Summers over? :(

Well this is a bit late. Summer has been over for a bit. I feel like I got back to school and barely had time to hit the ground running. Surprisingly after a summer of lazing about, working, and doing a lot of nothing (best break ever!) I fell back into the routine of chicken with no head quite quickly. I think it helps that I had meetings prior to school starting so it kind of got me back into that mindset. The first few weeks of fall are always the roughest. All organizations have meetings about recruiting and general meetings soon after to keep membership up so it's like a whirlwind of meetings and then before you know it, it's exam time.

I think I've lost my mind. I'm an officer for several organizations, taking a full credit load (I maxed out my elective credits), and I have my pharmacy job that I work 13 hours every other week, plus my work study job at school that's about 5 hours a week (not much). And that's not even to the point where I think I've gone off the deep end.

I think I've gone off the deep end because I am thinking about taking on a third job as a school tutor. Money has been a little tight and I am doing a lot as a P-3 from campus things to conferences and unfortunately those conferences cost money. I don't max out on my student loans because I consider it something way too frivolous when I know I don't need all of it. However, I think I may have gone slightly too conservatively. I've always had the mindset of, take what you need for the essentials- tuition, rent, and food. Whatever else you want to spend money on, you work to pay for it.

It's really all the same as my first two years of pharm school. I think I may have bit off more than I can chew this time. I really hope I can handle everything I seem to have gotten myself into this year.

So what do you think? Yay or nay to the tutoring gig?

Honey boo boo child

Sure, most of us have seen that crazy video about the child beauty queen that chugs mountain dew like a fiend. I’ll admit that I laughed at that video and how ridiculous this all was. But now I’m terrified. They are giving this kid and her family a TV show.

Seriously? I know we are a country of cheap laughs and mind rotting reality TV, but really all we’re doing by giving people like this a TV show is to reward and encourage this idiotic behavior. What kind of message are we sending to these people and everyone in the US? That being stupid, obnoxious, and annoying as hell is awesome?

Personally, I’m not a fan of reality TV. Everything that embodies reality TV infuriates me. I like having a good time just as much as everyone else, but all reality TV is about is encouraging narcissism and idiotic behavior among my peers.

I think what annoys me the most is that our country rewards idiocy and perpetuates the horrible reputation that everyone else in the world has about Americans. Why do we not value education like we do sports? The average American reads at a 3^rd grade level, and that’s being generous. Don’t get me wrong, I love sports. I played a number of sports growing up through high school. I played in a work league after I graduated from college. I love sports, but I don’t believe that people should value sports above education.

Sorry… I’ll get off my soap box now, but this whole thing just really irritated me. 

Actual Vacation!

I finally went on an actual vacation! One that involved no work (ok, I did have a conference call on the way to the airport and minor loose ends),  no school work, no one yelling at me, I had a week a wonderful week away from the monotony of living at home for the summer and working in retail.

I feel wonderful. I didn't get to do everything I wanted to, but I do have a new dive buddy back home and I am preparing for a few dives before summers end. I still can't believe it's nearly the end of July. I am not ready to be stuck in a classroom all day. Don't get me wrong, I love school, but I'm not ready to be chained to the library again.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful week!

SSDD

My poor neglected blog. I don't know what it is, but while out of school I find myself rarely on my computer. Sure, my smart phone is like an extension of my arm, but I rarely turn on my laptop and peruse the internet like I would in school. I guess that's what happens when you aren't trying to procrastinate every second of every day.

That and I really have nothing new to share. I've spent most of the summer working and spending time with family and trying to get back into shape. At this point I feel like I need a vacation from summer break, or maybe I just need an actual vacation. Actually what I need is a day (or three) where I can just lock myself in my room alone and read. I love being social, but I think I am at my limit and need some hermit time to recoup.

You know what I hate about community pharmacy? How it never fails that at 1 minute to closing someone will come in and one or both of the following will happen:

A) they need 5+ Rx's to fill (from like 4 days ago) that absolutely has to be filled RIGHT THIS MOMENT OR I'M GONNA DIE. And all I want to do is drop the metal door down and run.
B) person above will either have never been here before and suddenly have no idea which is their rx insurance card OR they have and don't have their new insurance card OR some other insurance headache

My favorite is that I've had two patients in the last week try to tell me that if I call their insurance company the insurance company will lower their copay. BAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA. What. Welcome to the real world, what am I supposed to say?! You want a lower copay why don't you complain and see how long it takes before your insurance company laughs at you. One actually said to me, "you must be new at this. If you just call the insurance company and tell them to charge me less, they will."

