Study Study Study

The end is almost in sight!!! Two short weeks complete with 10 more lectures, one more lab, three exams and two practicals and I will be done with my first semester of MEDICAL SCHOOL! I can hardly believe it!

Just a few updates/photos of what I've been up to these last few weeks before I go back to notecards and bed!
Since I last posted, my friend Mike and I made "complementary" shirts to run the Mare Island 5K in:
In case you can't quite see, those are pink shirts that say "I'm with Muscly" and "I'm with Jiggly"
....if this whole med school thing didn't work out, I think maybe I should consider a job in a) persuading people to do things they don't really want to (like run in matching pink shirts), or b) elementary school teaching (thanks to my awesome puffy paint skills). But so far the med school thing is working out, and the day after out race was our third mid-block exam which I totally dominated! I think I'm (finally) starting to figure out my study groove :) This third block begins our first actual system: blood. Who knew that it was so complicated or that there are SO MANY TYPES OF ANEMIA OH MY GOODNESS. But anyways, after the midblock almost our whole class went out to a bar in Benicia to celebrate which was pretty fun...here's a picture with 5/8 of my small "team-based learning" group. We are team 1 in group A, so we like to consider ourselves "Team Awesome"....:) Actually the theory of team-based learning is really awesome, I think, and I love it when professors give us complicated cases and we have to, as a team, figure out what to do. I plan to call all these people when I have a complicated case in real life ;) Anyways, here's my team:

After midblock we also had the Turkey Bowl which seemed like a good idea (1st and 2nd year med students playing against each other in a fun game of flag football), but was ended prematurely with a fight.... But at least the "432 Kirkland Express" was there to cheer our class on!(Please note how my roomies all really creatively decorated their numbers and mine is......colored in. Perhaps creativity is not my strong point.)

But after all this excitement, the biggest excitement was by far coming home!! Thanksgiving with the fam and wedding dress shopping on Black Friday was AWESOME and a much-needed getaway :)

Happy Thanksgiving from Huntington Beach!

AH MY BEST FRIEND IS ENGAGED!!!
Time for wedding dress shopping!!!
And it even snowed!!!! AWESOME THANKSGIVING BREAK! :)

Getting back from break means we were slammed with work...and my studying has really kicked into high gear. I've spent so many hours at the library, I've started packing my dinner so that I can just stay and study and eat there and not be bothered with going to my house (a mile away).....SO HARDCORE! But Friday night I got a bit of a reprieve with an ugly sweater party hosted by some of my classmates.... So fun!
Mike and I in our ugly sweaters.....we originally bought them to wear opposite (me in the cute snowflake one and him in the Bill Cosby one), but Angela said that they would be uglier (and thus more appropriate for an Ugly Sweater Party) if we switched. So we did :)

Ugly Sweater Party 2009 -- all Future Doctors of America....

This weekend has been filled with lots of studying (as usual), church-going and....DECORATING FOR CHRISTMAS! Our house is gonna look so awesome, I'm so so excited!!!

Decorating our Charlie Brown Christmas tree....
Stringing lights!
Who needs a boy? My dad taught me how to hammer and hang my own lights :)

That's about all the excitement in my life for now....just a little longer and I'm done, I can't believe it! So exciting! Just gotta get through my first Standardized Patient exam this week (Wednesday), then my exams/OMM practical next week, the Megy comes and we have our holiday potluck and then home sweet home!!! So close!
One last thing, I've been reading though Romans (love it so much) and I stumbled across these two verses on love that I really do, well love!

Love does no harm to its neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.....And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love
So awesome :)