Step 1?

Soooo I may have missed one or two all of the blog posts over the last few weeks.  Ironically, I've actually been less stressed in the last few weeks than I think I've been all year.  But having free time and doing normal people things really made me not want to write blog posts.  And so I didn't.  I'm sorry.  Hopefully absence made the heart grow fonder, and you're ready to accept me back with open arms (Open eyes? Since you're reading the blog and all?). 


Well second year is finally done.  I chose not to write any posts during our statistics and epidemiology class, but that happened.  And now it's over!  My classroom learning is ovaaaah.  We have six whole weeks of NOTHING to study for Step 1.  Finally finally we can just study, with no other distractions, nothing else to do all day every day but study, no other excuses, nothing else to take our time away.....

Ahh!  The freedom is paralyzing!


So in the interest of not-wanting-to-study, let me explain more.  USMLE stands for the United States Medical Licensing Exam - we take Step 1 now, Step 2 during fourth year, and Step 3 sometime during residency after which I can become a board-certified doctor.  Sooo, I'm clearly well on my way.


I'm also completely unoriginal, as there are about 20 million blogs out in cyberspace about how and what med students have used to study for this massive test.  My blog is different mainly because it's written by me (and therefore better ....just kidding-ish).  In no way, shape, or form will I be giving study advice (I'm talking to you, future readers who google "step 1 blog" or "step 1 study advice") because what the heck do I know?  I also am giving up on my Tuesday-Friday posting schedule, and from now on will be writing posts when and if I have something maybe interesting to say and actually have time to say it.

So for now, I guess I go study.  I'll let you know how the whole don't-procrastinate-have-discipline-and-just-freaking-study thing works out.

Also, who wants to talk about the season premiere of Game of Thrones?

Second Week, Second Year

Well I am officially done with my second week of my second year of med school. The problem with being a second year is that you're no longer a first year. As a first year, no one expects you to know anything at all. When you're a second year, I think people assume you know sooooomething. Since the expectations are higher, it's just that much more disappointing when it turns out you still don't know anything at all.


Since I am living in the exact same room in the exact same building with the exact same people, the beginning of this year felt a little bit like the Twilight Zone or Groundhog's Day. Nothing has changed. On the first day of class, everyone even sat in the same spots in the lecture hall as they did all of last year. Other than the requisite, "OMG hiiiii how was your summerrrrrr?" conversations, it really felt like we had taken a week off from class, not an entire summer vacation.


There are two big differences from last year though:

• The first is the presence of all the new first years! I was finally getting used to all the people I would see around campus, and now there are all these new faces that I don't recognize at all.

• The second is what should be the absence of last year's fourth years. Their absence wouldn't be so weird since I knew very few of them, and they were not on campus very often anyway. But the lack of absence is funny. For example, the other day I ran into last year's student council president (who I guess is doing his residency here at NJMS) wearing a LONG white coat. Just a few months ago we were emailing him about the lecture hall being too hot, and now he is a DOCTOR. Like a real, live doctor. Sometimes I forget that that's what will happen when we eventually finish.