Finally Finals

Retroactive Post

I know this is a little overdue, but I just barely finished my last final yesterday and I hadn’t a moment to spare before now. Cami spent the last week in Salt Lake City playing the nanny for her sister Cinda. That actually worked out to my advantage because I had a lot of studying to do and with Cami out of the house I didn’t have to feel guilty about not paying attention to her and reading, reading, reading.

I had a Biochemistry test on Monday, a Doctoring/Psychology exam on Wednesday and two, count ‘em two Anatomy tests on Friday. This week I have spent many an hour reviewing material and trying to ensure that none of my professors could sneak a fast one on me with some tricky questions. My Biochemistry and Doctoring tests went alright, but I was most worried about my Anatomy exams. A 60 question practical exam and a 70 question written exam adds up to be a lot of questions. I had the practical exam first and it was pretty intense. As a reminder, there are 24 bodies set up in the lab and you have 70 seconds to answer the question at each given session. Then after the time is up a gong rings and like Pavlov’s dog, we all run to the next station (ok, well, I guess we don’t salivate before going to the next cadaver, which, in and of itself would be pretty nasty, but we do respond to the bell).

It’s hard to stay calm when you are nervous about remembering what all those little thingamajigs in the body are called. Flexor carpi radialis longus? Adductor magnus? Spinalis Thoracis? This is English right? Anyhoo, I am sure that reading about people taking tests is about as enjoyable as actually taking them and I don’t want to bore you with the details. Suffice it to say I felt like I failed it until I looked at the posted answers after the exam and realized that I probably did really, really well. Now I have two weeks to completely forget everything I learned and relax before starting school all over again on the January 2. Yippee!

After the final, Sean, Fernando and I all took a moment to pay our last respects to our cadaver. The class bought roses for all of the cadavers and each group got to give it to their body and take a moment to say goodbye. It was much more emotional than I expected. Honestly, I cannot imagine having gone through medical school without doing anatomy. Our cadaver wasn't perfect, in fact, he had more than a few problems. There were times when I was so frustrated that the only thing preventing me from killing our cadaver was the fact that he was already dead. Nevertheless, the Reverend taught us a lot, he really did give us a great gift.

Have I mentioned that I have devoted nearly every free moment of my time on campus to playing table tennis? Ping-pong has become the perfect alternative to the rigors of my education. As rigorous as the training has been, I have played more games of ping-pong in the last few weeks than I have in my entire life previous times 2.698 (that math was really difficult, and I don’t want to go into the details about how I derived that number, but trust me, it was complicated). The guys I play with are all ping-pong pros and so I spent the vast majority of my early table tennis career chasing down ping-pong balls and trying not to get hit… in the face! However, I’ve taken my game to the next level in the intervening weeks and now I can hang with most people.

Cami got home last night at around 8:00. Seriously, we live about 10 minutes from the Sacramento airport. I picked her up and we were both really hungry so we went to Chili’s for dinner and it was really good. We then got home and watched the tube and went to bed. Then this morning I slept in until almost 9:00! What a difference 4 extra hours in bed can make. Speaking of sleeping in…

Cami and I will be going home on Monday. We might have gone home today, but I have to teach the Gospel Essentials class tomorrow and Cami has a meeting with the Events Planning Department at UC Davis on Monday about being an intern. She's gotten pretty sick of being a substitute teacher and is exploring other options. So, I think we’ll head home after that. Laynie should be flying in around the same time and Keith will get in sometime later in the week. Then the whole gang will be there, I guess. Well, everyone but Heather. It will be a lot quieter this Christmas without her.

It's Already December

Retroactive Post

This is my last week of school before my finals next week. I have a lot of studying to do and I hope that I am up to the challenge. I spent a good four or five hours yesterday in the active pursuit of knowledge. My anatomy table has been challenged to a game of anatomical Jeopardy! by the table next to us. It has now become a rather huge deal, as we have had two people volunteer to play Alex Trebek for us. It will be interesting to see how the whole thing pans out, but in honesty, I think the other table will kick our trash. Either way, I see it as an easy way to study.

Cami and I spent last Sunday decorating our apartment for Christmas. We now have garlands and Christmas lights strewn about the place and it feels right “Christmassy” round here. Well, other than the weather. This is my first December in a long time (six years!) without snow. Much to my disbelief, I actually miss the white stuff. Last week we had some wintry, wet weather and some pretty cold temperatures, but it’s not quite the same. Nevertheless, it is nice to be inside when it is cold outside. Cami put our Federdecke on the bed this week and it sure is nice to curl up under one of those things isn’t it? Wow, this blog is really boring! I am talking about Federdecken!

I spent some time doing Christmas shopping for Cami online yesterday. She wants this very specific table from Target so she can put all of her sewing paraphernalia somewhere other than the kitchen table. The only minor problem was that the table costs $200. So I got Keith and Mom to pitch in $120, which only left $80 for me, which was very manageable. Until I discovered that the table weighs over 100 pounds and they charge about $60 for shipping and handling, then another $20 for taxes All in all, the table now costs $280!

I phoned all over to find if any of the Targets in Sacramento actually have the table, so I could just pick it up myself, and of course nobody does because they only sell it over the internet. So I went ahead and bit the bullet and bought the dumb thing. I sure hope Cami likes it, because she isn’t going to get much else from me… who am I kidding? Cami and I set a spending limit for each other this year of about $175. The table alone cost me that much, so I’ll probably go a teensy bit over. But don’t tell Cami, I don’t want her thinking she can do the same thing.

Whoops. We are cooking a turkey dinner for our friends the Blairs and the smoke in the kitchen just set of the fire alarm. No big deal you say? I think if it the alarm goes off in one room it goes off in the whole building. We quickly ran around opening the doors and turning on all of the fans. We also have little sprinkler heads in our apartment. The last thing we wanted was to set those things off and ruin everything in our teeny little apartment. Fortunately, they only beeped for a minute or so and things are all good again. I just hope that wasn’t a sign of how good the meal is going to taste.