Loans Approved!

I'm now officially in massive, massive debt (read: Loans - approved)! um.. yay?

The disbursement date is the 6th of January and I sincerely hope that I actually receive my loan check before I land on the island. It'd be nice to have all money related things taken care of prior to flinging myself down so close to the equator. I'd like to eliminate any extra worries. Because I'm sure I'll have enough to handle as it is. And no doubt there will be a whole host of good and bad surprises waiting for me on the island - no matter how many SGU blogs I read and how many hours I waste trawling on VMD.

On the other hand - I clearly have good credit! That, or Bank of America assumes I'm a safe bet since I'm going to medical school. Hmm, with the amount of debt I'm committing myself too I wonder what would happen should things become unpleasant later.....

From the secret policies of debt collectors everywhere:

Normal Credit Debt Procedures:

-send a nice letter

-send a not so nice letter with a fine

-fine them again

-call persistently

-threaten to report to collection agency

-report to collection agency

-repeat of above from collection agency

-recipient changes phone number and ignores calls

-repeat until recipient dies of old age

Medical School Debt Procedure TOP SECRET:

-send a nice letter

-send a not so nice letter with a fine

-hire a hit man; problem resolved*

*note to operatives: this may also be proactively carried out if loanee drops out of medical school and therefore becomes unable to pay back full amount with interest

**also note that if aforementioned action occurs it is permissible to jump straight to third directive

O.O

Ok, I'm just kidding of course! In fact, I'm pretty sure among the throngs of forms I've signed over the past few weeks I noticed that SGU considers it a breach of professionalism not to pay back your loans. *grin* But of course I plan to pay back my loans. As soon as possible actually. My current forecast of my residency involves me living in a cardboard box and putting everything I make into loan repayments.

Well, I suppose that if I fail horribly and drop out of school I can always fall back on my cleverly designed backup plan that I came up with in a fit of hilarity (you know, the "ha ha, I'm laughing because otherwise I'd be sobbing pathetically" kind of hilarity) after getting rejected from medical school the first time:

Yes, I actually scrawled this on the back of a pizza box cover and had to be physically held back by my sister so as not to go stand by the side of the road with it. Heh. You think I might have gained insanity points with it? The majority of people probably wouldn't even know what any of it meant. But they're my only marketable skills! Yup, definitely insanity.

And yes, I actually felt the need to save this sign. I'm thinking of framing it and hanging it up next to my MD degree in a few years. ~.^

Listening to: 灼眼のシャナ オリジナル・サウンドトラック 'II'

Is it still December?

I thought that in lieu of my current trend of going on about unimportant things I'd actually post something of interest to any poor soul who has stumbled upon my blog in a search for information on being an SGU student (you poor, poor thing). Here is the list of my first term books! And the school buys them for us. Of course, they also charge us for them. So no running to amazon and getting a better deal this time around. Hmm, who has an image of SGU and the book companies in a dark room somewhere plotting.....

Not me of course! <--all sunshine and rainbows I am Biochemistry
-Marks' Essentials of Medical Biochemistry: A Clinical Approach
-Lippincott's Illustrated Reviews: Biochemistry

Bioethics
-Bioethics and Professional Course Companion by Dr. Sheryl Macpherson

Gross & Developmental Anatomy
-Anatomy Prosection Manual by Dr. Feisal Brahim & Dr. Brian Curry
-Atlas of Human Anatomy w/ netteranatomy . com
-Before We are Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects W/ STUDENT CONSULT Online Access
-Gray's Anatomy for Students with STUDENT CONSULT online access
-McMinn's Clinical Atlas of Human Anatomy with DVD

Histology
-Histology: A Text and Atlas with Cell and Molecular Biology w/CD-ROM
-Laboratory & Lecture Notes for Histology and Cell Biology

General
-Stedman's Medical Dictionary for the Health Professions and Nursing
-Basic Life Support for Healthcare Providers

I also received a surprise present in the mail from SGU yesterday:



You probably can't read it, but on the card is says 'With Compliments of..". I nearing burst out laughing at this. Complementary? Seriously? What, complementary with your quarter of million dollar tuition fees we'd like to give you this five dollar case and luggage tag.

