Short Version of A Long Week

Brevity has become my new mantra, and will likely continue to be an important aspect of my journal writing from this day forward. With a bedtime of 11:30 PM, there just isn't the luxury of time to which I've become accustomed this summer. My orientation week at Baylor went very well. The first day and night were spent at the Chain-O-Lakes resort in East Texas, where the 160-some first year students (40-some who are from Rice) were split into 15 groups of 10-12 students and one advisor. My group is called the EKG Unit (G-Unit is the rapper 50 Cent's entourage). We actually have 5 advisors, who range from 2nd years to 4th years. Some advisors couldn't make the trip. (The med school lingo refers to first years as MS1, second years are MS2, etc. The "MS" means "medical student.") After a few hours of ice breakers and advisor skits, we went out into the pine forest surrounding the resort and participated in 4 group bonding games, designed to hone our communication, problem-solving, and leadership skills. I enjoyed the activities, especially the one where our group stood on a log and had to arrange itself in chronological order by birthday, all the while refraining from speaking and with me blindfolded. No person was allowed to step off the log, and the log was only wide enough for a single person. We wound up devising a system whereby one person would squat down close to the log so their neighbor could carefully step over them. I did this a few times while blindfolded. We succeeded in this activity and with the others. I spent my free time swimming and canoeing, though the calm lakes were a far cry from Gareth's 2-hour ocean canoeing feats in Finland! We finished off our trip on Tuesday with a big scavenger hunt.

Back at Baylor, we got down to the nitty-gritty of orientation: health insurance, curriculum, blood borne pathogen awareness, TB skin tests, mental health presentation, sexual harrassment training... the list goes on and on. It was super boring, but I now feel reasonably ready to start classes on Monday. Our first set of note packets is hundreds of pages thick, so it's going to be a fun time!

This weekend I've been tying up still more loose ends at the lab and working on refining aspects of my manuscript. I watched the movie Sideways tonight, which I first saw in Mexico under the title Entre Copas (Between Glasses). It's a very funny movie about serious issues -- nothing like the potty humor of today's teenage-aimed movies. I'd definitely recommend it, especially to all you wine connessieurs (probably spelled wrong) out there.

OK, I have to be in bed in 1 minute. G'night.

Music of the Moment: "Blood, Sex, and Booze" by Green Day