The New Apartment

As promised, here are some photos of the new place.







As you can see, we now have a loft space that replaces our second bedroom as my study space. The kitchen is actually a little bigger than before and has a separate island type counter. However, just about everything else is smaller than before. One of the challenges was figuring out what I was going to do when Lisa comes home from work and starts making noise in the living room while I am trying to study up in the loft. Our solution was a small, $25 desk from IKEA that fits nicely in the corner of the bedroom, and so far it seems to be working out well.

One thing that is better now is the view. Being up a floor we look out over the ugly parking garage a bit more. In fact, we can now see that on top of the garage there is a set of tennis courts and a pool. Also, we get a better view of the park and can even see the med center skyline a bit.

We still have plenty of room for guests to come stay, so you are welcome anytime!!

So much for posting more...

I just noticed that the month is over half-way over and I have yet to post. The reason... we moved! We decided to start looking early for living options for next year. After the first week in March, we started looking at other apartment complexes in our area, and we were not very impressed with their deals. We were looking for something a little smaller than the two bedroom we had before, and something much cheaper.

We discovered that the complex we live in right now has a great 1-bed + loft plan, but they have a 4 person waiting list for this summer already. However, a unit came up as of March 10th, so we really felt like we needed to snatch it up while we could. Did I mention that it is $400 less per month than what we payed before!!

Luckily, Lisa had spring break and Sara was coming down anyway, so the move went very well. However, the whole thing has left me a bit behind in school, and very behind in blog posting. I'll try to get some pictures of the new place up soon.

A long time ago, in a state far far away

I noticed that Bryan was lamenting on his blog about how he only managed to post four times in February, and then I realized that I only posted once! I actually have had things to talk about, but my most recent round of exams were so hard I didn't even have time to procrastinate very much.

Since the beginning of January we have been in been in Block 4, which contains pathology, pharmacology, head and neck anatomy, and immunology. Path and pharm were not so bad, but head and neck had a lot to memorize, and immunology was the hardest subject we have had so far at Baylor.

With head and neck anatomy we finished up all of our pre-clinical anatomy classes. I am very surprised at how much I enjoyed anatomy. I came in thinking I wouldn't like it very much, and it turned out to be my favorite subject so far. Whether or not this means that I will enjoy a speciality that uses lots of anatomy (surgery, radiology) remains to be seen.

Earlier in February my mom was down in Houston helping Noni and Popi come down for the winter season (or at least the second half of it). We went to a Houston Symphony concert featuring the music of John Williams, which turned out to be a very well put together event. They played music from Jaws, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, and lots from Star Wars. Apparently the theme music for the NBC nightly news was also written by John Williams and is a stand alone piece. Throughout the concert, they had various Star Wars characters come out do silly things, like Darth Vader stealing the baton and conducting for a while. Afterwards the characters were in the lobby, as can be seen by my poor cell phone pictures.




In other news, Lisa has to give her kids the Texas state assessment test this week, and she has been working had to make sure that as few of them fail as possible. I remember taking the MEAP every few years or so, and it was never as big a deal as these state tests are here.

Hopefully I'll be able to keep up better as I start block 5 this Monday. Many older students tell us that block 5 is the best block in pre-clinicals, so I might have more time.

A very dangerous place

Today there was an article in the Houston Chronicle of a brutal crime that was so awful, it was reported in the paper even though the city where it happened is not even in Texas! What city is that you say? New York? Baltimore? Philadelphia?

No! The dangerous city in question is... Kalamazoo, MI!!!

Apparently a group of 40-50 teenagers beat a 50 year old man who was riding his bike to the ground. They hit him on the head with a bottle and then punched and kicked him as he lay in the street.

Nothing like this has ever happened in Houston, so seeing such news in our small town paper was quite shocking. Lisa and I are just glad we got out of K-zoo before things really got bad...

A matter of perspective

I noticed something funny today:

If you want to see the difference in editorial slant between the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, just read the articles I've linked to from each paper. They are both discussing the economic stimulus plan, and the ideas presented in each couldn't be more different.

Of course I have nothing of value to contribute to this economic debate, but then again most of the opinion articles I've read lately don't offer much either.

Texas is funny

Sorry for the super long interval since my last post. I really have no excuse except Mario Galaxies and 30 Rock. Lisa and I had a great holiday break, but we were ready to come back to the nice weather.

Speaking of weather, we have a breaking weather alert in effect for our area!!! Let me post some of what it says below:

FREEZING TEMPERATURES ARE EXPECTED FOR ALL BUT THE IMMEDIATE COAST TONIGHT AND INTO EARLY WEDNESDAY. FOR MOST INLAND AREAS AREAS... TEMPERATURES WILL BOTTOM OUT BETWEEN 23 AND 28 DEGREES AND REMAIN BELOW FREEZING FOR 6 TO 10 HOURS. FOR THE HOUSTON METRO AREA... TEMPERATURES ARE EXPECTED TO DROP TO 30 TO 32 DEGREES AND REMAIN BELOW FREEZING FOR 1 TO 3 HOURS. TEMPERATURES WILL CLIMB BACK ABOVE FREEZING AREA WIDE MID MORNING WEDNESDAY.

PRECAUTIONS SHOULD BE TAKEN TO PROTECT PEOPLE... PETS AND PLANTS THAT ARE SENSITIVE TO FREEZING TEMPERATURES. THE DURATION OF TEMPERATURES BELOW FREEZING IS CURRENTLY NOT EXPECTED TO BE LONG ENOUGH TO CAUSE A SIGNIFICANT RISK TO PROPERTY.

30-32 degrees for a whole 3 hours??? Good thing it won't damage our pets or property. We were worried for a little while. If it stays that cold until the early morning, Lisa might get a delay!! Of course, the high tomorrow is 62 and sunny, so we won't have to endure this arctic blast for too long.

On the med school front, we got to take the brain out of our cadaver last week, which was a pretty neat experience. Our donor theoretically died of late stage Alzheimer's disease, but the pathologist who was in our lab looked at the brain and did not think it could have been Alzheimer's. It might have been a severe dementia that was misdiagnosed, and I guess this is why doctor's order autopsies.

By the way, the electric bone saws we used to cut through the skull sound something like a dentist's drill, but with an awful grinding sound at the same time. Not a pleasant noise.

Christmas Time

Well I am now done with my GIMNER (GI, metabolism, nutrition, endocrinology, and reproductive) finals!!! I still have a cumulative final this Friday, but I have heard that it really is not too bad.

Lisa has been picking up the slack around the house, and she made these wonderful cookies while I stared at books all day.

We'll be back in MI in less than a week!!!