until Thanksgiving, but time generally flies around here so its all good. And since all the exams aren't on one weekend, we have a little more free time, which is nice.

On this past Friday I got to ride about 35 miles solo because of the extra time (and because I skipped my student anatomy demo. No worries, though, I went over the structures the night before with the student who was going to demo it to me that day, so it was no biggie). But I got to ride, plus it was super nice out. I only had to wear a short sleeve baselayer under my jersey to be perfectly comfortable. Then a bunch of us med students went and played football for almost 2 and a half hours. It was awesome. Great way to just relax. But then one of the guys may have torn his ACL, so not that good. It was funny cause when he went down, here we are, a crowd of med students, and everyone just looks at each other and is like "well what are we supposed to do." Luckily we had a kid who was an athletic trainer at Iowa so he handled the situation. That ended the game though, so not a good way to end the day.

Then my buddy Nick, from undergrad, came all the way from California to see people who are still here, so we got to hang out Saturday. I couldn't do anything on Friday night because I was studying. Except that I spent like an hour or so just watching different ortho surgeries online. I'm pretty sure I can do a total knee replacement now, though, so that's good. My problem is that I was studying anatomy and in anatomy they start talking about different procedures. So then I look up videos of the procedures to get a better understanding. Then I get distracted and look at other entertaining videos, which are generally ortho surgery videos. So there goes an hour. Woops.

To get more out of my days I have started working out before class in the morning. I work out with my friend Joe. We call him ostejoerosis, like osteoporosis,  because he is soooo old (he's 30) (just turned last weekend). Anyway, it's been really nice actually. There is something fantastic about riding to the gym at like 6:20 in the morning when its cool and dark. One day last week I left like 15 min early just so I could ride around campus a bit before I went to workout. It's quite nice. Plus, in the afternoon I have time to go and get a run or ride in without taking time away from lifting.

The working out that I do in the morning is from this website/program called crossfit. It's basically militaristic circuits that usually only take like 20-30 min and really work you hard. I would say that about half the time I feel kinda queasy afterward, so it's definitely good stuff. I even got Jenna started on it, so when you see her on Thanksgiving she'll probably be super jacked. No big deal.

So this week I was studying in the anatomy lab. Going over structures and such. We were learning about the thorax and deep back/spinal cord. This means that half of the structures are on the back and half are on the front, so we have to turn the bodies to study both. Well, another student and I turned over the body we were using, and the towel over the face did not follow. So his face was no longer covered. This was the first time I saw any of the cadaver's faces. It was kind of weird, I'm not going to lie. Because usually I just see the body as tissue that we are learning, or a model or something, not a person. When you see the face, though, it's like oh wow this is really a person. It made me think about what the guy was like when he was alive. It was weird to think that this person had lived 85+ years. They had been a fully functional human being for 85 years and all of the parts that we are now looking at used to function in the same way that mine are now. I mean, we compare the structures we see to our own, but you never think of it the same way. We're looking at skin and shapes on the skin and don't really think about what it looks like underneath on ourselves. I mean we never think about how the air goes in our trachea and down into our lungs. And the blood comes from the heart to get oxygen then gets pumped through the body. And all the time the heart is doing this and we're not even thinking about it. All of this stuff just happens, and we never even think about it. The human body is an amazing thing. And it's really cool to be able to take one apart and see how it works. See how everything works together and functions appropriately and does what it is supposed to for so long. I mean 85 years is a long time for something as complex as a human body to be functioning. It's amazing. So if you ever get the chance to see a more in depth view of the human body, I say take it. Unless it means you are dissecting a body that you found yourself, in which case I would not advise taking that route, but that's just me.

Okay I'm going to go. Gotta start studying for next weeks exams. Yum.

I think it would be cool, if you were writing a ransom note in Microsoft Word, and it popped up, the paperclip and said, “It looks like you’re writing a ransom note… need some help? You should curse more.” The paperclip would be all messed up, you know? I never saw a paperclip with tattoos before.
     - Demitri Martin

one time i wrote a blog

you can call me Dr. Lotz (in training). Yep that's DR. LOTZ (in training). 

I do look pretty super doctorly in that picture, though, I must admit. I mean I would let me operate on me for sure. 

Okay down to business. You guys like to know what's happening in my life right??? So here goes....

