Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress. When I get fed up with one, I spend the night with the other.
“The chinese food was late. The bass was missing. The van broke down. The bass broke one minute before they went on. And then it broke again. The monitors were too low. The second set was played in complete darkness. But the beer? The beer was free. It was a night they’d never forget, if they could only remember it.” - VH1 Behind the Music, Barry Badrinath & The ZJ’s
Here’s some pics from last night’s show at Mystery Lane in Portsmouth, Dominica. The band changes it’s name for every show; last night we were Barry Badrinath & The ZJ’s. In true medical school fashion, we had to perform emergency MacGuyver surgery on both the van and the bass guitar, but in the end we pulled it off and sounded better than we ever have. The highlight was probably “Fat Bottomed Girls” where we all switched instruments with our keyboard player hopping on guitar, our guitarist hopping on bass, our drummer on vocals and me on the drums.
Set 1:
Misirlou (Dale Dick) —>
Take Me Out (Franz Ferdinand) —>
Woman (Wolfmother) —>
Roadhouse Blues (The Doors) —>
Hey Ya (Andre 3000)
When I Come Around (Green Day)
Fat Bottomed Girls (Queen)
Say It Ain’t So (Weezer)
Rolling in the Deep (Adele)
Dammit (Blink 182)
Set 2:
Seven Nation Army (White Stripes)
Paint it Black (Rolling Stones)
Steady as She Goes (Raconteurs)
Proud Mary (CCR)
Rebel Yell (Billy Idol)
What’s My Age Again (Blink 182)
Mary Jane’s Last Dance (Tom Petty)
House of the Rising Sun (The Animals)
Pursuit of Happiness (Kid Cudi)
#martinguitars
With our 3rd midterm a month out, we’ve got a little room to breathe finally. My good buddy and fellow medical student, Richard, is a great photographer and was looking to ad to his portfolio while we had some time off so I agreed to help him out and brought out my Martin LXM Little Martin. We shot these in the back of campus down by the beach. You can see more of his stuff at www.richardtyi.com
BREAKING NEWS: The Ross University Medical School campus Subway currently has Dixie cup lids for their coffee complete with slide to cover the hole so you don’t burn the ever loving shit out of your hand walking back to the library/classrooms.
Considering we live on a remote pseudo 3rd-world islandand drink 3-5 cups of coffee a day this isliterally one of the best things that’s happened all semester.
So the 4th semesters just flash-mobbed to “Call Me Maybe” in the fishbowl led by Tito a.k.a. Carlos Rae Jepson and Sean. I swear Tito listens to this song more than anyone I know.
..or another way you can think about the limbic system as the four F’s…feeding, fighting, fleeing and one more word I can’t say. Oh! I can say fornication!
Seven cities. Six Countries. Two weeks. Six sleep deprived medical students with low alcohol tolerance. What could go wrong?
Bust out the Kubuli folks, after 4 months of 19-27 hour study days (more than a few 24hr+ sessions this past week) & 20,000mg of caffeine, one semester of medical school is officially under my belt.
One of the good things about going to Ross is that we finish the full 2 year basic medical sciences curriculum in 16 months…one of the bad things is that that means we only get 2 weeks off between semesters with no summer breaks. That said, I’m taking full advantage of it since it’s one of the last times in the next 8-10 years that I’ll have any free time of my own by heading off to Europe with my roommates and three friends.
We leave tomorrow out of Dominica, fly to Barbados and catch a flight to London. From there it’s off to Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Venice, Barcelona, Paris, back to London then back to Dominica. I’m thinking about live blogging the trip via Tumblr/Instagram but more on that to come.
Note: the red route on the map is where Anooj, Antonio, and Sayegh are detouring off to go skydiving in Italy before meeting back up with us in Barcelona.
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
With the exception of the hours between 9am & 3pm yesterday, when I went home to shower & sleep, this has been my view since 3pm Wednesday afternoon—yes, Wednesday. I think I officially have squatters rights in C1.
Large Pic N’ Go coffee (2nd of day): Check
Sugar Free Red Bull: Check. Check.
Netter’s Clinical Anatomy: Check
Clinical Physio Made Ridiculous Simple: Check
First Aid for USMLE Step 1: Check
Dry Erase Board: Check
Dry Erase Markers: Check x 7
Highlighters in every color ever: Check x 6
Next Two Weeks:
Behavioral Medicine practical exam: Thursday morning
Cumulative histology practical exam: Friday morning
Gross Anatomy practical exam: Friday afternoon
Cardio-Respiratory Systems Midterm: Monday morning
Cumulative Final (45% of grade in each block): April 17th
For any of the current MERP and/or future Ross students who follow me, I highly recommend the “Clinical _______ Made Ridiculously Simple” series of books. They are written by practicing physicians/medical school professors and give you the boiled down, high-yield info you absolutely need to know. The respiratory physiology we’ve spent 14 lecture hours and ~150 slides on was condensed to 9 pages total including pictures and graphs.
If you take this patient and put them on the table, call the Army, ask for a tank—a military tank—and drive the tank over this patient to open the airway he will explode from all areas but that airway will remain closed.
Just updated the 34th & Now Study Playlist with some new music since the next four weeks have me taking 3 practical exams, a midterm, and a cumulative semester-long final that covers every discipline in one four hour test. It’s currently sitting at 293 tracks with a 19hr play length which might finally mean I won’t listen to the entire thing in one library session.
New Additions:
Sharon Von Etten
Greg Laswell
Margot and the Nuclear So & So’s
Middle Brother
Coconut Records
The Damnwells
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