I nearly fell over laughing after he finally left. If shit like that actually worked, I wouldn't feel like a douchebag for having to charge an obscene amount of money for a poor person that needs their cancer medication because their insurance company is charging them a couple grand for a copay because I could get them to lower it. I always feel like an asshole, even though there's really nothing I can do about it and I'm really just the price messenger.

SUMMAH TIME!

The long anticipated summer has arrived!!! It feels so amazing to not have to study all the time or sit in a hot classroom all day! This will probably get old really quickly, but for now I am enjoying the lazy days, getting some actual sunlight time, and working. Ok, so I'm not enjoying working... but it's something to do and it pays me. Plus it keeps my counseling skills sharp.

It's going to be a busy summer hopefully. This is my last summer for forever since I go on rotations next summer. I have several graduations ranging from middle school all the way to pharmacy school, weddings, and hopefully I can squeeze in some traveling! I've also started working out 4 times a week, which is a huge change from my lazy sit in the library all week routine. It's kicking my ass, but it feels so good to really be challenged physically again. Plus I am getting fatter and fatter... that needs to stop!

I'm not sure how much I will update this blog over the summer. I'm  not even sure what I would update it with. Probably phunny pharmacy stories.

Like I have a pharm tech that typed a script I took from a physician and changed the refill qty to whatever she wanted instead of the number I clearly wrote. Apparently because she didn't agree with the number. Ummmmm yes, sometimes the numbers don't make sense because some physicians are special BUT you type what is written (as long as it doesn't break any laws) because it's their decision and this one actually had a valid reason. Which she would have known if she just freaking asked. She's been getting on my nerves mostly because I am pretty sure she has no idea what the f- she is doing which makes a busy pharmacy 10x more stressful. For someone that's been with the company for years, there's really no excuse for how incompetent she is.

Whoops. Sorry, left over work frustration. I have just wanted to scream lately at work because when I have to work with her, she is so slow that I end up answering all the phone calls while typing or filling prescriptions because she needs to stare at an empty bottle for 20 minutes in order to fill it?! If I don't the numbers just keep piling up and people start yelling at me.

If I could, I'd fire her ass.

It makes me grateful for the other (amazing) techs that I work with. But I seriously legit do not like this one at all.

It's also frustrating that the pharmacists I work with take advantage of my intern license which means I not only get to pick up the slack of stupid lazy tech, I pick up their work, too. I legit would rather go back to school, but being paid is kind of nice. They need to give me a fucking raise though. Jesus.

School's Out!

Another year come and gone!

Going through it all made it feel like an eternity. My last week of P2 year was probably one of the longest weeks of my life. Actually, aren’t finals weeks always the longest weeks of your life? It’s a weird time warp where you panic about not having enough time to learn all the material you need to study, but at the same time it feels like the week is never going to end and neither will the exams.

I have officially taken all my exams, passed all my courses and I am officially 50% of the way to my PharmD! It’s been a bit of a tough year for me emotionally which made this school year a bit tough. I somehow pulled through without too many hits on my grades. Trying to pull focus when you need it and your brain doesn’t want to provide it was probably the most challenging part of it all. I found myself sitting in the library for hours staring at the same page.

My melodramatic side was unsure if I could even finish out this year. By the time the last month or two of school rolled around I was out of motivation, focus, and fucks to give. Classic burn out? I guess it’s a good thing pharm school costs an arm, a leg, and probably your first born. It’s pretty much the only reason I didn’t fully give up. I did pretty mediocrely though.

Oh well, it’s my last summer before rotations! I am going to enjoy it and hope I don’t want to die this time next year.

just a quick update

As I am writing this a part of me is nagging me reminding me I have two exams to study for this week. One of which is tomorrow. I seem to have dropped into this lull and I don’t like it. I feel tired all the time, unwilling to do much aside from lie in bed and waste the day away. It took me 6 hours yesterday to drag myself from bed to get out of my apartment and just do…. Something, anything.
I’m not sure what set me off really. My ex and I are restarting our friendship. It’s actually been quite nice. I’m just worried because at this point I feel rather vulnerable and wonder if I may fall in love with her again for all the wrong reasons because it feels safe. I’m not sure what has brought me to this point, but I am trying my best to shake it off. I hate feeling this way. I hope it passes, soon.

Sorry about the not so uplifting post.

Starting over?

"Can we start over?"

A few weeks ago I woke up one morning to an email from my ex entitled just that. I thought I was still asleep, surely she wasn't really going to try this again? It had been months since I last heard from her and our last words were not kind words.

