Am I an Owl or a Bee?

It's been a busy sort of week, complete with full sorts of days. Monday and Tuesday were both eight-to-fives (or would have been, had I attended the 8 AM lecture)... Knowing I can watch the lecture online makes it somewhat more difficult to motivate myself in the morning. Today is a bit better; I have the afternoon free (besides catching up on lectures and studying, of course). The midterm is closing in too quickly....

Luckily, everything in this block is already familiar, thanks to the Molecular Biology and Cell Biology courses I took last year at IU. But having four lecture hours worth of material each day builds up quickly -- really quickly.

Monday afternoon, I met with my randomly assigned physician mentor, who is a pediatrician at a nearby children's hospital. I enjoyed meeting her, but she wasn't able to take me around to patients due to my lack of white coat. So it felt kind of useless staying there for two hours when I wasn't doing anything or learning much. Went home exhausted.

Tuesday afternoon, I had my first assigned session for a program called Big Friends, which puts med students in charge of a small group of elementary kids (this year, they're nine-year-olds) to engage them in activities after school. WOW those kids had energy... Some of them, anyway, and that was enough. It was still a generally good time, aside from the screaming and the jumping and the whining about homework.

Tomorrow, I begin learning how to give physical exams. The first step is HEENT (head/eyes/ears/nose/throat). I'm rather excited to see a retina.... I've been practicing listening to Kitty's lungs so I'll be ready for the next step: pulmonary. On a side note, his heart beats incredibly fast!

Friday, I'm skipping class -- at least, the first part of it. Body Worlds opens at the museum on Saturday, and the staff and volunteers get to preview the exhibit Friday morning. I'm pretty excited about it. I hear they plastinated a camel... which honestly raises all kinds of questions for me...

All for now, I think. I should get back to the clinical and diagnostic applications of recombinant DNA. Or I may end up taking a quick library nap... That delicious [yet overprised] asiago bagel isn't sitting quite right.... I suddenly miss BBC.