This weekend was pretty good. Very relaxing. Got to see a few guys that came down from various medical school establishments to partake in beverage consumption at various establishments present on our lovely campus. It was great to see them. One of my friends brought his roommate from Rosaland Franklin (dont know how to spell it) who is 19. Let me reiterate, he is 19, which is 4 years younger than me. How did he do that you ask? Well I'll tell you. Right now. Now. Now. Okay I'll just tell you. He SKIPPED HIGH SCHOOL!!! wowzer this kid is smart. So he was a freshman in college at 14 years old. Crazy. 

Also, on Sunday I dropped my phone on the ground in my apartment. Unfortunately it was on the small bit of tile I have so it exploded. It still works great, but the vibration-ness of it is now dead. Dang. I pretty much exclusively had it on vibrate so that was pretty detrimental. Oh well, gotta get a new one anyway. 

So I am an "expert student" for Introduction to Human Disease, a class that we have very rarely. Basically what being an "expert student" means is that I have to study a patient's case and then look over his test results and stuff and answer questions about what he has and how we determined what it is. I am working with 2 other students and on Thursday this week we have to present to a small group (20 ish students) the case and all of the information that we have gathered. Now we have to do a power point and handout for the students that was due at noon today. Not a problem. However, the TA sent out an email like a month ago that she wanted it last Thursday b/c she wanted to make corrections and get it back. Well none of us remembered, and the majority of experts didn't remember until Wednesday after class. So we spent about 5 hours straight that afternoon/night researching our topics and creating this handout and powerpoint to turn in the next day. It actually turned out really well. I thought that after that we would be mostly done. However, this week has been pretty much nonstop work so far. I didn't get to be until 1:30 last night and today is no different. Granted, I'm writing this, but that doesn't take long and it lets my brain relax before bed. Anyhoo it's just been really busy. Oh, but if you were wondering, our patient (I am not at liberty to disclose his name because of the law. Actually it's a fake patient, but I'm just practicing) presented with chest pain that increased on exertion. An EKG was ordered and it showed that he had inverted T waves. Now I know what you're thinking, "But Scott, inverted T waves are not diagnostic of anything specific without more information!" Wow you sound peeved. More information: he also has depressed ST segments. EUREKA!! That means that he has myocardial ischemia in the anterior, anteriorlateral and anterior septal regions of his heart, although you probably already knew that. Turns out he has a blockage in his anterior descending coronary artery that leads to those areas! See I am doctorly. Anyway, the time that I spent researching this flew by because learning how to read an EKG and learning how to spot problems in the patient by looking at this wavy line and knowing where the problem is just by that line is pretty cool. So, in conclusion, time well spent. 

So, important things I wanted to touch on from yesterday: 

I woke up in the morning freezing because I forgot to close my windows before bed and it was like 50 degrees in my apartment. Woops. 

I spent nearly the entire day at the library/medical science building random rooms until late at night. I was tired and just wanted to go home. So as I left I put my iPod on as usual and randomly Bob Marley came on singing Everything's Going to be Alright. Perfect timing Bob, perfect timing. 

Then I rode the entire distance from the Medical Science Building to my apartment no handed. It was awesome. And let it be known that this is not a straight shot home. I have to take two 90 degree turns and many other rounded corners through the quad. I'm just so cool, I know, you don't have to tell me. 

Recommendations:

Listen to Sara Bareilles's new album Kaleidoscope Heart. It's really good for studying, if  you need to do any of that. 

Closing arguments: 

None

Welp, see ya later!

GOLLY I ALMOST FORGOT!!

In histology lab (boring) today our prof told us about a video that a previous med student made. It's just him randomly break dancing in various locations across campus. See if you can identify any of the locations. YAY GAMES! Here's the link. ENJOY!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp-ZFVhN7U8

“I love women, but I feel like you can’t trust some of them. Some of them are liars, you know? Like I was in the park and I met this girl, she was cute and she had a dog. And I went up to her, we started talking. She told me her dog’s name. Then Í said, “Does he bite?”. She said “No.” And I said, “Oh yeah? Then how does he eat? … Liar.”"

         -Demitri Martin

Only 362 more days!

I have been 23 for 3 whole days now. I am old. I remember in high school when you would watch TV and see 23 ish year olds on MTV and stuff and be like man they're old. Guess it's all downhill from here right?

