Summer approaches

...which means my exams are looming large. Sorry I've been such a bad writer. Sometimes it's a matter of being busy. Sometimes it's a matter of being uninspired to talk to yourself publicly. :) I have to say that a great couple of books that I keep reading over and over at night to remind myself why I'm studying medicine are these two(this and this). Rachel Naomi Remen is definitely an inspiration and is the kind of doctor (and person, for that matter) that I aspire to be. Anyway, I'm pretty excited about my upcoming summer, I must say. Lots of fun activities, friend visiting, travelling, and (of course) learning planned. I'm not quite sure why it happens this way every year but summer's are always "just packed". When I'm working I find my summer weekends book up (that is, I book them up) by about early May. And now that I have the whole summer off, I've managed to fill up the weeks too! Not surprisingly, studying is consuming my days and nights now. And I know that I've mentioned that I haven't been working as hard as I should have throughout the term. I think that's going to change next semester. If only to avoid this impending feeling of doom I have now as exams approach. ugh. (See, I told you I'd be saying this every set of exams, but it really is true what my friend said about med school. You feel your smartest on the day you find out you've been accepted, from that point on - at least once school starts - you feel dumb. Or at the very least, dumber than all of your classmates.) Interesting things I've learned in the last few weeks while not blogging:

• In BC, after much time and many assessments by a doctor, the government will pay for a man to have a sex change to a female (a full meal deal that is, with a vagina made and the whole bit) but for a woman, she only gets a full mastectomy paid for - no penis prostheses (which they do have). Apparently it's because the costs are the same to take each of them to that point. If that's not the stupidest thing I've ever heard, I don't know what is. Either we pay for it all or none of it for both men and women. But geez, women pay more for haircuts, dry-cleaning and now apparently, they have to pay for a penis too.
• Smoking is bad. It keeps coming up again and again for every organ system we've done so far. Even the kidneys - smoking increases your risk of bladder cancer by 4x and for kidney cancer by 2x. But, if you quit smoking, risks go down dramatically across the board. So if you currently smoke, quit. Besides, it's smelly.
• Diabetes sucks too. People with diabetes fall automatically into the "immunocompromised" bucket, so they're at risk for a whole bunch of infections and a slew of diseases too.

Umm, I think I've hit a wall. No more content, unless you want me to start regurgitating info about chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or bronchiectasis. Or equations about pressure differentials in the lungs. Okay, I think I've managed to panic myself back into studying. Thanks for dropping by.