Ok, can you tell that I had my loan counseling this morning? I'm going to be in debt a looong time. But it will be worth it! And I actually was pretty happy to get the important paper holder and the nifty SGU luggage tag. Kinda cute really. :)

Oh, and case anyone cares now several people a day comment on my massively bruised arm. Heh. Who's the wimp now? Huh?
Ok. Me.

Listening to: 夜桜四重奏 op/ed

I look like a junkie

Ok, not really. But I have this approximately four inch long bruise tracing a vein on my elbow that is getting more and more nasty looking as the days pass. V_V The sacrifices I've made to go to medical school! Read: getting blood drawn so titers can be run for MMR and varicella. Unfortunately me trying to look cute and claim innocently that I really, really did remember having chicken pox wasn't quite enough to free me from SGU's annoying 'we must have titers, immunization records aren't enough' policy. *sigh* Luckily for me it didn't hurt when the girl who drew my blood (obviously in hindsight) punctured through the vein multiple times. *grin* No wonder she gave me a strange look when I complemented her draw. She probably knew that she screwed it up. Hmph. Although, maybe it did hurt and I just didn't notice since I was too busy trying to act cool and unconcerned while cranking my ipod up so loud that I didn't hear her tell me I could stop squeezing the ball like a maniac. If you haven't picked up on this so far I really really don't like having my blood drawn. Causes me stress. I'm planning on skipping that day of medical school. I wonder if I can get away with that?

Oh man. I've now done what I never should have done. Used my blog to whine about things that people around me are sick of hearing about.

Me: "Look at my bruise! It's getting worse!" *points to bruise*
Others: "Yes, it will get darker before it goes away." <--poorly suppressing obvious annoyance at my total and complete state of whimpy-ness Hmm. Oh well. It's not like I'm actually forcing anyone to read this. And probably no one is reading it anyways. hehe Please refer to below Pearls Before Swine comic. I'm pretty amazed at how fast the days until I leave for Grenada are slipping by. And how much less I'm caring about things here and shifting more and more towards thinking about medical school. All of a sudden the priority of the day is getting to the post office so I can mail something to Bay Shore whereas just a not so short time ago I was on a completely different plane of thought. Oh! I found out my roommate information! I've contacted her and I'm relieved to say that she seems very nice. I'm looking forward to meeting my new cell mate, er, roommate. But seriously, have you seen pictures of the dorms we'll be living in?? Ok, you probably haven't. But they can be summed up as follows: postage stamp.
So having a amiable roommate seems to be fairly essential to not going stark raving mad while studying 26 hours a day. No I haven't lost it - I've just been watching too much DS9 lately. ^_^

Listening to: マクロスF O.S.T.2 娘トラ

Funny

Ok, this has nothing to do with SGU or really anything else....but it's really hilarious. And I promise not to have too many posts that consist solely of a comic strip.

My SGU

Ok, this just makes me happy:


I now have access to my SGU e-mail account! The above banner is from that page. See Nic, pictures as promised! Hope this is short enough to keep your attention. *snicker*

Official!

My leaving for Grenada is getting more and more 'official' every day. SGU has now officially taken their first $1,000 from me. Let's all take a moment to reflect on this historic occasion. I have now started my payments for my medical education. And I will no doubt finish paying in about thirty years! It will be worth it though, the benefits far succeed the cost.
I still need to submit my scholarship application - hey it's worth a try right? - and all the other miscellaneous paperwork. One of which is my white coat order form! My happiness over this no doubt labels me a complete nerd. But hey, when you've made a profession out of applying to medical school, actually getting to do all the little things leading up to matriculating are just that little bit more wonderful.
I would also like to note and send out a sheepish apology to all my poor co-workers here in the lab who, I think, are really tired of hearing me pontificate on the island of grenada and how I'm soon going to be studying on a tropical island etc. Sorry guys!!
Funny story. So, I went shopping for school clothes yesterday (read: a swimsuit) with my sister.