My birthday, uh, weekend was awesome. I told myself that I would do no studying at all on Saturday and just kick back and do what I wanted. I did just that. Unfortunately I did that on half of Friday and most of Sunday as well. Oops. Now I'm playing catch up, but it's not too bad. 

I would like to thank everyone for the gifts, cards, money, etc that I got over the course of last week. It's pretty awesome to check the mailbox and find cards in it or find boxes of banana bread on my doorstep, so thank all of you. Any food items that were given to me are most likely gone now because nothing edible really lasts long around me.  

So Friday I went riding with a med school classmate. I didn't have my road bike because it was in the shop for a new bottom bracket, so I rode my fixed gear. It was fine because we were only supposed to do 20-25 miles, which is totally doable on my fixie. We got about 8 or so miles south of campus and turned west to do the bottom part of the loop before heading back toward campus. I was in front of him pulling (it's when the front rider does all the work to cut through the wind so the back rider can take a break). I did my part then pulled off to the side so we could switch places (do it every few minutes or so). However, he was riding overlapped, meaning that his front wheel was overlapping my rear wheel so that when I pulled out left, he buzzed my tire and consequently wrecked. It was kind of ironic because we had been talking not 10 minutes before about how he didn't wear gloves when he rode (which will protect you in a fall) and he didn't have a helmet on because he said it was at home. Now, if I would have known that he didn't have a helmet, I would have advised him to not ride until he had one, but we met up somewhere, so I just decided to go with him. He did not injure his head in any way, lucky for him, but he ripped up his right shoulder, elbow, knee, ankle, and both hands. His hands looked like someone took a cheese grater to them because he fell on the most bumpy part of the road, stupid farm roads. He also broke his deraileur and his deraileur hanger, tore up most of the shifter hood, pretty severely scratched his break lever, and bent his aero bars. The bike was unrideable, so I had to call Jenna who was nice enough to come pick us up. While we were waiting the lady whose house we were in front of came out and let Jake in the house to clean up and then gave us water. Turns out her son graduated from the Rockford campus of U of I's med school 5 years ago. Small world. After dropping Jake off at home, Jenna and I went to Dos Reales, a mexican restaurant, with some of her friends. I was so lucky to have such a thoughtful girlfriend because she informed the waiter that it was my birthday. They came with a gigantic sombrero, put it on me, and sang me a song, but it wasn't happy birthday in spanish, or at least the version I'm familiar with. Oh well, it was super special either way. 

I studied for a bit on Friday and then went to Jennas to hang out with her and the rest of the village people. (she lives in an apartment complex-like town that is called the village, hence her friends that live there are the village people). She made me fruit pizza, which she originally made like 2 years ago because it is a sweet, but she said I would eat it because it is hidden under the fruit. Works for me. 

Saturday was awesome. I ended up riding my fixie for probably like 2 and a half hours total. Another kid got a fixie last week so we've been doing some riding together. Also, I am learning how to ride backwards. Takes a lot of time, but I'm getting better. I really just want to ride to class backwards. I mean I can ride a unicycle, so I feel like the next step up from there is riding backwards, but thats just me. On a side note, one time last year a friend and I went out at 11:00 pm on a Friday or Saturday night on unicycles in my spandex riding gear. We did this to get weird looks from the people in line at all of the bars we rode past. Also, it was raining, so we were holding umbrellas to stay dry, you know don't want to be completely stupid. It was a blast and I spent most of the time laughing to a point that I could not breathe. Oh, and alcohol was in no way involved in the planning or execution of this meaningless stunt. 

Sunday was also awesome. The rents (parents) came down with Mark for a day of putting up curtains (because my apartment has, nay, had none), Walmart shopping, seeing Jenna's apartment, and food eating at Biaggis. Good day.

Then back to class as usual. 

Except last night I assaulted my freezer. See the thing is my freezer had about 2-3 inches of frost built up on the top and some on the bottom, greatly reducing the functional size of my already small freezer. With the addition of a new bag of chicken from the rents there was 0 room. So I took out my screwdriver and a hammer and went to town on the freezer. It didn't stand a chance. It was like it was David and I was Golaith, except in this story Golaith crushed David and beat him down with a hammer and screwdriver. Strangely enough then David turned into a snowcone like snowy powder. Weird. Anyhoo I have included some pictures so you can feel like you were there with me. 

