Springtime in Valhalla

I've completely forgotten how beautiful Valhalla is when it's warm out. Studying for neuro is more difficult when you could be outside playing frisbee.

Our first neuro midterm was a heartbreaker. During the test I could practically feel the other students becoming discouraged. The AMP students have a good chance of doing well as long as the med student average is low, and some second years told me that close to half the class fails this first test.

It's a pretty stressful time of year. I have no idea where I'll be in four months, I'm still waiting to hear from my top choices, and I'm probably going to have to reboot my entire personal life. But the flowers and new leaves and misty evenings help keep things calm.

Bonus: I had terrible allergies in CT in April, but no sniffles at NYMC.

Neuroscience

Our first neuroscience exam is next Monday (4/27). We only have this one class now, and overall I'm digging it. The lectures are better, the material is really macro and interesting, and everything is just easier to learn. The biggest complaint I had about last block was that it was impossible to feel like you had studied adequately.

This is a pretty intense class, though, so while we have half the workload of last block, it's still twice the workload of first block (oh histology...).

During neuroscience the med students study the brains from the bodies they dissected during anatomy. There's a neuroanatomy lab once a week where a teacher basically points out the structures you need to know. Unfortunately the AMP students didn't get any kind of anatomy lab orientation so the first day was awkward--we just wandered up to the 4th floor without gloves, without a locker to put our stuff in, and without any clue how to get into the lab (SOMEone walked into the guy's locker room accidental-like).

As an aside: I feel NYMC had all these great intentions about making the AMP students blend seamlessly in with the med students but they ran out of time to set everything up before we got here. During histo they had microscopes and lockers for us, lots of guidance, and we never felt forgotten. Now the seams are starting to show. This will all be solved by next year but it's a little annoying to call up student housing to ask what should I do with my dorm/stuff over the summer and have them tell me, "We haven't figured it out yet."

But back to neuro lab--it's great! I totally stuck my fingers into somebody's ventricles on the first day.

It's snowing

Winter doesn't end in Valhalla, it just gets more frustrating.

Overheard at NYMC

"If I pass biochem I swear I'll never smoke pot again."
Cafeteria, 3/16 3:45 PM

Hell Week

Mon-Physio Midterm #3
Tue-Physio Final
Thur-Biochem Midterm #3
Fri-Biochem Final

My grades in physio have been steadily falling all block and came to a glorious fiery conclusion in today's final. I study very poorly for physio. A warning for future NYMC physio students: it is not enough to passively read transcriptions all block and then try memorize it right before the test.

I hit the gym today for the first time this week. There is a very sufficient gym on campus, <100m from my front door. There's a cardio room with treadmills and ellipticals, a locker room with showers, and a surprisingly nice weight room.

Touro has more bread than a prison meatball

There might be some large changes at NYMC in the near future.
Apparently NYMC has had money problems for a while, and it's all come to a head this year. The students just found out that the school is in talks with Touro college to possibly buy NYMC. Touro is "a Jewish-sponsored independent institution of higher and professional education" (from wikipedia) with allopathic, osteopathic, nursing, and law schools all over New York state. It's probably best known (perhaps undeservedly) for a 2007 scandal-one of its schools got in trouble because some employees were selling diplomas.
No one seems to know exactly how to react to this, but there is a vigorous discussion here. Don't click that if you want to avoid SDN craziness. Here there be archetypal pre-meds.

I haven't given the issue a lot of thought since I'm not really in a discriminating position-I've only been accepted at UTSA (Emory had their last acceptance mailout a week ago and I got nothing). I'll only be able to look down my nose at Touro when I'm sitting on a fat stack of acceptances.

Some awesome news: all of the AMP students got their invitations to interview at NYMC! We're not sure if they'll be able to take all of us but just getting the interview relieves a lot of tension.

EDIT: apparently NOT all of the AMP students got interviews, but the majority did. Sadz.


I gave an AMP applicant a tour of campus the other day. Even though I had no impact on her application, it felt BAD ASS to be on the other side of an interview day.

When you're a Jet you're a Jet all the way

It's 2:45 AM and there is a vicious goose fight occurring outside my window. I'm expecting to look out and see two rival goose gangs dueling with tiny switchblades.