Sigh....so i have a bad case of senioritis.  I had a major Psychiatry exam today and had to cram it all in last night....except the prof's suck and somehow came up with almost 50 different patient scenarios for us to "treat".  First of all, learning about the psych disease states...not so bad...except for the way the teacher teaches it.  "According to the DSM IV TR....in order to have major depression, patient must present with.................and lists like 10 criteria....which we must memorize".  but fine...whatever...kind of interesting.

Now, learning the drugs that treat them....NOT SO FUN.  They all pretty much work on the same few receptors....but each drugs works on a different combination of those few receptors.  Not only that, most of them work on OTHER receptors (which is why you get side effects).  So, we had to basically memorize which receptors each drug worked on (nearly impossible unless you had no life).....in order to figure out which agent to use....because since they each work on a different combo of receptors, they have different side effects.  okay..in addition, they're all metabolized by different mechanisms.....we have to know that to, because that's what determines drug interactions....again, impossible to memorize unless you had no life.

So that's the way it was taught...the prof listed the diagnostic critera...the basically just rattled off all that trivia type information...and that was it (not to mention, not one single lecture in the module was taught completely...the profs always ran out of time at the end).  Our exams however, are structured so that we are presented with a patient...and using everything we know about the drugs and the patient, we have to choose the correct one.  And that's fine....BUT....with previous modules, they would at least incorporate practice cases into the lecture, so that we could recognize some key patterns/important points.  Because there are a lot of things that you pick up through practice...not necessarily through just memorizing the textbook.  A lot of drugs look alike on paper...like their efficacy and safety profiles are similar....and it's only through practice that you learn which is better in which types of patients. 

So i was shocked that they had come up with nearly 50 different psych scenarios.....yet in class, we did not even go through ONE single case.  So i'm sitting there with absolutely not clue what to use because a lot of times there were a couple of choices that were equal on paper.  there were obvious wrong choices...but there were always a couple that sounded reasonable for each question (and there's only one right answer).  And none of us students had enough real life experience to know which was the better choice.

Prof's like that really piss me off....it's almost like they forget that we're learning this stuff for the first time....and they expect us to have the same experiential knowledge as them.

And i guess part of it is my fault...i COULD just sit at home and memorize all that stuff...even though in real life, people look that stuff up.......but it's my last academic semester....and i'm tired.

I'm sooooo sad about sasha cohen....i am such a HUUUUUUUUUUUGE HUUUUUUUUUUUUGE sasha cohen fan....even before the last olympics when everyone was rooting for michelle kwan, i was rooting for sasha cohen.  I think she is just so breathtakingly beautiful on the ice.  I don't really watch figure skating for the jumps....i watch for the artistry...and sasha's artistry can't be beat by anyone.  Not to knock michelle kwan, but everyone says how graceful and artistic she is on the ice.....that was developed...not really natural artistic ability.  Just compare michelle kwan when she was 17 and sasha cohen 4 years ago when she was 17....  Sasha was born with that natural musicality.......much like kristy yamaguchi. 

It's okay sasha.....you can still go to another olympics if you want!!!!

this is very random but i must say, there are very few thing more delicious than breakfast foods.  i LOOOVE breakfast foods.  Every morning that i don't have an early class, i make myself some eggs, 3+ slices of bacon and either tater tots or hash brown.  Sometimes i'll slice a tomato and eat that too. Oh, and of course, there's the mandatory cup of tea.

Yes yes....probably killer on my arteries...but that last time i checked, my cholesterol was EXCELLENT (physician even put a smiley face next to my numbers in my chart). My LDL's are at 62....which is pretty good...i don't even know how i do that.  I think it's from my mom, whose lipid profile is even BETTER than mine....but then again, she doesn't eat eggs and bacon almost every day of the week.  But whatever....i LOVE LOVE LOVE bacon and eggs and potatos and tea.  ANd throw in a couple of belgian waffles with whipped cream and fruit....yummmmmmmmmmmmm....Such a GREAT combination.

Anyhow, for my ethics class, we have to hand in HW based on the stupid readings.  ANd so i handwrite them because i don't like wasting my own ink and i don't get up early enough to be able to print it out at school.  So....the last homework, i see that the prof has scribbled something on top.  But I couldn't read it...so with the help of my friend, we finally decipher it through squinting/holding paper far away then close to our faces...etc.  So, turns out, what he wrote was, "Your handwriting is too difficult to read.  Please type your HW from now on.  Thanks". HAHAHAHAHAHAHA....aaaaah the irony.

I am back from my first snowboarding experience....and I you guys are lucky i can actually move my fingers to type.....getting my arm up to keyboard level was quite a feat.  I am ALL sorts of sore...in all sorts of places....

BUT...it was fun...and by the end of the first day, i managed to go down the greens ONCE without falling.  And the second day was good....i finally like i got the FEEL of it....managed to go down the greens doing all heelside curves.  Falling was pretty rare on day 2....except on my last run, when i caught an edge while going over a huge patch of ice....hahahaha.  i slid face down for about 10 feet with my feet up in the air...i looked like a beached whale.  I think that was my worst one............aside from my multiple attempts to get off the lift gracefully. hahahahaha.

