Free Flowing

Yes, I had a birthday.

I think the silence for the past (almost) two weeks has been a strange avoidance of public acknowledgement on my part – with an emphasis on MY PART. My friends and family definitely made sure that I knew that I was loved. Starting the Friday before the Wednesday that was my birthday with a gathering at one of my new favorite island spots for pizza (yeah, you read that right – p-i-z-z-a), live music, and happy hour. This was followed by dinner at Dodgey Dock, which is also becoming a favorite, on my actual birthday. One of my roommates for next term is a woman of many talents who made me a lucky crane (origami folks, she didn’t genetically engineer it) – it’s quite perfect actually. I’ve always been impressed with anyone that can do extremely complicated things with extremely uncomplicated paper.

Speaking of interesting hobbies, I am working on getting my PADI open water diving certification. I figure there’s no better time or place. The water here is absolutely beautiful and I hear there are some pretty amazing things to see in terms of critters and shipwrecks. There’s also an underwater sculpture garden.

So far, I’ve finished the theory part of the course and the confined pool dives. I ended up having to sign up alone since in a comedy of errors all those previously insisting that they were gung ho somehow managed to have a “good reason” why they couldn’t actually hand over the plastic when the time came. Okay, some of you really did have a good reason, but I can still gripe about it dammit.

Sigh.

BUT – it’s not so bad. I ended up meeting some really great first termers who I did the confined pool dive with (1.5 full days in the pool at the Calabash Hotel does wonders for the pruned skin look if you’re into that) and am very much looking forward to a first open water dive with them this coming Friday. We are going to the afore mentioned underwater sculpture garden, some place called Flamingo Bay, and a shipwreck called The Veronica – if you ask me it sounds like it was doomed from the start (apologies if your name is in fact Veronica).

I think the most amazing thing I learned during confined dive was what to do with a free flowing regulator. When I read about this in the manual you are given to read for the theory portion of the course, it didn’t really make sense. Then, when asked to execute it, I was utterly confused at first. The point is, if your regulator (the apparatus that you breathe out of while diving) begins to expel it’s oxygen continuously for some reason, you have to figure out how to manage to breathe from the air that is escaping like vital meds out of a ruptured IV bag. So, you tilt your head to the right, hold the right side of the regulator in your mouth and let the left side remain out. The air flows out through the left side from which you “sip” it. You would think that you’d end up with water in your lungs instead of air, but you actually can manage to only take in the air.

Frankly, I was dumbfounded. It took me a while to believe that I was actually going to get air in my lungs instead of water, so like the cautious child, I watched everyone else do it first before proceeding. Of course, once that’s over you’re almost out of air, so if it were anything other than a simulation I guess you’d have to pray that your dive buddy had enough for two.

Speaking of things flowing, we started pulmonary physiology today and it’s pretty fantastic that several of the basic principles lectured on today were covered in the dive manual.

Gotta love being inadvertently ahead – even if it’s only by a millisecond.


Hey, I never said I wasn’t neurotic.

Learning Strategies

Every so often I take an approximately 20 second break from a lecture and find myself observing my fellow classmates. Do you ever notice that some of them are doing the same thing? Or maybe they only seem to be because they are noticing you noticing them. Is that awkward? Because I’m really not sure. Maybe it’s more funny than awkward?

Then there are those moments when you’re completely absorbed in the lecture, vigorously scribbling or staring into the depths of the slide projected onto the screen in front of you as if it could spew forth it’s contents directly into your brain. Few things irk me more in those moments than someone asking me to clarify something that was just said, or noticing someone glancing at my page scribbling when and what I’m scribbling. Really? How do you know I’m any smarter or more alert than you? You could be copying down my grocery list for all you know.

The point is, I find it distracting and it so completely ruins the flow that you can feel the dump of useful information flowing down your back instead of into your brain like water off of a duck’s back.

Then again, maybe I’m disturbing others when I’m on a 20 second mind wandering spree in the middle of the difference between neurohormones, neurotransmitters, and hormones?

Oh, and for those of you that are actually able to fall asleep during lecture …wow. Honestly, Sonic Foundry is your friend. I bet you can sleep on airplanes too.

Neat.

The Bug & The Windshield

I know what you are thinking. I couldn't hack it. I'm one of them. Before I was in this position, I thought the same thing. I could go on for pages about how I ended up heading for St. George's Medical School on a lonely caribbean island called Grenada in January, but I hope that's not all you want to know about me. On the other hand, if you are in the same position, I ask you...

Do you remember that first moment when you realized the ultimate fear of almost every pre-med had just come true for you? The Lochness monster of the medical school application process (you were hearing the Jaws theme playing in the background)? That’s right – the Caribbean. Your leg just got chewed off by Jaws and you're hemorrhaging.

However it came to be that you found yourself in this seemingly awful unthinkable situation (for me, it was the MCAT), I say cheers to making the best of it. So, I’m off to St. George’s (aka SGU) on the lovely spice island called Grenada. Let’s see: Great weather, clear blue water, lovely fresh fishies swimming by waiting for the honor of making an appearance later on my dinner plate, cheap diving certification, rum, sailing, snorkeling, close to South America (one must carnivale, no? ), oh and umm, it’s a pretty good medical school too. Did I say rum already? Mojitos anyone?

So For now, I'm in one of those life transition phases. The kind that makes you think "deep" thoughts. I've never been a fan of these phases. When left alone with too much thought I tend to not be able to turn it off, hence the bags under my eyes and current state of snappiness (apologies if you have been a recent victim).

So, how to kill the time between now and January and manage to not only maintain sanity, but get my beauty sleep - you know how I cherish it. A girl my brother used to date dubbed me the "sleeping champion". I wear the title proudly while I still can. But I digress...

Killing time. Yes, going to Chennai, India for the month of November to volunteer for Unite For Sight. I must confess that I'm a bit unsure if this is the right thing to do with the time that I have. On the other hand, I imagine it will give me that feel good feeling as I think my "deep" thoughts about stuff. And if you are in the mood for that "feel good feeling" too, then by all means, let me assist you in achieving a small sampling : ) : http://www.uniteforsight.org/intl_volunteer/pages/?name=Simrun%20Kalra

More on those details later.

Right now, I am back to packing up my lovely condo in Oakland to move back to southern california (whoever made the OC "cool" is not someone I ever want to know).