finished anatomy!

hello all,

i hope life is good for everyone back at home. i miss you all dearly and can’t wait to get back for winter break. looks like winter is starting to roll out here in Columbus- it snowed a little bit this morning!

Things I’m doing to brace for the winter:

ordered 3 pairs of long johns
staying indoors as much as possible

but i still need:

boots (size 9-10 depending on the brand)
scarves
GLOVES (very important)
donations accepted, will give free healthcare in return

i think i’m going to stick with this church –> http://www.northpointebaptist.org/
solid theology
doctrinally informed music
it’s a nice small size with a good number of people around my age
sure it’s 30 minutes away but i think it will be worth it! thanks for praying for me guys.

cool story from about a month ago
it’s 3am and it’s the night before my 2nd anatomy exam. this exam was particularly difficult because it covered an unusually large amount of material: lower limbs, pelvis/perineum, abdomen, thorax and embryology. I’ve never studied so much for any test (probably more for this test than for my MCAT). Anyways, I’m about to sleep and I asked God to humble me because I felt like I was short changing my time with Him and studying with the wrong motives. I fall asleep and wake up the next morning really refreshed (too refreshed considering I slept close 4am) and I noticed it was bright outside (too bright considering that it should be 7:30am). then with great dread, i slowly turned to my phone and saw that it was 9am, it has already been an hour into my exam. So I threw on some clothes, I think, well I threw on something and sprinted to school like Usain Bolt doing a 100m. Sometimes God answers prayers very fast.

Well I get to the testing center (9:04am), I have to wait for the slow poke proctor to get permission for me to take the test (9:10am!!) then I eventually set up my computer, logged in and started around 9:15am. Finished the test in half the time without checking my answers. Then zoomed to do my practical exam a couple blocks away.

The aftermath. I did okay on the test, but needless to say, I did not do nearly as well as I would have liked (especially considering the ridiculous amount of studying I put into it). I feel like God gave me enough points to pass but took away all the points that came from my self-motivated studies. Awesome yeah? AND I got this twitch on my left eye from that month of studies and comes back once in a while to remind me who I’m studying for. Not as awesome, but necessary I guess.

What else. Oh yes, I chose the ISP curriculum pathway.

What is it: no lectures, no mandatory small groups, no rigid test dates, study at your own pace (alone or in small groups) with course modules (packets of information)

Why it is cool: schedule your own test dates, get a head to finish med school early, take an early vacation (cheaper plane tickets) and come back later, prepares me for a career that requires self-learning, you get your own personal cubicle and cubby and 1cent printing! also frees up lots of time for extracurriculars and more time to study for boards!

Why it is risky: VERY easy to fall behind if not disciplined, the smarties do this pathway = harder for me to do well, there will “always be something to study for” = can become hermit

anyways. i gotta get going. take care everyone!

miss you buddy

david

Finally!

Hey guys,

I can’t believe that it has already been almost two months. It really feels like I only left last week which is funny because I kept SD the same in my mind when I left it. So I think Batman is still breaking box office records, Kathy just got engaged and the Czech missions team is still away. Weird huh.

Well I hope you’re all doing well. Life in Columbus has been relatively exciting. I guess Ill just mention some highlights.

White coat ceremony:
It’s true what they say about it. It’s a very self congratulatory, ego stroking, time to toot my own horn, man centered ritual. But man, I loved every mimute of it. The best part was when all these old fart docs and our parents gave us an hour long standing ovation.

And look they put me on their website! The other picture is of me with is with the president of all of Osu. Well, that’s what he told me at least. hopefully he isn’t some random dude that lied.( note all my pictures are at the bottom- iPhone wordpress is very limited)

Broken camera: I was taking pictures of my white coat after the ceremony.( I know, it was very vain thing to.) And in my excitement I dropped my camera. But it’s okay I thought. ill just use my quick reflexes to break the fall by sticking out my leg. That motion actually ended up being a deadly sidekick and hit my camera even herder into the ground.

Cost to fix:100
Cost to buy: 150

My bike: So I went to a shady part of town to buy a cheap used bike. The store was cleverly called “third hand bicycle co-op” and it sells broken and stolen(probably) bikes. Barely made it out of that area with my life but got this awesome purple bike made for a 6th grader for 30 bucks. Went to target and bought a novelty horn, a bike lock, and even a pump.

Then it got stolen after one week. I bet it’s back at that bike shop I got it from.

School:
I love anatomy. Sure it’s a lot of memorization and it’s probably not so useful unless I become a surgeon. But it’s really interesting looking at all the detail God put into making us AND u get to sound super smart talking about all those Latin and Greek body part names.

Some of the fonder memories include the time I got to pull out our cadaver’s heart (fatality! Haha) but some memories are a little disturbing. Like I’ll probably never forget the time we had to cut up the pubic region or accidently cutting the colon and seeing all the poo come out…and I hear we are going to decapitate him when we study the head and neck… :/

Well, I hope the cadaver doesn’t MIND it hahaha. But we’re doing that next month so I’m getting aHEAD of myself harharhar…- ok ok no more. I’ll CUT it out. sorry that was the last one. it’s almoat 3am right now- be nice.

