...it depends on who payed for my pizza this week

This is an old entry that I hadn't posted, so here it is now:

Today I attended an ophthalmology interest group. I didn't attend because I was interested in the specialty, but rather because I woke up late and was not able to make a lunch. They served pizza. Having said that, I found myself really interested in the field. Apparently it is easy to make half a million a year and if you wanna work as much as 70 hours a week, it is pretty easy to make over a million. And then as an ophthalmologist you restore people's sight. The field is not very demanding in terms of getting a residency or workload.

Then as I walked away from the meeting, I realized what is happening to me. All these interest groups talk up their professions, and my weekly specialty aspirations are directly related to the weekly interest group I attend. So, yeah, my medical ambition is directly tied to who pays for my pizza on any given week.

Connections

From Fall Colors a...

Yeah, I should totally by studying right now, but I have been neglecting my blog lately, so I thought I would punch out a little entry. Things have been good lately. Granted, I have been studying like mad, but I have been doing it during the day so I can relax with Haley when I get home in the evenings (which is usually around 6:00). On non-test weeks, medical school seems fairly doable. Of course when test weeks roll around, I quickly remember why med school gets such a bad rap for being difficult.

There are lots of different styles and people in medical school...Those that don't go to class and don't study until the week before the test. Some do quite well and others suffer. Then there are those students who go to class in the morning, then go home, take a nap, run errands and study in the evening and on weekends. There are those who don't go to class, use the "notetakers" service and do all independent study and do phenomenally well. I'm rather jealous of them, not because they are more intelligent than I am (which they probably are) but because they seem to put in less work and get more done...it is almost like cheating.

Before these past two weeks, class seemed to be rather useless. I would follow the lectures on my handout and highlight anything that looked as though it could be important. I didn't learn much and when I later would study the handouts, it was as though I was looking at it for the first time. I have now changed gears and try to take extensive notes on my laptop. Not only is lecture now useful, but I am learning the information much faster (and maybe even better).

Anyway, I wasn't going to write so much about school in this entry as I was going to talk about making connections. A military brat, I have moved all my life. I don't usually keep up with my friends as I move from place to place, but I am finding that the internet is making it much easier to do. I recently discovered something that every other college-aged person in America already knows about: www.facebook.com. It is a cool website that allows you to keep up with friends from school. I have found a couple high school friends (who I haven't talked to in over 10 years, partly because my high school no longer exists). Recently, a college friend found me and it randomly turns out that she ended up marrying one of my wife's really good friends growing up. And then it turn out they they are really good friends (again, randomly) with one of my good friends growing up. Yeah, it's a strange and sometimes very small world we live in.

From Fall Colors a...

As long as the title of this entry is "connections" I thought I would complain about how I am going to have to start making connections as I think about why type of medicine I would like to practice. I am trying to focus on getting good grades right now, but I also need to be thinking about meeting people in different fields that interest me so I can figure out how to land a competitive residency spot. It is kind of scary when I think of how little I know about getting into a residency, let along which residency I want to get into. It's kind of frustrating, but hopefully I can learn a thing or two next semester.

The above picture is one of Haley and I this past Sunday.