Back to the grind - sort of

My mom and I did finish the 3 Day! It was incredible. Here we are saluting breast cancer survivors with our shoes during closing ceremonies.

So we're back in school. It was a beautiful 10 weeks of the 3 Rs of summer - reading, research, and relaxation - but now it's over. The first 10 days have been a whirlwind of lecture, pathology lab, and the incredible number of student organizations I committed myself to last year. I choose the word commit deliberately due to its dual use - referring to a promise to undertake a task and also to enter a treatment facility for mental illness. While I maintain that I have not really overextended myself, I didn't realize how crazy the first week of school would be. The combination of 22 hours of lecture (yikes!) and meetings for every student organization I've ever considered joining/working with was nearly too much for me, but I made it through somehow. Things are, however, settling down, so here's a quick update on things I've done in the last 10 days: (If this blog has taught me nothing it has reinforced to me the fact that I love lists.)

Cardiovascular Sequence: Using the past tense to describe this is somewhat inappropriate given that I'm only through the first 1.5 weeks of 3.5, but I like to look on the bright side and congratulate myself for getting this far. I've learned more about EKGs than I ever thought I'd want to, but am actually pretty impressed with how exciting it is to finally understand at least the basics (after 4 years of measuring heart rates using rabbit EKGs).

BGLAM: I'm our happy coordinator this year and we have a fantastic crop of new M1s. We're loving our allies as we plan National Coming Out As An Ally Day (some like to call it Ally Day, but I prefer NCOAAA, pronounced N-Co-aaaaaahhhh). It should be an exciting lunchtime of speakers and joy (officially October 11, but well be celebrating October 10). Were also gearing up for the 2006 GLMA Conference in San Francisco.

LANAMA: As community service chair, I'm excited at the variety of events well be working on this year. I'm going to be continuing with health outreach programs as well as helping with general LANAMA business.

Womens Health and Fitness Day: We signed up lots of interested folks for WHFD as well, which was particularly exciting. In my personal work for WHFD I have discovered how awful the IRS is. Now, I'm sure the individuals that work there are the usual cross section of humanity (that is, both good and bad), but the documents are terrible. It was a million pages of who can be tax exempt and who cannot, and to whom donations are tax deductible and to whom they are not. (As an aside, were tax exempt, but we don't have a big enough budget to even file taxes. And donations are not tax exempt.) After all of that, we're pretty much back where we started, except that now we have a tax ID number. Maybe that can be our new recruitment strategy: "Join the coolest student group - we have a tax ID number, an EIN if you will." - Or not.

Component Representative: This isnt exactly a student organization, but Sam and I are hard at work making sure that the M2 year runs as smoothly as possible. Reprising our roles as student liaisons to the faculty weve been clarifying test content, answering questions, and thankfully not setting up anatomy practice practical exams (a task that is now passed on to the new M1s).

Other student organizations: I've also joined AMWA, Medical Students for Choice, and Galens. I'm not as active in them, but I like to go to their events and I think they are exciting groups (regardless of their tax ID status).

So basically my plate is full. I'm enjoying myself.