Another class im taking is called Caps and it is a course that trains you on how to take a history from a patient using paid actors. That’s been really fun too except my patients have been horrible actors. Over the top scratching if it’s a rash. Over the top temple massaging if it’s a headache… Hard to take them seriously and I’m about to bust out laughing at any given point in time. Can’t do that in real life, gotta work on being serious. Time to grow up :/.

No power: that hurricane from Texas sent some crazy winds to Columbus and knocked power out of about half the city. I was in the dark half of course and what made it worse was that I sleep on an elevated bed with a body length mirror next to it. That set up plus my iPhone light app flashing over the mirror for a view under the bed in pitch darkness begs the ring girl to come out and kill me. She didn’t, which was really nice of her.

Friends:

It’s fun meeting new people but I feel like I’m not really myself most the time. Like I’m synthesizing this extorvertesness im not really used to. But it hasn’t been without its benefits- I get the feeling that people think I’m cool when I’m really just average. Don’t know how much longer I can keep this persona up before I slip up saying something nerdy like “I read naruto manga.” whatever. God thinks I’m cool and my mom thinks I’m cool.

Church search: went to a masters affiliated church last Sunday. The head pastor was a younger dude and knew of pastor pat during seminary only because pat would hold up the entire class with his questions at the end of lecture. Apparently pat sat at the front row too. Nerd! Haha.

On a more serious note the search has been a bit harder than I thought it would be. Lighthouse set the bar really high :/ in a good way. I’m glad the membership covenant gives me a year to look .

Thanks for your prayers! Good night. I’ll try to update with less fluff next time.

Stanley

hi from ohio

hello ladies and gentleman. no more xanga, because that to me represents a different chapter in my life. almost did blogspot but there’s a neat wordpress app for my phone. wordpress wins!

anyways, i thought it would be neat to document my time out here at OSU. i want this blog to be sort of like a window into my life as i trek through medical school. you can expect the content on here to be on anything ranging from stupid to serious. this is going to be lots of fun- hopefully i’ll follow through with this for all 4 years. i hope this isn’t my last entry.

since this is already like my what… 4th day here? i’ll just highlight some of things that have already been going on in my life.

the move in:

wind the clocks back a couple months and you will find me meticulously scouring craig’s list for cheapest housing. even though housing is cheap everywhere compared to cali, i figure i should i find as many ways as i can to keep my million dollar tuition debt under control.

so the description for this place was only given to me in text, no pictures. it offered a single bedroom for $350/mo including utilities. AND it’s right next to campus- i can roll out of bed throw on my clothes while going down the stairs, spit the Listerine into the trash can outside the lecture hall and be in class all within 5 minutes.

good deal right? well little did i know that my trip to columbus was also going to be a trip back in time to the colonial days. my house is like 2000 years old and i don’t’ know how it’s still standing apart from supernatural intervention. the interior wasn’t too impressive either and i had to spend 2 days cleaning up my room and all my civil war furniture.

anyways after the initial shock and some hardcore cleaning, my room feels and looks much better. i think im finally adjusting to my new life out here- just trying to keep a positive attitude about things. =)

home?

george washington’s table

surviving:

i don’t get internet in my room or on campus yet so thank God for full 3g network bars, gps, google maps/search to help me find food, water and shampoo.

otherwise i would not be alive today writing this entry. i would be dead, with oily hair.

demographic:

as expected, there are hardly any asians out here. and the ones that are here are super ^_^V

i find a lot of people looking at me. i guess i stand out that much? i like to think it must be those good looks mommy gave me harhar…

social life:

friend count= 0.0548

this accounts for the ID badge lady i made laugh and the panda express cashier who was there both times i ate there.

but do keep in mind that this is just a conservative estimate as of now, i mean, i didn’t even add Jim my landlord and my iPhone so it really should be like 1.75.

RPAC (OSU’s main gym):

RIMAC’s angry man-ogre mutant brother raised by grizzly bears. this ginormous place must have it’s own president, flag and national anthem because it took me the whole day to see the entire place.

RPAC is like one of those flagship gyms they use to shoot TV commercials and you have to already be super fit and buff before you’re allowed to enter. a works-based system at the OSU gym, this school is theologically backwards. i mean even the front desk attendant at the entrance sized me up and instead of respecting my athletic prowess, gave me this shameful visitor’s pass- this lame orange laminated tag with ‘visitor’ written on it. anyways, she kindly informed me that i wasn’t allowed to work out because of my attire, but by ‘attire’ i think she meant ‘fails to meet minimum bicep circumference.’

i didn’t want to blow things out of proportion but this was a great offense, so made a mental note to 360 piledriver her on my way back out. jk i would never.

here’s a picture from the outside. needless to say it was a scorching hot day. look at the size of that sun.

there’s even a mini water playground!

final thoughts:

i need accountability through a local church! maybe i’ll find it here. I’m checking it out tomorrow! What else, next week is orientation! Time to get my white coat! =)

More pictures and updates coming soon. Miss you guys a lot!

stanley

note: wrote this yesterday just forgot to post it. church… was …different. more on it later!