Family Members are more than friends.

Most of my posts are about happy things.  Or me complaining about school.  This post is going to take a more solemn note.

On Friday, August 12th, my eldest maternal cousin, Patrick John Schlueter was killed in a motorcycle accident.  He was 25 years old.  

This photo accidentally happened two years in a row when the six of us were very little.   So now every time we are together they make us take a "couch picture."  This is the most recent one, from last summer during the week of the Schlueter Family Reunion.  Patrick is on the end on the right of the photo.  

I'm just remembering the good times and wishing that we had more time together. He will be honestly missed and loved for ever.

In loving memory of Patrick John Schlueter.  

12/27/1985 - 07/12/2011

I probably will never be a Neurologist.

Week 1 of quarter 4 is finished.  Finite.  Fin.  Whatever you want.

We are continuing our OTM and DO classes (as always) as well as Pathology and Neuroscience.  We have also picked up Human Nutrition, Pharmacology and Principles of Medicine, the latter of which starts tomorrow.  

Our DO course is actually over, basically.  We have two lectures in a few weeks but it's not testable material.  Oh well I didn't really understand the Epidemiology stuff, I just pretended too.  Oops.  OTM has been relatively interesting as have Path and Pharm (we like to shorten things down...all those -ologies get to be a burden!

My problem is Neuroscience.  I can't bring myself to like it.  We're starting into more clinical applications of it here, so I'm trying to keep an open mind.  But one can only hear so much about the Subthamalic nuclei, Cerebellum, Vestibulospinal tracts**...aka the list goes on and on.  And on.  So I'm sorry for complaining but I needed a little whiny time.  Which is probably not very grown up of me, but that's okay. 

Here's what I wished we needed to learn...sorry that the words are off, it's not my video.

Oh and just in case you didn't peice this together, week 2 starts tomorrow.  I'll try to give updates of fun things that I may or may not be doing.

**I've linked these to the Wikipedia sites.  That is, after all where a good basis of my knowledge comes from.  Scary, huh? And a for my favorite neurological disorder yet, click here. 





This color was the choice of Whitney Cordray.  Thanks!

Well hello there blog...

Maybe I'll try and get back into blogging.  It is a good release, after all.  So I'll sum up each previous month.  Or something like that!

1.  January.

Nothing really exciting happened.  I got back into a good work out routine, only to discover that my tibia and fibula on the bad leg had reseparated due to some interosseous membrane tearing.  This lead to more surgery.  NOT EVEN KIDDING.

2.  February.

Well the first thing in February was the fixation/redo of the ankle problems.  Literally.  Because this happened on February first at about 9 o'clock a.m.  At about 10 o'clock a.m. it started to snow.  And it kept snowing.  The nurses in the hospital, at which I had to spend the night due to some bad nausea that was ensuing, were kind enough to open my blinds so that I could watch the snow fall down.  All 20 inches of it!! That's the most snow that I have ever seen!  And the next exciting thing to happen was school was cancelled the next day! So I didn't miss that much work.  

The rest of February was pretty uneventful.  I turned 23.  I studied.  Yup that's pretty much it.

3.  March.

March brought (somewhat) warmer weather and with that spring break.  My mother and I went to Disney World, even though I was on crutches.  Mom actually pushed me around the parks. We had a lot of fun though!! It was around 85 or 90 degrees and sunny the entire time we were there! After Disney, I had to go back to school...but I got to get my pins removed.  This time they even let me keep the pins! Which is pretty awesome.

This is me at Cinderella's fountain.  She is my favorite princess, and I think this is one of my favorite pictures from the trip.  And there's the crutches to prove that I brought them to Disney.  And yes, Disney workers, I can transfer from the wheelchair to the ride.  That's why I brought the crutches.

4.  April.

April really brought spring weather.  Yes, there were still some cold-ish days, but I was finally able to wear some warmer clothes. I got to go home for Easter time.  Which was a really nice break.  Even though we do that crazy block testing now at school, Easter fell during week two of the block, so I didn't have to study too much.  Other than that, I think that April was relatively uneventful.  There was some more studying that occurred.  As always.

5.  May.

May brought a wedding to the Majchrzak family!  Okay, it wasn't mine - it was my cousin Katie's wedding.  She was a beautiful bride, and it was nice to get out of Kirksville for a weekend/it was the same weekend as Mother's Day so I got to see my mom!  Fun stuff.  Then, we had the epic end of the first school year.  There was another finals week, and then our OMS-I testing and some other cool stuff.  And then the year was over and I did not fail out!  Which was great!

