Happiness is a state of mind

Man I’ve had a great week! Slept about 5 hours each night, studied like hell, barely even got to talk to Saya on the phone, and no weeked because this coming Monday I have four quizzes to look forward to.

But you know what? I am LOVING IT.

Seriously, I can truly, honestly say I love being here, I love med school, I want to be a doctor. I feel this great sense of belonging to my profession, to my school . . . its like a strong sense of ownership in what I am doing right now every day. I am the only one responsible for making myself a good doctor. Its really a wonderful feeling. So what has made me this happy you ask?

This week I figured out a new way of studying Anatomy that really worked. I bought an Anatomy coloring book, went into lab on my own and talked to my anatomy teacher about questions. It worked wonders and really helped me to learn and start having fun with the material. Sounds nerdy but you know what? I don’t care, its what I want to be learning, its how I am training my mind to observe, perceive, think, sort information and after just five weeks, I can FEEL the growth happening.

In addition, I am really enjoying my time here at Dartmouth. The people are fantastic, supportive and I have never been in a situation where there are so many accomplished people around me WANT me to succeed and are willing to go out of their way to help me. Just today I had one of my Anatomy profs (Dr. C, a former general surgeon) come up to me and tell me that he got my email from last night and wanted to see me in his office because he wanted to explain the answers to my anatomy questions more thoroughly. The second year students just had an Anatomy prosection for us (open lab where they point out on cadavers what is important for us to know) – it was tremendously helpful.

What other med schools give you this kind of personal attention? I think I made the right choice and I am starting to have a hard time imagining being anywhere else!

All day of studying to look forward to tomorrow, . . . as Quagmire from Family Guy would say . . . aaaAAAALLL RIGHT! :)

Moon Festival Party at DMS!

So life in med school is not all about studying . . . I have a life, I swear!

Dinner before the party. We made dumplings! Or should I say my classmates made dumplings and I . . . errr . . . supervised . . .

My friends/classmates at DMS. From Left to Right: Vasi, Jane, Khue, Naren and Vorapat, Henry, Abby, Michelle, Deo

we studied Anatomy afterwards . . . the superior mediastinum is bounded superiorly by the superior aperture, anteriorly by the sternum, posteriorly by vertebrae T1-T4 and inferiorly by the transverse plane from the angle of Louis to the intrathoracic space between T4-T5 . . . oh crap, does this mean I’m a nerd?