Me: "So, I bet you don't have much business in the winter here?"
Saleslady: "Not really, but for some reason, we're open."
Me: "I'm moving to the Caribbean in January to go to medical school" <--I still inexplicably feel the need to tell this to anyone who will listen
Saleslady: "Really?? That's so cool!"
Me: "Ha ha, yeah, all my friends kind of want to kill me for getting to move to an island to study."
Sister: "Yeah, I'm her sister and _I_ kind of want to kill her."
Saleslady: "Wow, now I kind of want to kill her too."
Me: .... o.o "How sweet, everyone wants to kill me..." *edges away*

Hmm...reality maybe? Nah!

I could be mistaken but I do belive that reality has slowly started to sink in. Not quite yet, but it's at least knocking quietly on the door. I'm still doing my best to ignore it and get my hair washed and dressed on time to get to reality.

That said, I have a fairly massive amount of things to accomplish

And I was thinking it would be nice to have a little note at the end of each post with what I'm currently listening too. I've seen others do this and since music and mood is so very intertwined for me it should at least make the posts more interesting for me when I go back and read them later. And what's more important than that? Especially since I still haven't given this address to anyone so I'm the only reader of my blog. *grin* Even just looking at the last few (aka, me going from 'waitlisted' --> accepted) has demonstrated such a dramatic change in attitude. For one, I'm much more mellow now. Things that would annoy me a week ago now only draw an indulgent smile.


...which is kind of creepy I think for my family is has become somewhat tolerant of my mood swings as of late and now that I've just achieved an almost cat in the sun contentment they aren't quite sure what to make of me. ^_^ I live to confuse those around me. Ok, maybe not, but if I pretend that I'm deliberately causing the strange looks I so often engender that sounds better right?

Back to things I have to do. I've start eating away at the edges of my list(s) and started making even more lists. I already have three. One of them consists of random useful posts that I've found on valuemd. ValueMD has done such a wonderful job of giving me what I hope is a pretty good picture of what to expect of SGU and Grenada. For that, I'm infinitely grateful to those that post on the site. I even de-lurked myself after months of lurking to start posting myself. I think that it's the very least I can do and maybe a post or two of mine will be helpful to others.

So. Things that I have accomplished towards getting my sorry self to medical school:

PLANE TICKET!! It's really very official now that I have a plane ticket bought as of today. I'm taking a somewhat twisty route to the island but I consider myself as lucky since I'll be flying American Airlines and will not be stopping on any other island inbetween the good old US of A and Grenada. I'm flying to Tampa and then to Miami and then off to GND on the 2171 flight on the 13th of January. Official!!

Electronics and electronic related things: Camera! My wonderful father bought me a nice digital camera today. !! So I've been playing with that today. I'll admit to not knowing a terrible amount about cameras and photography in general but I really enjoy taking nature pictures (birds, birds and scenery) and the camera I have has a nice 10x zoom capability which makes me happy. Because birds always have tendency to fly away when you try to sneak up on them. Imagine that.

I also got a case for my new awseome laptop which has a massive screen so there weren't a whole slew of choices. But I'm happy with the one we found. My goal was to find one that wasn't so massive that I'd be cursing it in airports. >.>'

Let's see, I also spend many, many hours over the last few days combing through valuemd and random blogs from current sgu students. Ostentatiously to make lists of important things to bring.

I really need to re-join reality though and get on the ball with things at work. I have so many experiments I want to get done, paper/abstract like things to get written and clinical related things to square away and exhaustively document. And maybe, if HR manages to be competent, a replacement to train. All in the period of a month and a half, give or take a few days. Hmm, who here sees many weekends spent in the lab in my future? I wouldn't have it any other way though. I'm seriously going to miss my lab home.

But I'm trying not to allow myself to fall too much into prematurely missing places and people. Othwerwise I'll just spend the next month semi-depressed. If you know me you know that I don't do change well. Remember that Hershey's commercial? "CHANGE IS BAD" That sort of summarizes my view on life. And somehow, I think that leaving my friends and family and going to another country to study medicine probably ranks in the 'change' category. Maybe.

