bowlathon

For some reason, I never ended up posting this, so here it is now! In all kinds of weird tenses because I wrote it…last April. As in 2013. I’m cool.

At the end of Endocrine, our school held a bowl-a-thon to raise money for the Talia Seidman Foundation, which helps kids who can’t go to school due to medical conditions by giving them ways to still participate in their education/still have the social experience as well. There was a prize for the best team costume, and since we finalized our “team” the other day (Monday), we brainstormed some ideas.

F: We’re dressing up as emo kids for this bowling thing we’re doing on Thursday. It’s gonna be wonderful. D:
N: lolwhaat.

Other ideas included 80’s-themed since Adam has enough of that to clothe us all, or just whatever sport we used to do…but Mike used to wrestle and didn’t want to spring that on people (“I would do that in a city where I knew I’d never see these people again. But I’m going to have to see everyone the next day, and I don’t think this town is ready for that yet.”)

Adam is a cyclist, so his clothing would be very much the same.

I’d basically have a choice between a leotard (I didn’t bring any of mine here because, let’s face it, what reason would there have been to bring it?) or uh, pole dance clothing, so how about no.

So we decided to be emo kids. (Mike’s idea.)

As it turned out, however, Mike decided to ditch our team to join another one. To be fair, he did call to ask if we’d mind, since the other team needed a 4th person to be considered a team, but we had a lot of fun giving them crap/trash-talking them when we got there.

M: Hey! I like the look!
F: Whatever, traitor.
M: But you said it’d be okay.
S: Hey, Judas. Was your team’s costume theme to dress up like douchebags?

It was highly amusing since our entire team consists of HBLers, which meant that a number of the people there basically never see us. There were definitely several people who gave us double/triple-takes. (I think they thought we dressed/acted like this on a regular basis.)

I wanted to document the fact that I managed to bowl a strike (two, actually, but one piece of pictorial evidence is enough) and the machine didn’t shut down on me. (True facts. The only other time I ever bowled a strike was in 2008, where the machine promptly decided that all was not right in the world and spontaneously murdered itself, thus taking with it the only evidence that proved that I was capable of bowling a strike.)

In case you couldn’t tell, we suck at bowling.

On the offchance that you need more proof, these are our final scores (somewhat blurry). Notice that my score is the highest and doesn’t even break 100. We’re awesome.

But you know what? None of that matters. We won the costume contest and got $50 to go stuff our faces with sushi (or whatever we wanted to order there). :D Mike’s team won for highest overall score (their team won bowling pins, so I’m pretty happy that we were rewarded more for creativity than for actual skill, haha).

Victory is sweet.

head to toe physical exam

We had our complete head-to-toe physical exam on Tuesday. It was by far the least stressful clinical skills practical I’ve had thus far, which is awesome, because this one was basically our final.

I guess it helped that I went over it with my friend the week before. We went through each page on each other and then did our mockticals with a second year. A couple days later, I met up with him again and we went through the entire thing and graded each other on it. The night before, we dragged one more mutual friend into the mix and went through it one more time. Then I went home and downstairs to Adam’s and we went through verbalizing everything (he “bribed” me with chicken injected with cajun butter, couscous and veggies + a box of Raisin Bran). I put it in quotations because he really didn’t have to bribe me, but it did sweeten the deal. Review plus amazing food? Hells yes!

He gave me the whole pot. :O

Food aside, I think the practical went swimmingly. My standardized patient was super nice, and I basically ended up taking more than 30-ish (the amount of time I’d been taking when going through it with my friend) minutes only because we kept talking. (I hope you can’t get marked down for that. :[ Having legit conversations is good, isn’t it?)

At the end of the physical exam, I wanted to make sure I’d gone through everything I was supposed to without sitting there in silence while my SP sat with me. I’d made a list of all the systems I had to cover and had also scrawled a couple reminders within some of the systems since I had a tendency to forget to do them (e.g. light reflexes for eyes, abduction/adduction of fingers in muscular strength testing).

It went something like this: “Alright, so I believe this concludes your head-to-toe physical exam. I’m just going to run through everything we did really quickly just to make sure I didn’t forget anything, okay?”
S: Okay.
F: Great! So we started by taking your vitals–I got your blood pressure, your heart rate and your respiration rate. Then we moved on to the head and I checked the bones and sinuses. Then on the neck…I did an external inspection and checked for your carotid pulse, for carotid bruits, and…I didn’t palpate for your thyroid gland, so we’re going to do that now!”

lawl.

Then I finished my recap and ended with, “Do you have any questions for me?”
S: Nope, none at all.
F: Alright then! It was great to meet you! I’m going to step out to speak with my attending and we’ll be back to see you. Thank you!
S: Okay, thank you!
F: I hope you have a great rest of the day!

Apparently, my neighbor had the same SP I had, and right after me. During mine, he didn’t write a single thing down (he didn’t bring the sheet out even once :O ), but for him, he marked stuff down every 2-ish things my neighbor did. That made me kindasorta worry, and there was a delay in getting our grades out because they apparently had to rewatch the entire recording for several students (I have a feeling I might have been one of em’). But it all worked out!

I got 100% ;) ;) ;)

This is the first 100% I’ve ever gotten on a clinical skills practical! :D (It’s also the one that’s been worth the most thus far. :] happy times!)

