This is the Quiet Life

"It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, my hometown..."

The overture to Garrison Keillor's monologue in every Prairie Home Companion show, those words always make me so nostalgic. I often stumble upon the show when I've been driving for a long time, and the words themselves bring up memories of weekends as a child, many of which are foggy and unclear, but all accompanied with a feeling of being home. As I get closer and closer to adulthood - I'm not ready to admit I'm a full fledged grownup just yet - I feel home less and less. Therefore those words and the feelings I get from them grow stronger and stronger with time.

Back to the point, it's been a quiet "week" in Charlottesville, not my hometown... my life has become extremely un-blog-worthy. For instance, my last post about being sick; that was much less about drumming up sympathy and more the only interesting thing that's happened to me in weeks (PS I'm feeling much better now). Everything has just been more of the same: Class, Studying, Quizzes, and Weekends.

Class: I'll admit it to everyone right now. I am not attending class much anymore. Now don't freak out! I still attend all required small groups sessions, labs, and selected lectures that really help my understanding (ie anatomy). But I found that going to the lecture really isn't helping me; it's studying the lecture material that makes the difference. After a long day at class I just couldn't find the motivation to study anything! Thus I would lose a whole day by attending instead of studying.

Studying: This is the battle of my every day. If I'm not studying, I'm feeling guilty about not studying. If I'm studying, I'm trying hard to keep on task and not check my gmail, or the weather, or what's new on facebook, or all the blogs I monitor...anything but biochem!

Quizzes: Still the standard freak-out for me. I don't know why. They're worth a tiny percentage of my grade, yet they are my biggest source of anxiety (take home point on Anxiety: "Logic has nothing to do with it").

Weekends: My time away from school, mentally and often physically. This is often Katie-Mark time, so it's worth its weight in gold. This weekend she was here. We saw my anatomy professor play bass in a band (we 1st years took up the whole restaurant!), and went to the med school's Halloween Party dressed as Peter Pan and Tinkerbell (pictures to come). Honestly, that is about all we did this weekend. Other than that, we studied together alot, finished a 1,000 piece puzzle, and tried to find the only donut place in charlottesville (unsuccessful after 2+ hours). The beauty is that it doesn't matter what we do or don't do ... time with Katie = happy time.

So, this is why my blogging has faltered as of late, I guess. My life is currently not particularly interesting on paper. I mean, I could totally wow you with my understanding of cranial nerves and amino acid metabolism...but you don't want to hear that, I don't want to write that, and I'll probably get beat up at school just for mentioning it in my blog. One thing worth mentioning though...

Nov 17, 1pm = end of 1st semester and beginning of glorious 1 week thanksgiving break!!

Until then, it'll probably be more of the same as I struggle to find something interesting to talk about on "the online"