B Cells and T Cells and Inflammation

I'm taking this time right now to stretch my eyes and fingers by practicing a new activity...away from Patho studying! This is what I have been up to the last couple days. Especially yesterday I studied at the apartment from around 9:30 until 2:30 then headed over to Cosi (sandwich place nearby) to study with Kim until around 7:00. What a day right?! I'm learning and relearning all about the immune system, INFLAMMATION in particular (I swear it's Professor Angerio's most favorite thing to talk about in the whole wide world) and different kinds of cancers of red blood cells, white blood cells, plasma cells, etc. So leukemia's, lymphoma's, myelomas. All the really scary guys. Also anemia and all that goodness. If you haven't guessed yet we are learning just about everything that can go wrong with the blood...Today I'm moving on for a good dose of peripheral vascular disease. Yippee hoooooorray! 

Last night was very exciting with the debate. I actually got a call from Bryanna

 who invited me to an organized event put on by Dems for Obama in DC. The debate was being shown at a really cool bar down on U Street (kinda a hip, upcoming area) called Bohemian Caverns. Here's a picture of what it looks like...found the photo online at their website. It was really cool! It had two sides, a restaurant side and a bar side. The Bar was where I went to watch the debate. They have this huge three story place and each story has a balcony, all looking onto the same big wall where they projected the debate. So everyone (a h

uge amount of people by the way) was watching the same huge screen. Everyone was cheering and booing and it was all really exciting. A perfect study break! It was kind of a far trip on the Metro so I didn't end up getting home until pretty late but definitely early enough to wake up early again this morning and start off my day right with lots of reading and note-taking! It's starting to get quite exhausting....

Also last night Bryanna gave me a birthday present! It was so nice of her. She made me these really cool earrings (see the picture??) and I LOVE them! She was actually wearing some herself when I got to

 the bar to meet her and I told her they were really cute. She was like, "Well actually I have something for you!" It was so nice of her. I love having such a good friend close by and I wish I could just see her more often. I love all my new friends but it's always nice to have a familiar face and someone who really knows you well around. 

Anyway there is my latest update. Tonight after a long day of studying we are going to have our friends over to watch the Sex and the City movie at our place. How lame. But we will definitely be bonding over our love of corny SJP and our utter distaste for hemostasis. Love you all!! 

I Told YOU!!

They're out to get me...Birds. I was ATTACKED today by a bird! I knew it was only a matter of time before you all saw that I was right and they really are evil. They are winged evil creatures. I was helping a girl get her backpack out of a ditch and a crow or some evil black bird swooped down and clawed my head!!!!!! I rolled around screaming. And the girl was screaming. And multiple people around were screaming. 

I was so excited to get home from my 12 hour school day and I was NOT prepared for that...

Seymour Butts

So here is my first official blog post about school! I bet you were all wondering if I really was doing that here...=) The most exciting thing I have to update about is my whole clinical/lab situation...this is where we are doing our real learning of "how to be a nurse."

Now we don't get to go to the actual hospital for a few more weeks so we are still down in the lab all day. Which get's a little boring! But a lot of it is pretty fun and hands-on. For example last week we practiced doing wet to dry sterile dressings on a wound. So we learned how to set up a sterile field, how to put on the sterile gloves (a LOT harder than you might expect!) and how to apply the dressing. We did it on these gross little fake butts that were a little too life like with all these wrinkles and pimples on them. It was funny because we noticed a little company tag on the end of the leg and the butt is actually named "Seymour Butts." Everyone got a pretty huge laugh at that. Whether it was because of that being very funny, or because we had all woken up at 5 in the morning is a good question! Anyway, Seymour had lots of wounds and we practiced all the techniques for the different ones. It was probably the most exciting thing we have done so far in that lab! Hahaha. We also all had to wear shorts and tank tops so we could practice giving each other bed baths. Some of it seems a little ridiculous now - like when they teach us how to clean someone or make a bed. But hopefully soon after we get through these basics it will speed up and get a little more interesting! Also when we get into the actual hospital the day will go by a little more quickly I'm sure. 

So there is my big exciting school update! October is the big month of every bit of work and exams crashing down on us so I'm sure you will all hear more about it then =) xoxo!

Oh...

And one more thing...I officially have registered to vote in the grand ole state of Virginia! Just adding to the attempt to swing the state blue =) It will be weird to have to walk to the polling booth and vote instead of just sticking it in the mail...but it'll be worth it!