This is my cousin Katie (the bride), her sister, my cousin Chrissie (the maid of honor) and me (a bridesmaid).  We had tons of fun!

6.  June

June brought my two week preceptorship.  I got to work closely with a doctor for two weeks and this was an eye opening experience for me.  My preceptor's practice was in a lower-income area, and when I saw how much they did for their patients, I was truly amazed.  

I did get to have some fun in June.  One of my very good friends growing up got married, and then wedding was a good time!  My father and I went to King's Island, OH and rode a bunch of roller coasters.  This was the second awesome theme park in two years.  Then, I went to visit my brother in the D.C. and Baltimore area.  We went to a Cardinals/Orioles game, and toured around the various Smithsonians and other touristy things.  Finally, I went to Kansas City with my mom to see my cousin graduate from her Family Practice Residency program.  I just kept telling myself...six more years.  Heehee.

This was my favorite ride in King's Island, "The Beast."  It is the world's longest and fastest wooden roller coaster, at 7500 feet and I think close to 75 mph.  AWESOME.

My brother and I parked illegaly to visit this cool place.  Enough said.

7.  July.

Sure some cool stuff has happened so far.  Like moving to my new apartment and getting a new backpack.  And bumming around St. Louis doing cool things.

HOWEVER...something very very very very epic happened.  It involved going to a Midnight Movie Release with the awesome Whitney Cordray.  And watching the final Harry Potter Movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.  And I may have seen it 3 times total in the weekend of its release.

Whitney coined this phrase (and made t-shirts): 7 books, 8 movies, 10+ years, 1 ending childhood.  This sums up more than one could possibly imagine.

I think this sums up everything so far.  If you made it through the whole post, YOU ARE AWESOME. 

The end.

Thanks for the Book, Dr. Schulte

Let me begin by saying that I am watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.  Sometimes I wonder how these movies are so addicting and then I remember that HP is amazing.

So it's the new year.  Today is 1/11/11.  Which means that in ten short months it will be 11/11/11!!

Anyways, Happy New Year!! I'm not setting too many resolutions.  Mainly I want to pass Medical School and live healthier.  I think those are manageable. 

School is a little crazy right now.  The whole block testing deal was okay, but it's leaving me exhausted.  It seems that all I have time for anymore is studying!! Hopefully that will mean that in the long run, I will know everything that I need for the boards, but at this point I kind of wish it was Spring Break.  And that's not for another 8 and 1/2 weeks.  I'm not counting down or anything. 

The worst of all right now is the cardiac physiology that we're learning.  I knew that it was going to be difficult.  However, it's crazy!  There are so many things going on at once, in less than a one second interval.  Bah!  Who knew that three ions could be doing three different things and some electric impulses would be going on as well as the physical mechanics? Well, the notes hadn't been helping too much.  I can understand them, but they're hard to follow!  And of course, the phys professors told us not to worry about buying the "required" book for the class.  Which brings me to my (strange) title of this blog entry.

I have some other science books besides the ones that I need for medical school.  I.e. "important" books from my undergrad with very interesting titles such as Biology, Developmental Biology and even Cellular and Molecular Biology.  So one book I have is from my "Uncle," who works for a medial publishing company (it's and Anatomy and Physiology book).  I looked at the cardiac part, and it wasn't great.  So I pulled out my Human Physiology book from undergrad.  Everyone else in undergrad had just a Physiology book (including animals), but George Schulte didn't like it, so he required this Human Phys book.  I looked in it, and the cardiac cycle made sense!  So, even though Schulte was a little crazy and his class a little random...the book is great.  So thanks, Schulte! I knew I'd get something good out of that class!!

Haha so now everyone can see how exhilerating my life is, when a book from undergrad excites me.  

The other exciting thing right now is that Kirksville got like 8 inches of snow yesterday!! It's so pretty.  If only K-vegas would remember how to clean the streets...

Here's some of what we need to know for phys right now...only it's missing the ions. 

Quarter 2!

Quarter 2 just began today.  I think that it's going to be good.

I've got my study skills in order and (although there will be adjustments) feel like they will work pretty good.  At least I hope so!

I don't have a lot more to say, but I haven't checked in for a while...so there's the short update.

As a side note,  there was this movie that just came out.  It was pretty awesome.  Here's the picture for those of you who may not be able to figure it out!

Let's just say that it was AMAZING.  And now I can't wait for July.   

