Summertime

The last exam for the year is over; whew. Afterwards, we had a bit of a wine and cheese thing, to say goodbye to our associate dean, who is leaving the position this summer. It's too bad; he was a great guy.

The last few weeks of school have been focused on our 'integrative' class, where in small groups of six, we practice our interview, diagnosis, and physical exam skills with standardized patients. It was a lot of fun. One thing about small group work like this, is that we have to dress professionally, i.e. a dress shirt, tie, and dress pants. So, I've had to wear my Seidensticker shirt every day; after class, I generally change into a pair of jeans, but I now love wearing that shirt more than anything, because it's so incredibly comfortable. I often wear a tie with it, with a typical maroon and gold pattern on it; naturally, after finishing class, the tie is loosened, and the top button on the shirt undone. The result: a rebellious prep-school look, that apparently suits me well, given the response of waitresses (and waiters!) around town. Unfortunately, I think I'm going to give up the look, as I have realized that with the addition of some eyeliner, I'd be easily confused with Avril Lavigne.

Anyways, I doubt I'll post again before I leave town. I still have a bunch of details to look after, such as buying something as a gift (like this) for our preceptor in Dar es Salaam, as well as trying to get Massachusetts to stop taxing my car!

Sunset, Sunrise

Yesterday, I came in to school just as the light was fading in the western sky over the mountains, around 10:30 at night. When I finished up my evening of homework, I headed back home; the eastern sky was already very light, at around 4:45.

Let's see, I was going to give a report on the month in meat, but never got around to posting about it. Basically, I want to empty my freezer before I leave town this Friday, so that I can unplug it for the summer. That required my eating up to five chicken breasts per day, about two weeks ago, to finish off what was in there. That coincided with the return of my love of Arby's, who have a four-junior-burgers-with-cheese-for-$5.50 special going on, as well as my classmate Gold Standard's 50-pounds-of-galbi barbeque. In other words, there has been a lot of protein in my life recently.

In other good news, my ophthalmoscope head will be replaced tomorrow with the correct model. Good stuff! I also got a cheap haircut today, that I am very happy with, shockingly so.

I finally have that OSCE tomorrow, that was cancelled due to our SP strike about a month ago... I'm rather unprepared, but oh well, I think that I am good enough to wing it now. Wednesday is our final exam for the year. It'll be the sunset on my first year of medschool; sunrise of second year will be in east Africa, in 2.5 weeks. :)

Seeing

I bought an ophthalmoscope this week. I have tried fundoscopy a few times before, but with no success at all; I guess that my problem is partly due to my glasses and my weird astigmatic vision. Anyways, I got a PanOptic scope (at the moment, I'm wondering if they sent me the correct model; I'll have to check that when I get home). I tried it out today on Rococo, and it was incredible. I saw a fundus for the first time, absolutely crystal-clearly.

Went to Montana's for dinner in celebration; dessert was apple crisp.

I see in the NY Times that Shohei Imamura died a couple of days ago. Coincidentally, I just saw 'Warm Water Under a Red Bridge' last weekend. He made some strange movies; 'Unagi' (a.k.a. 'The Eel') was an interesting one. Both of those starred Koji Yakusho.