Before, well I guess I had already started

 During. Note, I was shirtless because I had just gotten back from working out and was warm. And it's my apartment and I now have curtains, so I could have been naked. I think you should thank me for even wearing shorts. You're welcome world.

The remnants of David --> snowcone

 SNOWBALL FIGHT!!!!!!

Oh and here's me enjoying some banana bread. 

Well team, as usual, you performed beautifully. Now I must return to studying and such. Enjoy the day!!

“I feel stupid when I write the word banana. Its like, how many na’s are on this thing? ‘Cause I’m like ‘Bana … keep going. Bananana … damn.’

    - Demitri Martin

exams = conquered

greetings

I write to you today from the comfort of the union because I do not have internet in my apartment still. Not because I don't want it, but because it's overly expensive and I haven't had time to get it set up and such.

Getting back to my last post before I was so rudely interrupted by the cripple (I say cripple because Jenna's body is so janky (messed up/weird) that she may have a stress fracture in her foot from running the half. She can't even run right, I know. Anyway she went to the doctor after texting me a while trying to see if I could diagnose her over the phone by telling me that her foot hurt, I can't. The doc said no major fractures, but stress fractures are very difficult to see in an xray. They did, however, give her a super cute surgical shoe that she can now use to accesorize her outfits. That's her story. That was a long aside). As I was saying, whatever day that was I went to Jenna's, had dinner and did laundry, oh yea and studied.

Saturday I studied all day.

Sunday I studied all day.

Today I took 6 exams in under 3 hours. Mostly cause I'm awesome. Partly because they were short exams. Then shortly after the tests were done, it was my turn to skin. I was in lab for about an hour and a half peeling the skin off of our cadaver's legs and foot from the hip bone down to the foot, obviously. You would not believe the amount of cutaneous innervation (nerves in the skin) that there are in the front of your shin. Thats probably why it hurts like the dickens when any snot nosed kid kicks you in the shin for taking his lollipop and whiping it in dirt cause he said you smell bad even though you just showered and the little kid doesn't know what he's talking about cause he's just a kid and kids don't know anything, but you still took offense to it because you don't smell and you know you don't smell and he's just a little brat so you whiped his lollipop in dirt, but then he kicked you. But I digress.... So yea pretty awesome day. The grades are up for the majority of exams and I am pleased to announce that I passed all of my exams with flying colors. Best test was physio so far with an 18/20 and worst was histo which was 10/15, which is pretty baller cause I only studied for histo for an hour because it was only a 15 question test worth 7% of our grade and there were more important things to be studied in our time. It was pretty much the idea of everyone in my class, which sucks for histo, but even if you failed the test it's still super easy to make up the points. But yea good stuff. I'm going riding shortly with the cycling team, and my new tubes for my fixie came in so I can put the real front wheel back on. Also, we're all going out tonight (oh no on a school night???) because we need to see what the outside world is like instead of the inside of the library.

There's a business career fair or something like that at the union right now and I heard the words "free food" so I'm going to go see if I can track it down. I think you have to be in a suit with a nametag and I am in shorts and a T shirt and, sadly, no nametag, so I'm not sure how well it will work, but I'm going to try. Catch ya later.

“I like parties, but I don’t like piñatas because the pinata promotes violence against flamboyant animals. Hey, there’s a donkey with some pizzazz. Let’s kick its ass. What I’m trying to say is, don’t make the same Halloween costume mistake that I did.”

           - Demitri Martin

long time no see

oh hello, I didn't hear you come in. Please have a seat and I will regale you with stories of whimsy, grandeur, and medicine. Well, really just medicine, and other stuff.

Sooo..... what has happened since the last time I wrote stuff on this here wall...?

Last Friday was the bomb. I knew it would be after bad day Thursday. I don't remember why it was the bomb, but it was. Oh it was this kid's birthday from my program so we all went to a bar and had a joyful time. Then my friend Isaac from undergrad came down so I hung out with him after. Then Saturday I studied all day and Saturday night Jenna and I drove up to the big city (Chicago), well Jenna drove and I studied for 3 hours. We stayed at her neighbor's apartment for the half marathon the next morning. The apartment was on the 22nd floor of a building on the north side of Millennium Park. It was awesome. Well the apartment itself was kinda old looking inside, but the view was pretty sweet. Then we went to noodles and company for dinner and went to sleep for the BIG RACE!!

