classes have begun!

so like i said, i'll rarely blog. but here is an update btwn classes during my 15 min break. orientation week was beyond draining, but very informative. by friday, i didn't want to do a thing but sit in bed and veg. too bad we had a ropes course/team-bonding thingy to go to for 4 hours. it was fun, but afterwards, EVERYONE was dead. i took my first (and only thus far) nap to recuperate, and our class went out to a nice bar at night with the 2nd year students.

weekend was filled with errands, shopping, wandering downtown, and relaxing...and guess what!! yup, i finished "studying" (if you can call skimming = studying) my medical terminology 22 chapter, 900 page textbook! finished sunday night at 2pm. WHEW!!! now i have to review over and over and memorize all those prefix/suffix/combining words by next thursday. this will be our first exam ever.

oh, and i found one of the most popular pizza places while wandering called "pepe's". the line for it at 2pm was INSANE--worse than Zachary's in berkeley! seriously like 20 ppl lined up outside, reading newspapers, talking, etc. one day i'll hafta try, but only during weekday lunches!

so school week has begun, and it's ok so far. for the first time in my life, i review my lecture notes right after each lecture--i don't want to risk falling behind! yesterday we had the most tiring day--anatomy lab for almost 6 hours. we actually met our cadaver during orientation week--he's sooo small and thin. prolly had a stroke 'cuz one leg has no muscle due to paralysis. at first, i thot he was a girl 'cuz he's like my height, and thinner. but nope...he's definitely a man. my group has decided to name him Morrie 'cuz he's a old fella (about 60), from the book "Tuesdays with Morrie", except our lab group is now called "Wednesdays with Morrie" (we have anatomy lab every wednesday). we took apart his back from shoulder to butt, down about 2 layers of muscles, which took us about 4 hours. then we had radiographic imaging like xrays and MRI to look at for about an hour. at the end, we SMELLED, were sticky, and my feet/back ached so much i couldn't do anything but sit on my butt and watch TV.

oh yea!! i got a 20" flat screen and a VCR! so i can record amazing race and the olympics (badminton will be on BRAVO) if needed. my room is just about 100% set--i bought nearly everything I need, and my boxes that I shipped finally arrived. that makes for much less pressure since classes will pick up by next week. if anyone is curious, link to my daily schedule is at: http://www.info.med.yale.edu/phyassoc/pacals/year1.htm.

well that's it for now. it's raining here...gonna have tropical storms to the weekend. no plans yet!

so if any of you have time and would like to visit here or NY or Boston (i'm about 1.5h away), please let me know so i can try to work on my schedule to match! tho i live in the dorms, there is room on the nice new carpeted floor for friends. =) hope things are going well back in sunny CA! miss you all!