I haven't opened it yet. It is sitting in my inbox and I am wondering if this is a path I want to venture down. I fought so hard to remove her from my life because it hurt too much to keep her in it. All the pleading, phone calls, and texts she had sent me came flooding back. How could I keep her in my life when I wanted to hate her?

All the anger has subsided, I've moved on with my life. A small part of me does still wonder if one day we will find our way back to each other. This email threw me though. I want to talk to my friends about it, but I am scared that they'll just look at my disapprovingly that I will even consider reading what she has to say. I guess I really should be studying for my barrage of exams instead of worrying about this.

It's nice though, that the email didn't draw more emotion from me other than a bit of confusion and apathy. I think I'm more worried about whether or not I'm ready to read what may be in this letter.

Maybe next week!

School, Smash, and Prop 8

Holy what it's February?!

Pharmacy school is notorious for two things:

1) Making each block fly by
2) Making many courses drag by

It's not contradicting! In a few of my classes I swear every minute feels like a year, but then I look back on the whole block and I can't believe it's time for finals again. Commence sleepless nights, anxiety, and self diagnosing yourself with every disorder you are studying. I'm not kidding, we were covering mental health and it stated "Patient A is depressed because states that she finds it hard to get out of bed in the morning and when she goes home all she does is crawl in bed and watch TV."

Um, excuse me, that's what I do EVERY DAY. Actually, we pretty much all looked at each other and thought the same thing, "Wait, that's not normal?!".


Enough about school. Let's talk about my new love: Smash. Not Hulk Smash! Not the sound of students banging their heads against the walls in frustration. I am talking about the new TV show. I never would have heard of it had I not seen the ads for it during the Super Bowl. You know you've been in pharmacy school too long when you spell bowl, bowel repeatedly. Aside from my obsession with musical theatre, they hooked me with Megan Hilty. I love her voice. I could listen to her all day, and then I watched the show.

WHERE HAS KATHARINE MCPHEE BEEN ALL MY LIFE?! I'm pretty sure I swooned when they did a duet.

Let's be real here. Any show centered around Broadway that has amazing voices I will love. I'm not saying I will love the story line, but I have a wonderful skill where I just enjoy the songs and the beautiful voices.

And last, but not least:

Prop 8 was ruled UNCONSTITUTIONAL by the ninth circuit court!!!! Just another step in the long uphill battle.

From the LA Times:
The court concluded that Prop. 8 served no purpose other than to "lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians."

Now if only more people could see and understand that. It's not a matter of religion. If it was purely religious, I'd say keep it. We can come up with a better name for gay marriage, well not me because I have the creativity of a potato. But we could, and it'd be fabulous. It's the fact that "marriage" in the United States allows for certain RIGHTS and BENEFITS to married couples, including but not limited to: tax breaks, medical and legal rights, things that the government grants couples with a legal binding contract that is not offered to single people (or gays). No, civil unions do not grant the same legal benefits and nor is it recognized on a federal level. It's like saying you get a tax break for being white, but not if you're black. Or, white people get this tax break on the state and this from the federal government, but you can only have it on the state level because you're not white.

Is that fair? Is that equal?

Let's face it, it's not. And really this is just my "logical" argument for gay marriage rights and rights in general. Separate is not equal. My heart tells me that it's not right because you are denying couples that love and adore each other (certainly more than Kim Kardashawhatever did that dude and Rush and his 3 divorces) the right to marry. Sanctity of marriage my ass. If people can get married to someone they just met in Vegas, then let Adam marry Steve and Eve marry Kate. The world will not implode or explode, life will go on.

P.S. Just because I like women does not mean I want to marry a toaster, a horse, or a building. That argument doesn't even make sense. Consenting adult does not equal inanimate objects, animals, or children.

She's gay, you all know each other right?!

Let's get one thing straight folks (aside from the fact that I am not). Being gay does not automatically mean you know every single gay person in the area, or in my case, school. Sadly, I know maybe 2 (out) gay people at school. I know there are more, yes I know they must exist, but no I have not met and befriended them all. I'm not saying that I don't want to. It'd be really nice to not feel like the only lesbian on campus (even though I know that is definitely not true). I would like to meet and talk to them, but how awkward would be that interaction be?

"Oh hi, um so my friends tell me that you're gay, too." And that would probably be the end of our awkward exchange.

We're in grad school guys! 95% of us are very awkward people! (true for my campus at least) Granted, some much more than others, but I am not about to become a gay seeking missile (similar to a heat seeking missile?) and find every single gay person that people tell me about. I've thought about it... because though I love my friends, sometimes being the token gay is not so much fun.