The conditions were pretty horrid from waht i hear.  It had rained and the day after, the temps had dropped below zero...and they didn't really make enough snow to cover the ice.  So there were really really large patches of ice...like over half the mountain was ice....

day 1 was really frustrating because i knew theoretically what i was supposed to be doing....but getting my body to obey...and finding that balance point when you're on your heels/toes took some time.  i have yet to perfect my toe side...i was afraid of going downhill backwards....there were a lot of little kids on the mountain this weekend.

ANd i totally understand why skiiers hate snowboarders now....hahahahah after i unknowingly cut off several skiers.....you just can't see them....the best i could offer was screaming SORRYYYY over my shoulder.

chrissy's up here...she's going snowboarding with me and my coworkers up in NH this weekend.  My very first time snowboarding......i'm excited, but scared at the same time.  The last time i did a snow sport was when i went skiiing at the age of like 7...and i never made it past the bunny slope.  So i fully intend to take classes with my fellow beginners even though my classmates will probably be like 5 years old and wondering why this old grandma is standing next to them. 

woah....today was scary.....i pretty much passed out in school.  I ate these kind of old cookies really quickly for breakfast....and i guess it must have not reacted well with me because as i was walking to school, my stomach started hurting.  ANdi was like whatever...but by the end of the meeting, i started feeling really nauseous too.  And so i got up and wanted to hurry home so i could puke....but then all of a sudden, i couldn't see anything (this is happened to me before....once when i was really drunk...and another time when i got food poisoning......everything just turns white...and i can't see anything at all). 

So i knew i was next to a pole, so i kind of casually leaned against the pole and pretended i was waiting for someone.  And waited for it to pass.  And a minute later, it passed.  ANd i started walking again, and everything started turning white again.  So i managed to grope my way to a chair and i just sat there with my eyes closed for 15 minutes.  I never passed out...but i coudln't see anything OR hear anything except for my own breathing.  And this whole time my stomach is hurting and i still feel nauseous.  Finally, it passes long enough for me to make it to the bathroom, where i puke....and sit on the toilet for another 15 minutes (the blindness started again while i walked to the bathroom).

And finally, i started on my way out....and i knew my walk home would be 10 minutes...and thus far, i hadn't been able to make it more than 1 minute without the blindness hitting.  SO i just sat in a chair and closed my eyes and said the Lord's prayer over and over again until my stomach didn't hurt anymore and my head did't feel weird.  And when i felt okay, it was 30 minutes later....and i got up slowly and walked home....no blindness.

So i still feel nauseous and my head feels really fuzzy.  I'm guessing all my blood went into my digestive tract to fight the bad stuff and i just bottomed out a little.

It was VERY scary....i am throwing out those cookies RIGHT NOW.

on today's agenda: chocolate chip cookie sandwiches with hazelnut chololate cream filling (AKA Nutella hahahaha)...

But i am terrible when it comes to waiting for my stuff to bake in the
oven...i am always openning the oven door and peeking.....

Can anyone recommend a good sparkling wine?!!! i like it SWEET... i
can't handle anything dry at all.  I've had veuve cliquot yellow
label...it was pretty good....but still too dry for me....has anyone
tried their demi sec?

*EDIT* See protected

aaw man, we only got a foot of snow up here...i was expecting to get
at LEAST what the New Yorkers got because that's usually the
case.  So yes...we had school today...a foot of snow is nothing up
here.....we needed at LEAST two for a chance of school closing.

ARGH...that heavy band of snow was JUST south of boston the entire
storm....so they got a lot...i was watching the radar the entire storm
going move UP move UP.  But it never did. 

So i had to get up this morning for my ethics class.  the prof
got annoyed with us because nobody was challenging him....and in
ethics/philosophy world, it's a sign of respect if you challenge
someone...because that means you think he's smart enough to handle
it.  SO we're not asking questions, because frankly, we don't
care.  I don't see the point of arguing ethics using someone
else's idea of ethics.  I think your ethics are YOUR
ethics....you're not going to make decisions based on some dead
philosopher's theories.

So in spirit of this little blizzard, i will post pics of Bundchen's first enounter with snow...he loved eating it!:

And look what this crazy animal does at night...he loves to gather
all the little sawdust and put it in one corner so he can have a nice
plush bed to sleep in.  Crazy hamster:

OH....and best line from Grey's Anatomy yesterday:
Bailey: O'MALLEY, stop looking at my va-jay-jay!!!! 

HAHAHAHAHA...i'm glad this DRAMATIC part is over....hopefully now they'll go back to being flippant and funny.

SNOW!!!!!!!! Our first nor'easter of the year....in mid
february....i'll take that!  Considering last year, we had already
had several.

What would make it even better is if they'll close school tomorrow....i
have an exam that i would rather not take....plus my ethics
class..hahaha.  16" is a lot! close the freakin school.

ok...for those of you who make home made sushi.....................where do you get your fish from?  ANd how do you know if it's fresh enough to eat raw?  I know how to pick out fresh fish in general...but how fresh does it have to be? i'm scared....but i want some! hahahaha