S’mores

So despite it looking like it can’t be done, making s’mores with chocolate chips and mini marshmallows can indeed be accomplished. :O You just can’t really…roast them. >_>

S’mores

Ingredients:
-graham crackers
-chocolate chips
-mini marshmallows

Instructions:
1) On a piece of aluminum foil, break graham crackers into squares. Add several chocolate chips onto each bottom cracker.
2) Mash several mini marshmallows into a big marshmallow. Lay it over the chocolate chips. Top with another graham cracker.
3) Put foil holding the s’mores onto the grill and leave it there until the chocolate/marshmallows start to melt. (I’m pretty sure you can do this in the microwave too. >_> )

it’s april

It’s supposedly April.

And yet this happened on Thursday.

What is the meaning of this madness?

And…two days later, this is how it looked:

My friend/adopted-mentor and I were going to go biking yesterday, but on account of the wonderful snow we got hit with on Thursday (and the fact that I don’t have a bike rack/he accidentally locked his keys in his car), we ended up taking his dog out to the Greenbrier River trail. I thinkkk we walked 7 miles or so. Winston had a hell of a lot of fun finding gigantic sticks to run around with, chasing squirrels, romping around and exploring the world. I wish I’d taken a picture of him! He was the poster child for happiness, and we were happy to just have sunlight in our lives again. It was such a beautiful day!

I’m doing a happy dance on the inside. Limbs crossed for this weather to stay.

Afterward, I went off to my neighbor’s place since he was having a spontaneous cookout and we hung out for a while. Dustin and Adam act kinda like my two additional older brothers, so when they found out that I’d spent half the day with aforementioned friend, the conversation went something like this:
A: Oh, new boyfriend, huh?
F: What? No.
D: Really now. Do we know this guy?
A: Do we need to give him the safe talk?
D: Because we’ll do it.
E: Safe talk?
F: Just ignore them and they’ll go away. :[

They also gave me all kinds of shit for bringing over mini marshmallows and chocolate chips to make s’mores (I had chocolate chips already so I figured I’d get little marshmallows to go with them; in short, I wasn’t thinking), but they turned out fine!

payback

I was going to call it revenge, but that sounds a little too extreme. Ever since my study buddy and I divorced (don’t worry, nothing catastrophic happened; we’re still friends and we still trade food [more accurately, he still gives me food]/notes and hang out/talk regularly–it’s just that I really can’t function without sleep and he’s divvied up the work with someone else/I didn’t want to intrude), I’ve had a lot more free time on my hands, especially in the sense that I don’t ever feel like I need to be home by a certain hour. Technically speaking, even before, I wouldn’t have had to since my neighbor never sleeps anyway, but still, I just feel like there’s just something very abnormal about going downstairs at 2 a.m. to study through the night, haha. With this new-found “free time,” I’ve been hanging out with my other friends more (and studying more at school because again, who wants to pay for more electricity?).

After a gym session the other night, I was headed back to the catacombs and two of my friends were going out for pizza. I should mention that I constantly give them crap about driving to different parking lots to repark their cars for “efficiency.” In any case, Mike drove from the gym to the catacombs (a distance of perhaps 60 feet, but he claims this is more efficient) to pick something up and left his car running, so I ran and dove into the truck bed and curled up until he came out again (at which point I leaped out at him). Although I did not get him to scream like a little girl as I’d hoped, he did give a surprised yell, so still better than nothing.

We also gathered for a last run-through of the complete head-to-toe exam on Sunday evening and many awkward-hilarious comments were exchanged.

The best of the bunch was probably, “I’m going to come in your eye.”

F/I: …What?
I: Mike, that’s horribly inconsiderate.
M: No! I meant look inside your eye!
F: Not sayin’ a word.
I: Really, Mike, that’s horrible. You don’t say things like that to people. Her eyes? Really?
M: No!!! I didn’t mean it like that!
F: That would really hurt, just sayin’.
M: Augh!!!

We’ve been doing a pretty healthy amount of ripping on each other (all in good fun, of course). They were making fun of the fact that I was ticklish yesterday since they were trying to palpate for my liver and my aorta during the abdomen portion of the physical exam.
M: Palpating for her liver is impossible. I can’t tell where her ribcage ends.
F: Yeah, apparently, I have a really long ribcage. I found out the other day. :[
I: Yeah, and if only she would stop laughing. Cool it, Farrah!
F: I’m sorry! I’m trying! ;_;
I: I’m not feeling anything other than her 8-pack.
M: Her aorta’s easy though. You just have to start slow and gentle and then go deeper, or her six-pack gets in the way and punches you in the face.
F: Thanks, guys.

For the record, I don’t actually have a 6-pack or an 8-pack (not a visible one, anyway).

We also went over our celebrity lookalikes the other day. Sean’s is Jim Carrey because of the chin. Mike’s is Josh Hartnett, although his features are more defined. I don’t think I really resemble any celebrity, but I’m a fairly biased party, so Sean and Mike looked up a list of Asian actresses and went from there.
S: Her?
M: Nah, Farrah has bigger eyes than that.
S: Maybe her.
M: Maybe. Or Lucy Liu, but I think Farrah’s eyes are bigger.
F: It might just be the picture. We both have freckles, and my eyes are smaller when I smile.
M/S: Wait, right there! Her! I think you look the most like her!

The “her” in question is Gong Li, so I’m pretty darn flattered, to say the least. I don’t think we actually look anything alike other than the fact that we’re both Asian, but hey, I’ll take it! :O