I just find it strange and sometimes hilarious that people will say things like "OH! So I met this gay girl, you know her right?" or "You must know her, she's a lesbian."

That's like walking up to an Asian and saying "Hey this person is Asian too, y'all know each other right?" or "Hey, you're a Jew, you know so-and-so right?! Cos he's a Jew, too!"

Sorry to slip in the Jew comment, because people actually have come up to me and asked if I knew this person because he was an Asian, too. Some people are kind of special.

So public service announcement: Just cos someone is gay doesn't automatically mean they know all the gays in the world.

You're welcome. Now go be awkward about something else.

New Obsession

Ah, so my new obsession is currently cooking. The problem is finding time to cook, when I barely have enough time to exercise. Ah, a tip I left out in my last post. Exercising is key to maintaining your sanity in pharmacy school. I was so busy this entire week that I didn't get any of my running, biking, and training in that I was extremely antsy in class. I feel bad for my classmates because I cannot stop moving when this happens. Between it being freaking freezing, exams, work, and meetings the only time I have left to myself is late at night. Granted I should have just taken my notes and at least gone biking, but busy is my excuse for being fat. Haha!

But I digress.

I have always loved cooking and one of my goals this year was to 1) eat at least twice a day (also an issue with being busy) 2) eat healthier (another side effect of being busy #whatfatpeoplesay) 3) it really sucks to just cook for one person.

I was actually doing pretty well! I would blog my latest cooking adventure... but I fear it may cause me to lose my anonymity just in case someone I know stumbles upon this blog. It was so delicious though.

I can't wait for my next project now that I have a group of guinea pigs. Another benefit of pharm school- lots of hungry friends that are willing it what you create (once they test it out and make sure it won't make them sick) hahaha.

How to Succeed in Pharmacy School

I've had several people ask me what my secret is to "not failing" and doing "well" on exams. There is no secret, really. It takes a lot of work. People that write it off as "oh it's because you're lucky and you're smart."

That is far from the truth. I work and study really hard, but I also balance it with fun and relaxation. They don't see the countless hours I spend in the horrible library studying for my exams and trying desperately to learn as much as I can before the exam. I find it really obnoxious when people who don't go to class, don't take notes in class, and try to cram everything in in one night think that I don't have to work at all for my grades. Yes, some people don't have to work at all and they gets straight As (those bastards) and some people work even harder than I do and barely pass.

So here's how I get through pharm school:

1) I go to class and here's the secret: I PAY ATTENTION in class. Well, at least try. Haha.
2) I take extensive notes. I will re-write things in a totally dumbed down way just to make sure if I come back to study and suddenly become dumber than a sack of bricks (totally happens all the time) I have a "stupid persons guide" to understanding the notes. It also helps make sure I'm paying attention in class.
3) I re-write my notes. Extremely time consuming... but if I need to get a concept, sometimes it's the only way for me.
4) Make sure you actually understand the concepts instead of just saying "oh yeah I know that" and then coming to it on the exam and going "OH F@#$!"
5) I wake up about 3 hours before an exam to wake myself up and get out of that groggy state and refresh my mind with the material on the exam.
6) Make sure you use any free time to relax and have fun. This is probably the most important part because it will keep you from burning out. I would go INSANE without my "fun time". And don't say there isn't any time. You need to make time.

And that's pretty much what I do. It's pretty simple, but it won't work for everyone. This is just how I do it. Haha so with that disclaimer- I don't want any comments about how I caused you to fail your exams.

Happy New Year!

My, my. It seems my obsession with punctuality in real life takes away from punctuality on this blog. Oh well.

I hope 2012 is going well for all of you! It has been a wonderful, peaceful, quiet new year for me and I am loving it. My Christmas break was much too short though and I am still recovering from my respiratory infection that pretty much ruined my entire break, but I am feeling a lot better! Class on the other hand has been dragging by. I swear time stood so still, we may have actually gone back in time.

I am so grateful for my friends though, especially my friends in pharmacy school. I have met so many amazing and wonderful people that I have no idea what I would do without them in my life. Some days when I wonder if I made the right choice for pharmacy school, I think about the amazing professors and friends I have made here and how different my life would be without them. It really makes me realize I made the right decision for me in coming here.

So 2011, with all your heartbreaks and ups and downs, thank you for always reminding me what's important in life. I'm glad to see you go and I am excited for 2012.

So who thinks the world is gonna end? Not gonna lie, I think it's all a bunch of crock, BUT if it does end HOORAY FOR NOT HAVING TO PAY BACK MY LOANS!!! Not to mention get a real job. Haha. I can die doing what I love the most... being a student. God, I am such a freaking nerd.