Dimples, clavicles, and a whole lot of words.

Alright folks. Let's get down to the nitty gritty. As many of you know, life has changed pretty significantly for me in the past few weeks. I started medical school and instead of being bored out of my mind (like I was at Lubrizol), I am so intellectually stimulated that I can't sleep. We'll get to that point later.


So what does a typical day look like? Well, there is no typical day per se. This is what my schedule looks like this week:

The mornings consist of lecture and the afternoon is all labs with the exception of HM 531 which is all about patient interaction stuff. Sometime during the day, I take some "me" time and go to the gym. My time at the gym is probably my favorite time of the day because that's when I'm able to run. It's strange, but I've begun to crave running. Why? Because all day long I feel as though there's a giant weight on my chest and it's a bit harder to breathe than normal. Oftentimes, I have to stop and take a moment to calm myself and breathe deeply to try and rid myself of some negative energy. But when I'm running, my chest opens up, I find my stride, and I can just listen to my music (which has nothing to do with medicine), and I can just run. And when I've run a tiny bit over a 5k, I get to stop and feel as though I've accomplished something for the day. It's awesome.


The rest of my day is spent studying. I don't get to talk to my friends much anymore, which makes me sad. Like I really sincerely wish they all had blogs so I knew what was going on in their lives. But then I don't really have time to read blogs anymore. I also haven't been eating as well as I once did. This is because I get so set into studying that it takes me a while to realize I'm hungry and then when I'm hungry, I'm so hungry that I don't want to make food - I just want food to appear. On top of all of this, I'm still trying to find my stride school-wise. Like I need to figure out what works for me. First I had a hard time paying attention in lecture, so I stopped going. Then I got waaaay behind because, let's face it folks, I have no self discipline. So now I know that I need to go to lecture. That being said, tomorrow I am not going to lecture. After three exams in the span of a week, I want to sleep in one day. So tomorrow's my day to do it. I will catch up on lectures before Wednesday and start going to lecture again, I promise. Also, thanks to med school, I've become somewhat more comfortable in my own skin, but not really in a good way. 


As lectures begin at 8:00 a.m., I set my alarm for 7:30, snooze for 10 minutes and then get up at 7:40, throw some clothes on, grab my packed breakfast and head to lecture without showering. Like my hair is three to five shades darker because of all the grease. But getting up earlier to look good when I'm just going to have to shower after the gym is just not going to happen. I can usually go to the gym after lecture and then shower before labs in the afternoon. On Wednesdays this isn't the case and I don't end up showering until physiology is over at 3. And on Thursdays, my days don't end until 9:00 p.m., so I don't go to the gym those days and I use my lunch break to shower.


And despite all of this rationing of time, I still feel as though I'm constantly behind. But at the same time, I know there are only so many hours in the day and I make myself studying around midnight. Then I get ready for bed and am usually done reading by 1:00 a.m. Then I lay in bed thinking about how overwhelmed I am and I can't sleep. And then I think about how I'm only going to get 5 hours of sleep and how I need to fall asleep soon. And then I get so stressed about not sleeping that it's even harder for me to sleep.


This was particularly the case last night. Why? Because of the anatomy exam this morning. Now, for those of you who don't know how medical school works, the analogy most often used is "Medical school is like trying to take a sip of water from a fire hydrant." It's intense. There's so much information that they know you won't remember it all. In fact, you just need a 75% in your class to pass. That's not particularly comforting when you think about that 25% your doctor doesn't know, but really, when do I need to know that skeletal muscles are only innervated by general somatic efferents? Okay, I'm sure someone can think of an event when this would be good to know, but mostly I think it's a waste of time. Which would probably explain why I got 25 wrong on my anatomy exam this morning. 25 out of 70. That's a 64% kids. That's not good. But does it really matter? Nope. Because failing one exam isn't going to result in me failing the class and so I'm okay with it. Like seriously. I don't care.


Aaaaand...photo break!

The great thing about turkey tacos is that you can make 3 meals out them!

Chemical structure of caffeine, which, by the way, is a purine

My empty, empty refrigerator desperately in need of restocking

Bailey likes to eat breakfast with me on exam days

And now on to some weight-loss related stuff. During the last week, I made it down to 208 pounds. This, my friends, is my lowest recorded weight. Though I'm certain it's gone up since that fateful day that number appeared on my scale, I wanted to make a few comments on my physical appearance as of late.


First of all, clavicles are sexy. Well, not the bone itself, but I think being able to see the outline of someone's clavicles is really sexy. I'm not sure why, but I just like it. So I am thrilled that you can see mine again!

I also think it makes me look skinnier (relative, of course, to 50 pounds ago). After all, if you can see my bones, that means there's less fat there! Additionally, though you can't really see it in that picture, I have dimples again. When my face was fuller, you couldn't really see my dimples. So yay!


And lastly, shopping is a lot more fun now. I'm still in the middle between plus sizes and XL sizes in misses, but mostly I can shop in the misses section and I can finally start shopping outside of department stores and Lane Bryant. Like tonight, for example, I went shopping for some professional clothes and was able to fit into stuff at New York and Company. I also got some Under Armour and Nike stuff that actually fits instead of looking like the Michelin Man, so that's always nice.


As for food, I'm still eating pretty healthy. The thing that's really getting me is that it's waaaay easier to grab a Luna bar to eat than go in my fridge and fish out some fruit. I just need to be better about what I'm choosing for snacks. I just recently invested in 6 boxes of Snackwell's peanut butter protein bars. Why? Because a.) they were on sale, and b.) their nutrition facts and ingredient list is identical to South Beach Diet's old peanut butter protein bars. It was actually quite a serendipitous discovery so hopefully I can lay off the Luna bars a bit. I also bought a few of Kellogg's protein meal bars because I know protein keeps you fuller longer and I literally don't have time to eat the way I used to (as in cook a nice meal and sit down and enjoy it).


Anywho, I think that's enough text for now. I'll try my best to do 2-3 updates per week, but we shall see. I definitely don't want to give up on this blog forever because it helps keep me motivated!


Thanks for stopping by and mad props to all of you for the support you've given me with all the stress!