It's the Little Things

Life has been extremely insane since last Thursday due to many, many things. However, I would like to introduce y'all to the one little creature that keeps me somewhat sane in medical school: Winry. Before I formally introduce you to my spoiled bearded dragon, let me explain some things. I was the kid in school that LOVED all things frogs and lizards. My mom likes to joke that I used to have all of the lizards, the little green anoles, at my house trained to let me pick them up and pet them. There was a brief period of time where I even had a family of lizards living together with me before my mom made me put them back outside. So, the moral of the story is that I absolutely loved lizards. I was fascinated with the bearded dragons and iguanas that people had as pets, and I wanted one. So, on my sixteenth birthday, my dad took me to PetSmart to pick out a baby bearded dragon. It was a glorious day, and that poor lizard was probably absolutely terrified. At first I w...

Fruit flies are evil. They just pop up and multiply uncontrollably. You see one fly the first day, and then you have a whole invading army the next. They are only useful in genetic experiments. Please feel free to attach any research articles to persuade me otherwise. I wouldn't be mentioning these pesky little insects if they weren't conquering my apartment currently. They first appeared about three weeks ago. I quickly started cleaning and trying to get rid of any kind of food that they might feast on. Their population slowly decreased for a few days, but then they came back with a vengeance. So on Sunday, my roommate suggested that we should get pest control to spray the apartment. I was kind of against that because of Winry. I didn't want to let him out in my room for him to accidentally get into some insect poison and die. So the war began. I immediately went out and bought some fruit fly traps and ingredients for a homemade concoction that I re...

When I moved to Dothan in July of last year, I was in for a real treat. I went from a city with many suburbs with interstates and Milos to a smaller city that lacked Jim N Nick's Barbecue and Milos and some other great stores. (Y'all can't tell that I miss Milos at all, can ya?) The Post Office: Yes, there are some cons to living in Dothan, but there are many perks. For instance, I believe that the Dothan Post Office in the center of downtown should be the poster child for every post office in the nation. The post office workers there deserve a raise in the very least. They are always extremely patient and sweet even when there are incredibly long lines and rude people. And yes, they do have extremely long lines. However, unlike the post offices back home, the lines here usually have at least 15 people and last about 30 minutes. Back home, a line of 3-5 people would last the same amount of time. The workers always give their respective customers their ...

I, like many others, joined in the craze of Pokémon Go when it first arrived. I was pretty bummed at first because there were never any Pokémon or PokeStops where I lived. At college, there were many more stops and creatures, but the game was still pretty boring. Not a lot of people played the game, so there wasn't much competition. When I got to medical school, I quickly realized that there was a whole group playing the game. My mentor introduced me to the group at first, so I re-downloaded the game. I'm not going to lie. Niantic really stepped up their game with Pokémon Go over the last couple years. They have released many more creatures and events to spice things up. There are raid battles where you can battle as a group and catch rare Pokémon. Again, it has come a long way from where it started. It is quite funny how a bunch of us - both first and second year students with some third year students occasionally - just show up in a group to battle in ...

Like many other students bridging the gap from high school to college, I believed that I knew how to study. Oh my, was I mistaken. I still remember the long nights studying for biology and writing chemistry papers during my freshman year. I would have to take short naps after softball practice each night just so that I would have the energy to stay awake and finish my homework. As the years went by, the course work got more manageable. That was probably due to the fact that I finally figured out how to study and manage my time. Plus, I learned that if I didn't finish looking over a particular lecture or finish a homework assignment that wasn't due for another week the same day that it was assigned or given, it was okay. I've learned that a lot of things are okay. Some days aren't meant for productivity no matter how hard we try to conquer our to-do lists. Foolishly enough, I believed that I knew how to study when I got to medical school. I mean, yes,...

For those of you who know me and those who do not yet, my name is Jess. If you would like to know more about me and my background, you should check out the "About Me" section of this blog. However, I believe that the main thing you should know about me is that I am a first-year medical student. That title in itself consumes my life currently. This blog started as a nagging idea between classes. It was an idea that grew in the afternoons on my walk home from school and would spring new ideas during errands and other times when I least expected it. So hopefully these ideas will continue to grow and be cultivated through this endeavor. I will be honest. I have no idea how often I will be able to post, but I already have plenty of stories to tell you all. So I mentioned previously that I am in medical school. I moved from my beloved city of Birmingham, where I grew up and went to college, to Dothan, a small city surrounded by farmlands. That in itself was an extreme culture s...