Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Behavioral Med

Physio ended roughly two weeks ago, U.S. Healthcare ended a week ago, and now we're starting Behavioral Med. So far, it's been a pretty good class. It's not very stressful and they say it's our breather between Physio and Pharm.

Except it also starts at 8am and my body is still in denial about the 6am wake up time. I tend to only get four hours of sleep a night these days for some reason - I don't know what I do, but the next thing I know it's 12am and then insomnia hits. Which means I've been passing out in class a lot.

The professor did a relaxation exercise the other day to show the effects of meditation on the body. Buddhist monks can apparently sit in a freezing room and raise their body temperature through meditation. So he asked us to close our eyes and he took us through this hiking scenario, walking through fields and mountains and all that fun stuff.

I LOVED this exercise.

As soon as my eyes closed, my body wept with joy. And the last thing I remembered was the professor describing the path to the mountains before I passed out completely.

Fifteen minutes later, he woke us up. Half the class blinked blearily in the light and some people pleaded, "Can we do it again?"

"No," the professor said. "Now does anyone feel warmer?"

Silence. "Actually, we're pretty cold."

"You fell asleep, didn't you? I'm going to eat you guys."

Tomorrow, we're doing our first patient-doctor role play session. Very soon, we'll be sent off to our respective sites to do some actual patient interviewing. Exciting! But I wish I could concentrate better on my studies and pick up the slack for once. I feel like I'm always dangling by a thread and all the could've, would've, should'ves get depressing.

Cousin's wedding went well. Us girls did our bridesmaid duties superbly, the groomsmen were under the impression that they were lock-picking, door-busting triad members, and I learned that it is indeed possible to balance an egg with a partner groomsman using only one pair of chopsticks between us. Skills. Oh, and I managed to drop lobster into my lap onto my dress and wound up standing in the bathroom for fifteen minutes with my cousin, scrubbing some of the stains out with the help of some soap, eye make-up remover and a handy hand dryer. Butterfingers, word.