Plants Week 3

I should be studying. But I am a proud mama.

Daisies: Actually, I just learned a few days ago that they are violets, not daisies. Notice the first two leaves of any type of plant are rounded on the edges, then the subsequent leaves to sprout have their distinctive shapes.

Hapas Rule

Today's karate teacher was a Japanese/white guy. How cool is that? Maybe I should have taken up martial arts a long time ago.

Pam's Amazing Patio Garden - Week 2

I suspect the cute little bunnies around here munched on my daisies one night. It could have been the rain that broke off some of the leaves, but I had to elevate the plant pot a bit to keep it out of their reach, just in case. Here they are:

Daisies

Karate Kid

I took my first karate class today! It was the result of my friends pressuring me, but it turned out to be really cool. I'd wanted to take kendo (swordfighting) and had recently been browsing taiko (drumming) groups and classes, but karate is cheap for UCI students, and not as much of a time committment as kendo or taiko. Another reason I went was because I need to exercise on a regular basis. Running on my own was great but inconsistent. Reflecting upon my history, I realized that I was an athlete in high school, and I did pretty well academically. In college I didn't play sports, and I didn't do so well. In paramedic school I went running every night at 11pm to work off my stress, and I did really well. When I went back to school for my post-bacc stuff, I went running a lot then too, and... I did really well. The last two quarters of med school I've been just trying to not fail. More study doesn't equal better grades for me, it just equals more boredom and frustration. And yet I still purposely don't take up any activities so that I can keep my schedule clear in case I DO get magically motivated to study all day. I do this all the time, but it ain't working. So maybe getting beaten up a couple times a week will make me pay attention to my bodily parts and that will translate into correct anatomy answers. It's promising, so far. My friends and I all spontaneously and simultaneously thought about the safety of our ACLs and tibial collateral ligaments as we were kicking each other in the legs today, because we just learned about them and how they can get blown out, often in football, by a swift medial kick to the knee.

So, we learned some basic moves (but we did not learn how to put wax on, wax off). We kicked and punched each other in the torso and back a little bit, but since we don't have any fine control over our lower extremities yet, my friend and I nearly got each other in the face and genitals several times by accident. Yikes! I think I should partner with a more experienced partner next time. They shout out the commands in Japanese, but what's ironic is that the instructors aren't Japanese and I can't always understand what they're saying! It could be that I'm not understanding because they are unfamiliar words, but the off pronunciation really doesn't help at all. I'll have to look online to find the proper words so I can see what they are really trying to say. Otherwise I keep wanting to laugh while we are supposed to be solemnly learning how to kill people with our bare hands, because I keep thinking, "Don't touch my moustache" (say that really fast and slur a little, and it sounds just like "you're welcome" in Japanese).

Other than that, karate is kind of what I expected, but not entirely. It's fierce and all that, but it's also kind of like learning the choreography to a dance. We have to do all these movements together in a sychronized fashion - we move about the room and have to turn in certain ways and all that - and it really reminded me of why I didn't last long in ballet as a kid. I got smacked with the ruler a lot for not being able to do the splits, but the kicker was that I could not for the life of me figure out where the heck in the room I was supposed to be flitting off to next. Karate was the last thing I imagined I'd ever compare to ballet, but there you go. We don't flit (we stomp, very undelicately) but I still ended up getting beaten up and confused at the end of the class.

Well, here's to the hopeful return of the successful Student Athlete. We'll see if I keep going all quarter. HAI!!

Marigolds and Herbs

I was starting to worry about my other seeds, but I came home today to discover dozens of tiny little green things push-push-pushing against very heavy (to them) clumps of dirt so they could reach the sun. They haven't quite poked their little heads out completely yet; I can see them still buckled under the weight. They're quite inspiring - being weighed down by all that dirt won't keep them down. It makes me want to sit there and watch them grow; once they sprout, they grow so fast! They might be up by this evening, for sure by tomorrow morning. Hooray! I think I'm going to go find more stuff to plant. I want tomatoes and morning glories, any other suggestions?

Sprouting!

My daisies seem to be the first to want to jump out and see what's going on. They're called "Johnny Jump-Ups" and now I see why. It's amazing how you can have these little things that are for all intents and purposes just bits of pebbles or sand, but when you put them in dirt and add a little sun and water, they get "activated" and become a living thing. Welcome to the world, little guys!

Green Thumb

In my adventures with dead people and coming home smelling like them, I think I must have started to want something different, because I developed an intense desire to grow something. Darron helped me start a little garden on my patio - we planted pansies, marigolds, and in typical "hanayori dango" fashion I also planted basil and cilantro. I want tomatoes and morning glories too, but I'm going to try these out first and see how I do. I used to have a green thumb, but do I still?? We'll see.

Madam President

I applied to become the Vice President of Education for the UCI School of Medicine's Emergency Medicine Interest Group. Then yesterday, I got a call and was asked to actually be the Co-President. I had considered applying for it, but I'm just a 1st year and don't know a lot about the Emergency Department yet. Plus UCI's EMIG is one of the most active EMIGs at any medical school in the US - we are the only school to host an Emergency Medicine Student Symposium, a symposium put on by UCI students specifically for students and NOT for doctors, unlike any other medical symposium - so I was going to hold off until next year to run for president. But, they think I can handle it (hehehe) so it would be silly for me not to do it. I have the advantage of knowing that I want to go into emergency medicine already, so I might as well start networking and taking on responsibility and all that now. Plus I already have lots of ideas on improvements I want to make, and this would be the better position to accomplish them: BBQ on the helipad, gurney races down the ER hallways, weird-object extraction practices... I'm taking suggestions!