Summer Windup

Summer term is winding down now, I have only two days left of physics before I have bliss unbounded. My lab final is tomorrow, which doesn't bear thinking about. I have done pretty well on most of the labs, but the final is going to be tough.
I have to study a lot tonight, so I will not post much. I will try to be more conscientious in my blog updating.
-g

18 Hours of Sleep!

Things had come to a pretty low ebb by friday evening. I was exhausted and hadn't slept well that afternoon. I had bombed a math quiz and that always leaves an acrid taste in your mouth. I slept for about 4 hours before having to work all night, so I was trashed. Work sucked, several misses and I lurched my way through the night. Saturday I slept until 1130 when I staggered out of bed, zombie-like. By two o'clock I was totally frustrated at my utter inability to understand my calculus, so I went to bed. At 10 I woke up and went to work. Work was ok, I had several misses which is really frustrating, considering how long i've been working there. 7 o'clock saw a weary George home. Since it was my sister's farewell talk at church, I stayed up since sleeping from 7:20 til 8 seemed pretty pointless. After church I came home and crashed from 1200 til 530. Mindy and I went to my parents for dinner. By 7 I was toast, so Mindy and I went home to bed. I slept until 730 the next morning. Monday, REJUVENATION COMPLETE! I felt like a million dollars, awake and sentient. good. This week has been phenomenal. I can't belive how much different I feel, having slept enough to cure my circadian reversal.

SSDD

Back to the glue factory again. Conference weekend was great though I was only able to make it to two sessions. Work went really well too. Friday, I only slept 2-3 hours before and I was afraid that I would be completley braindead. I was right. I drifted through work in a dazed stupor. The shift started with some blood cultures. It was an old man. I could feel his median cubital right in his AC, but it was pretty hard. SInce that was the only one he had going that wasn't purple for miles around, I decided to poke. Of course I had tandem blood cultures with a lot of other bloodwork too, just perfect for a hard stick. I poked him with a syringe, got the flash but not much else. I changed the needle position slightly, hoping the bevel was just sucking up against the vein wall. Still no luck. I only got about 1.5 mils out of him. Grr. So I withdrew the needle and gauzed him up. Time for the ped's bottle. Pediatric blood culture bottles only need 1-5 mils, so I was ok there. I put the blood in the peds bottle and scouted another place for the second poke. Blood cultures are usually paired to give an accurate assessment of the spread of a bacterial infection. His right hand was promising, so I looked there. Just a little pinch I told him, pushing the needle into the back of his hand. Of course his rubbery vein scooted to the side. Time to reposition and try again. This time I got a flash in the butterfly. Success! Of course he was none too generous, only gave me 8 mils. I neede 12 for the other cultures and more for the blood work. I put 5 of the 8 into an areobic culture bottle and split the rest for his blood work.
As I had expected, I was pretty zombie-like during the shift. I lurched my way through the midnight charting from 1-3 am, until lunch time. After break I was slated to do the 5th floor (surgical) for morning canvas. Normally 5 main has a lot of draws, and this morning I had 22. After 5 am I hit a groove and started blazing through my draws, lots of vacutainable people in a row helped to make up time. At 7, Mindy came to pick me up and I was homeward bound. I slept until 1130.

It begins anew

And so it begins, another term. I'm exhausted already because Sunday was 20 hours long. I got off work at 7 sunday morning and crashed until about 930. Mindy and I went to church which was good. After church we wen to my parents house for easter dinner. My mom forgot to turn on the oven, so mindy and I crashed for 2 hours until the ham was done. Afterwards we stayed up chatting and joking around until nearly 10, by which time I had joined the ranks of the living dead. Monday morning came at 8 and I pryed my eyes open. All day long throughout class I felt like I was pretty much still asleep. It always takes a while to recover from working at the Lab.
well it's time for Calc II. YAY!
-g

Dead week

So, it's dead week now, and my professors are vying to see who can give the most work. I have a calc quiz on friday and a midterm in the same class the following monday, which strikes me as a little assinine. Oh well. i got back my midterm yesterday and i did much better than i had previously thought. The afternoon of the exam I went home and crashed. In my sleep I kept differnentiating the problems and seeing where I went wrong. I 'll write morelater, but right now i have to get my math done before 12.

Pre-med syndrome

Well, I am a thoroughbred pre-med. Since this is only the second entry in my blog, I'll give a little context for my ramblings. I enrolled at Universtity of Oregon in 1999 as a French major. Fall of 2001 saw me declaring a double major in history. I decided to double since I had a passion for both subjects. In December 2001 I left on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints. For two years i served in the Canada Montreal Mission. While on a mission, I decided taht medicine was the carreer path I chose. After lots of meditation and rumination, I decided that I wanted to spend the rest of my professional life helping others. So, upon my return to UO in dec 2003, I finished my double major. In summer 2004, I started my pre-med classes. This brings me to my current situation.
I am in my third term of pre-med classes. I am in gen chem, cel bio I, calc I, chem lab. Currently i am a slave to my GPA.
before my mission, i didn't work very hard at school, consequently i now have to get very high grades to drag my overall GPA into a more competitive level. I'm tired of the competition already. I"m not aware of any great internecine rivalry among my fellow pre-meds, save only my own obsessive drive to get A's. I really don't like sweating every single missed point. It really detracts from my ability to learn the material for its own intrinisc merit.

Episode 1

So, I am working tonight and I'm not so very stoked about working all night long. As the night inches onward, time slows down proportionally. By 5 am, time has nearly fully stopped. Then, as morning canvas begins, time slowly returns to its breakneck pace. At 7 I go home to sleep.