On that note I believe I'll go back to my list making. Till later!

*listening to: ヴァンパイア騎士Guilty　輪廻 -ロンド-and 砂のお城 as well as 東京 et 巴里 from のだめカンたービル. Oh, and I also found out that the opening theme of House, MD is actually off of a song by a group called Massive Attack. I heard it when I was rock climbing with my sister the other day and was mildly freaked out by actually recognizing a song on the radio. I, of course, immediately had to download it from apple's iTunes store thingy. Which occasionally proves to be useful the rare times when I actually want to find an english song.

I'm In!!

My Soon To Be Home:


Accepted!!! One of the most wonderful words in the english language. ^_^ No doubt the happiness will wear off in a few days when it really hits exactly how much I have to accomplish before January but for now I'm just basking in the acceptance glow.

すごく嬉しい！！ようやく医者になれるわよ！夢みたい～

The Universe Sure Showed Me

Well, the universe sure showed me. I was, apparently, getting a little too sure of myself. A kick seemed to be in order. A kick while I was down because I dared to think I might soon be able to get up. And not even to my feet mind you, just to my knees.

Waitlisted.

At SGU. And the waitlist just started yesterday. Talk about your terrible timing. So, if I had my application turned in a week earlier then I'd be dancing around happily right now? Is that what you're trying to tell me universe?

I cannot tell you just how bad I want to be in medical school right now. It's....pretty amazing really that I manage to go to work every day and not jump the next obnoxious looking med student I see walking down the halls. And by 'jump' I mean grab the nearest object and begin stabbing the crap out of someone while screeching incoherently about GPA and MCAT scores and how they aren't good indicators of how good a physician you'll be. I'm pretty weak though, truth to be told, so I now doubt have the crap kicked out of me. And I'd probably get fired. And then what would I do with my time? It would be scary. Ooh, maybe I could create a time machine so I could go back in time and beat up myself from the past.
"Oh, hello, why aren't you studying?!?!?! You are ruining your life you idiot!!!"

At any rate, I'm somewhat hopeful (but still full of plenty of despair dai maou sama) that since the list was just started that I'll have a good chance of getting off it. My admin counselor person told me today that once they sort out who is going to go to the GSP (bleh, not me) they will create a ranked waitlist. *crosses fingers* Here is hoping that happens soon and that I'm on or near the top.
おねがい、おねがい、おねがい！
Ah, I suppose that now would be a good time to mention that there will be a significant amount of Nihongo (Japanese for you non-asian aware people) in this blog because I often times think, talk and curse in Nihongo. Don't worry though, if it's something particularly interesting I'll probably type it out in both languages. Not that anyone cares at this point since no one is reading this but me at the moment! Yay, online journal. だっさい～

Inagural Post

Hello all (well, no one at this point). I've decided to start a blog to keep people updated as to where and what I'm doing while in medical school since I will no doubt be very short of free time to e-mail and talk to everyone on a daily basis. Although I'm also fairly sure my posting frequency will be erratic at best. ^_^

I'm currently counting my chickens before they have hatched. So far, I've counted...hmm, ballpark figure here.... one. And that chicken's name is St. George's University (SGU). Otherwise known as the Harvard Medical School of the Caribbean. And since the real Harvard Medical School (along with pretty much every other med school in the great United States) rejected me I'm attempting to leave the country! ...hopefully. Hence, the chicken counting comment. I haven't actually been accepted yet. But I'm hopeful! Veeery hopeful. My admissions counselor expects decisions by tomorrow. So I'm anxious to get things rolling. Hence this blog. I predict my high blogging moments will occur during moments of extreme boredom and moments of extreme panic. Because blogging seems like an absolutely excellent way to procrastinate. And if you know me even a little bit you are aware of my propensity for procrastination.

At any rate, I've now created a blog (something I always swore never to do). Yay! Go me. If you'll excuse me, I have to go back to poking my chicken egg. I think I hear cheeping.