Rainy Weekend - Umbrella

The first week of real classes is over. Whew, what a whirlwind. I'm sure I've said it before, but the sheer amount of information we are given in such a short time (50 minute lectures) really is incredible. A common quote here is "trying to get a drink of water out of a gushing fire hydrant." I can see that Anatomy will definitely need some attention on my part - the vocabulary and subtleties involved get pretty complex.

Some of the terminology (especially gross anatomical terms like prone, midsaggital plane, anterior/posterior) I am familiar with because of my EMT training. I am very grateful for this, because I can see that some of my classmates will struggle with these terms. In Anatomy, you can't say "look at that muscle above the belly button" or "that artery is closer to the shoulder." Good terminology would be "look at that muscle anterior to the umbilicus" or "that artery is just lateral to the shoulder." At this point, I'll take whatever leg up I can get!

A large group of first and second year medical students went tubing down the James River yesterday - everyone was having a great time until the skies opened up on us. Then the thunder and lightning came, and we had to seek shelter on the shore, probably 2 miles away from the end of our trip. We all got pretty cold (after all, we didn't have much of anything that was dry), and some girls' lips even started to turn blue. Those girls got first priority at the little bit of shelter we found under an abandoned house. The sign near us marking "Trigger Happy Lane" wasn't too reassuring either - we laughed at comments about horror movies. Thankfully, a man came out to us from his RV and said he would call the tubing company to pick us up. That was really nice - we would really have been in a tough spot without his help!! Still, we all had a blast.

Last night I saw the Girl Talk free concert at John Paul Jones (Basketball arena) - UVA put it on to celebrate first year (undergraduate) move-in day. It is just one guy who mixes between 3-5 songs together in a hybrid. Really pretty amazing - his "Jump" (Van Halen) and "Shout" mix was a hit.

Tomorrow we have our first quiz in Embryology. Some of my friends are really getting nervous about it. I am pretty grateful that the first 2 years are all pass/fail. Getting a 70% and getting a 95% get you the same result - a Pass. That takes a huge load off of the pressure, and everyone is working pretty well together to help each other out. Plus, this quiz is only 5% of our Anatomy grade (our 2 CTS exams are about 35-40% each!!) A classmate of mine already sent out flash cards with the learning objectives and answers. Well, back to the grind. I'll let you know how the class does!