Sunday at 5:30 we awoke to a sleeping city, well a city just going to bed in some parts. The race started at 7:00, but it was down by the Museum of Science and Industry so we grabbed a cab to take us there. It cost $30 to go down there. $30. Ridiculous. The race went well for me. I got stuck in traffic (people) for the first 3 miles and only could keep a 9 min pace even weaving through people. After that, though, it opened up and I could get back on track. Just like my 12 mile run, though, I had some pain in my right hip flexor, at the half mile mark. Not a good way to start. So I ran 12.6 miles with a sharp pain every time I kicked my right leg back. I did finish in 1:51.02, which was a min longer than I wanted, but with the traffic at the beginning and the pain in my leg, I was pleased. At the end of the race they give you those oats and honey bars, bananas and cookies. My mouth was like a desert, so after the one bite of banana I took turned to a thick banana-y paste in my mouth that tried to choke me to death I decided to stick to water. Why they give you dry things after nearly 2 hours of running is beyond me. Then I watched Jenna tear up the finish later.

We didn't get back to school until like 6 or so so I only had 6 ish hours to study that day.

This week has been ridiculously hectic and awesome at the same time. I have spent probably 10 hours a day studying on top of going to class, review sessions, lab, and small group sessions. Honestly, it makes the studying we did in undergrad seem like it was nothing at all. I was able to work out a few times this week and get dinner with people, so the social life is still alive and well. I ran for the first time with my Vibram Five Fingers shoes the other day, which I have been waiting for for probably the entire month I have had them, but haven't run in them because I was training for the half. For those of you who don't know, Five Fingers are those weird shoes that have individual toes and are meant to be like being barefoot. I have included a link below to the Five Fingers here (http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/products/products_KSO_m.cfm). They are pretty awesome. However, because it is like running barefoot, and my feet are used to running in big squishy shoes with tons of padding and orthotics, my feet and calves were pretty sore after only a 15 min run. That is good though, cause that means that my legs and feet are doing the work and not my orthotics. Hopefully it will fix, or make slightly better, my flat feet and pronated ankles. Either way it is a new way to run and it is really fun.

Let's see, what else. Yesterday, or the day before, I don't really remember cause all the days blend together, I skipped my class at 11, cause it was stats and was a pointless review session, to study. I went to a study room in the library of the med school building at 11 with another kid. I did not leave or stop studying until 6 when we went to Chipotle for dinner and Joe, a 29 year old ex-nurse, got the biggest burrito I have ever seen. I mean this thing was gigantic. Then we had a review session from 7-8 and more studying till 11 or so. Joe was not feeling too hot during the review session because of the massive burrito baby that was wreaking havoc on his innerds. I can't tell you exactly what it was doing to his innerds because I don't dissect the abdomen until January or February. If I had to guess it was hurting his, um... what's it called... um... stomach? I don't know. To tell you the truth I don't think anyone knows.

So today I had 2 exams (Anatomy and Stats) at 10:00 and then anatomy lab practical later. I did really well on Stats, not as well but also well on Anatomy, and the scores aren't up for the lab practical, so I don't know. Think it went pretty well, but I was unsure of what they tagged in the quadrangular space. It could have been the posterior circumflex humeral artery, or the axillary nerve. It looked like they had 2 things tagged, but one of them for sure was innervating the deltoid, so I assumed it was the axillary nerve. I mean that sounds right, right? Then I got a 30 mile solo ride in because the weather was amazing, review session, and since about 6:30 I have been studying in Jenna's room because I came here to do laundry because it's free. Plus I got dinner...

(P.S. Jenna says that she is absolutely positively most definitely 100% NOT doing my laundry, nor will she ever. Ever. (that was from Jenna as she reads over my shoulder. She came in for a minute talking about something that I don't remember. I wasn't really listening anyway. But she has a beer, it's a good beer, and she didn't offer me any. I have been in here ALL night working my life away so that I can buy her nice things in the future. I SAID IN THE FUTURE. FUTURE. She's probably going to live in a cardboard box till then so I mean someone will have to support her eventually. She wants a blue house in St. Joe, not because she likes the house, but because the color of the house is appealing to her. She likes blue because I built her a blue bike for her. I have attached a photo of said bike below.