Namaste

Hi everyone! New update time =) Not TOO much is new in my life right now but I am trying out a new kind of activity. Lately I've been going to this hot yoga studio and have started practicing yoga! It is so great. Me and my roommates go together. They have basics classes on Tuesday and Thursday nights and then all levels classes we can go to on the weekends. I absolutely LOVE it!! It is such an intense work out. It is in a hot room which is set to usually anywhere from 95 to 98 degrees inside so the minute you walk in you're sweating. As the class goes on, of course, it gets a bit sweatier!! I have already started to feel my body reacting to it. My posture in particular actually! 

The first week of classes were free because they want you to come a lot and get a feel for what it's like. After that, they charge $10 per class for students which is a discount. So we thought we might just try to go about twice a week. The way we see it, we used to spend around $20 per week at LEAST going out in our undergrad school bars. This is a healthier and more justifiable way to spend our money!! I bought a yoga mat on Amazon.com and I'm super excited for it to get here =) I hope this is something I really embrace and get into because I love the way it makes me feel energized and strong! I definitely recommend it. Very challenging and satisfying. If you want to just check out the place I go, just for fun, the website is downdogyoga.com.

  

Other than yoga we do go to the gym at Georgetown and it's actually really nice! I have swam a couple times there because they always have lanes open for lap swim. The pool and the gym in general is MUCH nicer than Oregon's. I guess the people here have more money or something haha. 

Anyway, that's my two cents about my love of yoga here. I'm going to drag Shira there when she comes to visit me! Love you all!

xox0

Here I Am...

Well here I am! After the first month of my new life I can definitely say it is nothing like my old one. I love my new home, my new roommates, my new friends, even my new school as intense as it is. I am definitely kept busy with homework, reading, and studying. But I thankfully manage to get a little fun time with my friends here =) I thought maybe I'd share a few pictures so everyone can get a feel for my life here visually! 

These are my loooovely roommates! This is our second n

ight together and still before school had started. We had a lot more time for fun back then =) I'm of course on the very left. In the middle is Kim who is from Michigan. She's really fun and we have a lot in common. She played softball all through high school and is really sporty/competitive like me. We are on the flag football team together that another girl in our cohort started. She also likes all the same shows as me so I have a definite tv watching buddy for all my shows...she even knows all the right characters to love on Project Runway!

 Thank God....And then on the right is Becca from North Carolina! She is super fun too. 

Really funny and has a weird sense of humor like me. We both get in weird moods and go off 

on the weirdest jokes. I love living with both of them! We have a grea

t time together. We tried to be somewhat tourist-y when we first got here and visited the monuments and even went to this "screen on the green" event which was the screening of Superman on The Mall. This is a picture of our view! We could barely see the screen...That's the capitol building in front of us though! It was really pretty once it got dark and everything was lit up. We try to keep busy with school and everything, but every once in a while we definitely need to have some fun! There is a great happy hour bar, 1223, in the Dupont area that we have gone to a couple Fridays already. It is so much fun! We have gotten big groups from our cohort to go and everyone always has a great time. In the picture above, we are at that place. This is Kim (not roommate, another who is from Boston), Katherine from LA, and Jessica from Indiana (I met her during my interview). Here is another time we went to the same place with a huge group!! I will go through everyone from the left to the right =) First Becca (roommate), Emma (Kentucky - introduced me to my love of Gossip Girl), Jessica (Indiana), Jenny (Kentucky), Katherine (LA), Neal (Kim my roommate's boyfriend), Kim (roommate), Susie, ME, Kim Hayes (Boston), Kirsten (Orange County), and a girl who is living with Jenny and Emma...can't remember her name! This is just a REALLY fun group of girls who I have a great time with. This was the night of the big hurricane and we had a big tropical storm here...which I got caught walking home in! Becca and I were SOAKING wet...

As you can see in this picture!! This is us walking home. It's ok though we were still happy. We were just happy not to be thinking about Patho or wet to dry sterile dressings!!!!! 

Anyway, as you can see I've found some really fun people to hang out with which is a relief. We realize that our time here right now is kind of a calm before the storm. Pretty soon our workload is really going to come crashing down so we're all just trying to prepare for that! I will definitely update all of you on when that happens...Mom and Dad I'm sure you're going to get way more than just updates =) Possibly panic calls?? Get ready!! Hope you find this blog to be fun to read! I thought it would be a good way to let you all know what I am up to. I love you all!!!