Utter Amazement

Today I went to my little's house to have brunch with our APO family.  Unfortunately, this meant that I was unable to attend Mass this morning, because brunch was at 11.  Normally, when I head to brunch at my little's I go to Saturday night Mass.  However, my brother ended up coming up and we went to a concert over at Truman (which was really great, btw).  

Well anyways, I know how I get if I don't attend Mass, and I'm already a little stressed, so with two weeks of craziness coming up I headed over to the Newman to try and destress a little.  I'm a little weary of the Newman Center sometimes, but it ending up being a blessing.

The readings were focused on life after death, but the homily focused on living a full and meaningful life so that one can reach their eternal reward.  The main point was that we should have an "attitude of utter amazment about the value of life."  Father discussed about how the value of life is so high because it's filled with God's love for us and how he wants us to share our value with one another.  If we can do this, then we can live as true Christians who put their God before anything else.  

The scientist in me also thought about this statement.  For each topic in anatomy class we start with the embryology on the subject.  With each embryology lecture comes lists of anomolies from development.  The fact that I developed and was born a healthy baby really is amazing.  God knows the inner workings of everyone and he obviously has great plans for everyone.  This is one thing that I can work on, and give thanks that God has gotten me this far, especially with the struggles that I have had in my past.

I just think this was an excellent point to make.  I don't really stop to think about the value of life ever.  I do try and live my life as a Christian but if I'm not putting any true effort behind it, does it really count?  Until today, I had never really thought about that.  For right now, I'm not really going out into the world to help others.  But I am learning a profession where my day to day tasks will involve helping others.  If I can apply my best efforts to this, than I think the utmost satisfaction will come from my career choice.

I think that for the next two weeks I'm just going to have to think about the value of God in my life to try and stay sane.  Advent starts in a few weeks and that is the perfect time to revamp my life.  But why not start the change now?

The Tiny Whispering Sound

It's been a while again since I've been on here.  My life has been a little bit hectic these past weeks, mainly due to the fact that we're currently in the middle of six tests.  Five of which are in difficult subjects.  So naturally I've been studying.

Today, however, I came to the realization that I really am going to be a doctor.  I mean, I knew this coming in and such.  And let's be honest, I'm super excited to be able to call myself "Dr. Majchrzak."  (Sorry, Pops, you won't be the only one anymore...)

But today I was checking up on a nervous system powerpoint for my anatomy class, seeing as how I'm not so good at that nervous system stuff.  While getting to the anatomy website, I was looking at the classes for the quarters yet to come.  There are six more after this one, and I know that there is a lot of hard work to come and all, but really, in less than two years I will actually go out on rotations and be less of a pretend doctor and more of a real doctor.  We've been doing some "real" doctor things recently, like learning how to do abdominal and chest exams, etc.  But just on each other.  So, once we get to real patients then it'll be like a real doctor?  Or something...

And then I got to really thinking.  Being a doctor is more than just calling yourself a doctor.  I'm going to have the power to really help people.  I don't want to be the doctor who has her nose up in the air all of the time.  I really want to be at the same level as my patients.  In some ways, this will be easy.  I mean, I think I'm going to head into the field of Pediatrics.  Of course, I have the interests (and maturity) of about a five year old.  I think that this will be good.  Because what five year old doesn't love disney movies?  Then again, I also will want to give them the best care that I can while respecting their parents wishes.  This is going to be a struggle, because often times parents don't want to listen, but I think that it will be something I come to love.

However, I think for my strength to stay up, I need to work on my spiritual strength.  In the past few weeks I've really been focused on my studies and not been so worried about my faith.  I've been in this stage of life before, but under different circumstances.  And I know that it's not a good place.  So my new challange is going to be incorporating my faith life into my everyday life.  Often I look for God in big places.  I want Him to give me that good grade on a test or allow me to have a good day.  And then when I least expect it, for instance, if I'm having a bad day, then some person will say something to me to brighten my day.  Obviously that's God knowing that I need an extra push or smile or something.  I just don't always see it.  

I'm going to try and see this in my life.  Just like this Bible passage, which happens to be one of my favorites:

Then the LORD said, "Go outside and stand on the mountain before the LORD; the LORD will be passing by." A strong and heavy wind was rending the mountains and crushing rocks before the LORD--but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake--but the LORD was not in the earthquake.  After the earthquake there was fire--but the LORD was not in the fire. After the fire there was a tiny whispering sound.

1 Kings 19: 11-12