In the time that it took to upload the picture Jenna said that I was lying and called me a BLASPHEMOUS BLOGGER!!!! I don't know how to spell it so I think that's right. Not that I was called a BLASPHEMOUS BLOGGER, but the spelling. I just want you to know that I stopped my typing above because Jenna walked in, so this is all an aside that I typed because she was reading the whole thing over my shoulder and commenting. I was simply commenting back via typing instead of talking to her. You probably can ignore it. Oh by the way I built the bike you see above. Just so you know. Again. Now she's storming out because she says I type lies. Oh well, back to the action.

..... I don't remember what I was saying, so I'm going to say peace out girlscout. I'll talk at you later.

“When you have a fat friend there are no see-saws. Only catapults.”
                                                                - Demitri Martin

not so good

today sucked. just straight up sucked

i apparently forgot to set my phone alarm last night. luckily i dont have any window treatments because my apartment didnt come with them even though almost every other apartment has them in my building, so the sun woke me up at 8:15, just in time to miss my 8:00. Not really a big deal, I heard, though. Now how to get to class. A few nights ago I went out riding at like midnight on my fixie (with lights, don't worry) and blasted a pothole that I saw in time to pull the front tire over but the back was not so lucky. So there was a slow leak on the back tire which worked fine for like 3 hours. Today it decided to fully crap out and was dunzo this morning when I was going to leave after filling it up like 20 min earlier. Cool. So I took my road bike, which makes me nervous because I have a $20 lock that is probably a piece of cake to break and my bike is right around a grand to replace so not good. Also, I can't lock up my wheels very well and they're quick release so they could easily be taken. Class was fine, the usual. Got out at 1:00 after a meeting where they give us more work to do. Then I went to the local bike shop, Durst, to get a couple new tubes. They don't have the right ones. So I had to go back home and ride my road bike again for my anatomy demo at 2:00. Good demo, maybe the best part of the day. Then right back out to try a different bike store, no luck. Another, no luck. Cool. Home, Jeeves. I tried patching the tube, which I'm pretty sure worked, but in the process of putting the wheel back on, the axle became stripped on the left side. You have to be kidding me. I dont know how that happened because I only loosened the nut to take the wheel off and just tightened it back up to put the wheel back on. But either way now I can't even put the wheel back on without a new axle. I guess that's what I get for buying cheap wheels. Never again. Well, back to MSB MSB (medical science building) for studying and then a review at 5:00. Good review, but then another right after from 6:00-7:00. For a bit it was like the TA was speaking another language. I'm supposed to be able to learn this stuff? Ugh. Looks like my night just filled up. So I headed to the library after, but as hard as I try I just can't keep focused on my stuff. Yesterday I studied from noon to 11 with an hour break for dinner. An hour, that's it. No prob. Today, 20 min of staring at my computer screen seems like an eternity. So I surf the net, look up options for new wheels for my fixie maybe? Maybe a new track bike? I don't know. Eventually 10:00 rolls around and I just have to peace out. Wish I had my fixie. I have found that spending some time outside at the union is pretty nice though. So here I am outside in the cold, which feels great, watching people walking by going out, some girl looking for her purse, a few bikers (I'm jealous), pretty typical. Oh and an amazing picture of Bruce Weber, the head basketball coach, that someone drew in chalk. (pictured below)

I feel like I had something else to say, but now can't remember. Good thing bad days come in one's, cause I know tomorrow will be sweet. So much work to do for tests though. So much work. It just builds up and then all crashes down at one time. And I haven't been able to work out since my 12 mile run Sunday, yea Sunday and haven't seen Jenna or even really been able to talk to her in a few days. I need the weekend. Except all I'll have to do other than run the half is study. Should be good study groups though.

Sorry this post is negative. Just a crappy day. One every week, today was just it.

I'll see ya'll

Labor Day

Finally that relaxing 3 day weekend is over and I can get back to spending all of my time indoors away from the warm temperatures and the sun (you know that thing can give you skin cancer???).  Anyway, it was a good weekend. I was able to get caught up on my work that I fell behind on while dissecting last week and even managed to squeeze in some pre-reading for this week. I also went to a new Italian restaurant with my lovely girlfriend Jenna K. Pearson (she’s new, I don’t expect any of you to know her) where she paid for the bill with her $48 Visa gift card (I know $48 is pretty strange) from her boss at Whirlpool. And I’ll have you know that it was actually meant (from her boss’s mouth) so that we could go out to dinner. So there. That was Saturday night. Then Sunday night we made a homemade pizza at her apt cause her oven is bigger than a bread box.

