M4! And other musings...

So when I posted the last post I had great intentions of posting pictures of the same rooms days later showing all the progress I had made in cleaning them up. Sad to say that still hasn't happened. Well, actually the kitchen is totally clean and the living room looks better, as does my room, but nothing so clean it's photo-worthy! I don't have time to write much bc I have homework that needs to be done if I'm gonna be awake, but I had to at least comment on the fact that I have officially started my M4 year!! If you think that's crazy, you're in good company! I can't even believe it. It's alittle like your senior year in high school bc you definitely feel like you're alittle cooler than all the others below you, don't really want to do any work at all, as a result slack as much as possible, and are just a little bit freaked out about the future.

Prior to the start of the M4 fun, Brendan and I made the trip to Chicago, so I could take my Step 2 CS. It went from 3-10:15PM, saw 12 "standardized patients" (actors playing the patient role). We had 15min to read the quick presenting complaint/vitals/instructions on the door, go in, do a history, physical, explain to the 'patient' the diagnostic possibilities/work-up... basically everything you'd do in a normal clinic appointment, then we had 10 minutes to write a patient clinic note. After that fun was all done Brendan and I went into the city (well after a nice long night of rest - man i was tired)!



We went on the architectural boat tour down the Chicago River, which was pretty cool. Then we did some shopping. Well I shopped, Brendan just tagged along (well he got at least one new thing!). He deserves some serious credit for how great of a shopping companion he was. He let me go in any and every store I wanted on Michigan Avenue, didn't complain once! It was a lot of fun (for me at least!). Afterwards we met up with a friend of Brendan's from Clinton who now lives/works in Chicago, had some amazing beers, met up with his wife, had more amazing beer + amazing food, and walked back to their place for the night! It was awesome. Though I could have standed to drink a bit less and sleep a bit more because the next night was more of the same kind of fun at my bachelorette party!! Had a BLAST hanging out with all mis amigas! We gathered in IC, hung out at my med school bff's house, went to dinner, went downtown, then back to becky's to crash! Well, I crashed, they all stayed up talking till the wee hours! The next morning we had bagels and a lot of couch time trying to recover before they all hit the road back to their homes! But we had a really good time, and I actually felt pretty darn good Sunday considering all this fun!




I started on Lab Med/EKG. It's advanced EKG reading sessions in the AM (as horrific as it sounds) and Lab Medicine sessions in the afternoon (actually better than they sound). The nice thing is that the classes only go from about 8-11 and 1-2:30, so there is plenty of time in the day for other things. The bad thing is that those "other things" should be doing things like reading the 24 EKGs due tomorrow (or the additional 40 due Thurs), but instead become things like dishes, thank yous, mailing checks, running errands, making phone calls, packing boxes, etc etc... moving, wedding, and school is proving to be a lot at the moment...

alright, well on that note, i'd better get some sleep so I can get up early and finish some things... i'm slowly easing myself back towards 6hrs of sleep a night. Hope everyone is enjoying their summer! Man I wish I'd chosen a job with a summer break! (or even one that gave me the nights free to enjoy the summer weather...) c'est la vie... (or more like you've made your bed now lie in it - haha!) more soon!
Happy Summer!


Stay safe!