But let’s rewind a bit. Back to Friday night. This was my first night out in like 2 weeks. And it was with the med students (my kind!!). So I get to the bar at like 10 ish and there were a bunch of us. Ooh fun!! Then after an hour or so of fun-ness I received a call from a miss Shannon Lotz. “Hey, it’s my cousin who goes here now!!” I exclaimed. Turns out on their journey back to Champaign, a couple of Shannon’s friends got stuck in Kankakee because the dude’s car broke down. So I let her borrow mine (of course, I mean c’mon look who you’re reading right now), but she’s like “OMG I TOTALLY HAVE LIKE NO IDEA LIKE WHERE THE LIKE HIGHWAY IS LIKE. THEN LIKE ONCE I’M ON THE LIKE HIGHWAY LIKE HOW DO I LIKE, UMM, GET THERE?” So I put my superhero cape on, brought her to my apt so I could write out some simple directions , and drove her up to 74 and Neil so that she could just take 74 the half mile over to 57 and be on her way. Then I just biked home. Get back to the bar at like 12 ish and sit down. Boy do I need a beer now. “okay see you guys later,” everyone says. Dang med students going to bed early. So I went home… lame. Then after about a half hour James (a co-med student) calls me and needs a ride to pick up his car from the impound because he was towed. He has a friend’s car so sure I’ll go. We waited for 45 min for a tow truck driver to get there so he could get his car back. Oh well that’s life. Sleep followed.

Sunday: my body informed me that it no longer wishes to run. Ever. I ran 12 miles on Sunday in preparation for the half marathon next weekend. My last long training run. It was pretty good until the last 3 miles or so where my knees stopped working correctly and my right hip flexor (muscle that lets you bend your leg toward your chest) was seizing up. Stupid body, I want to run still. So I did. Then when I was done my hip flexor would not let my leg move properly so I walked like the hunchback of Notre Dame. Man did I look cool. If only I had a huge boombox (on a side note, as I was typing boombox, my finger jumped the gun and typed boobmox. Easy finger, this is a family oriented blog) that I could rest on my shoulder and play some phat beats I would look totally awesome doing my very own gangsta lean down the street. Now for some of you, cough, older folk, don’t worry about the terminology, I just looked like an idiot.

Monday: This is one of my bikes:

It is what I use to get to class or anywhere else I go on campus. It's really fast and it's a fixed gear. That means that you cannot coast. If the rear wheel moves, the pedals move. That means that I can use my legs to slow the bike down. It is not a coaster break where you pedal backwards, it just means that I slow the rotation of the back wheel by slowing down the rate at which I pedal. It’s really fun. So I went out on a group ride on Monday with the cycling team and some other dudes. It’s a shorter, easier ride so I took my fixie (Slang term for fixed gear bike, there will be a quiz on these terms next week). It was a blast. And now I’m helping a friend find one to buy. The problem with that is that now I would really like a new one to play with, but bikes are expensive, unfortunately. Then that night I made the most amazing meal. Seasoned chicken wraps with turkey bacon, avocado, lettuce, tomato, and Koops Arizona heat sauce with homemade baked, seasoned French fries. Holy cow did I hit the jackpot with that one. Definitely putting that in my very small recipe book in my head.

Today is Tuesday: I was studying in the lib today and took a break to look at Craigslist to see what good bikes were available. Old road bike, old road bike, crappy mountain bike, kids bike, old road bike, free road bike, old… wait what???? A guy posted that he was just putting his old road bike next to the dumpster by his apt and whoever wanted it could take it. HAZAA!! Is this my lucky day or what? So I immediately packed up my things and bolted out the door. Giddy with excitement I rode as fast as I could to my car. “Oh happy daaaaayss,” was playing in my head as I tore down the street. I got my car and went to the apt complex. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Bikes gone. Well it was good while it lasted, me. Time to get back to work.

And that’s my life.

See ya later crocodile

I think the worst time to have a heart attack is during a game of charades...or a game of fake heart attack. 
-- Demetri Martin