What Happens In Shimoga, Stays in Shimoga. :P

There is so much to blog about! This is going to be one LOONG Post! :D

So College began on the 6th of October as scheduled but most people came by Thursday or Friday.We reached Shimo on Monday night after driving through pretty heavy rainfall for most of the way. I attended classes from Tuesday and luckily enough Nammu ma'am and I become roommates. A lot of people got juniors or seniors as roommates due to the space constraint in the hostels.

We're now divided into smaller batches for our postings. The batch that I'm in will have Surgery for one month. The other batches include General Medicine, OBG and Community Medicine. Our HoD is Dr. Lahoti and so far a few lecturers have taught us the basics, that is, History Taking (eliciting information from the patient and presenting it), pain, examination of a lump of swelling, an ulcer and few other concepts. We haven't been allowed to the wards yet (although we're encouraged to do so in the evenings and over the weekends) and it will be quite some time before we see any surgery. Until then, we've got to master the art of History Taking; that is asking the right questions from the patient to come up with a diagnosis.

Our clinical postings are from 9 to 11 everyday. After this we have theory classes for the next two hours (by which time I'll be absolutely famished and ready to eat anything that's served, so mess food is not a problem.) Our second year subjects are Pathology (study of disease), Pharmacology (study of drugs, their actions, mechanisms and excretion), Microbiology (study of (pathological) microorganisms) and Forensic Medicine (use of medical knowledge, physics, chemistry and biology for establishing the cause of deaths, injuries, etc.

The books we're expected to refer to are:

• Pathology: Robbins (Harshmohan for the exams)
• Pharmacology: K D Tripathi
• Microbiology: Ananthanarayan and Panicker 
• Forensic Medicine: KSN Reddy 
• Surgery: S. Das 

Post lunch (when sleep sets in and fighting it becomes a challenge) we have labs as usual for 2 hours. On our first Forensic Lab, I made a fool of myself by nearly fainting. Maybe it was the suffocating feeling because 30 of were huddled together, maybe it was because we were seeing a lot of grotesque images all at once, but for a few zillion seconds, everything seemed to spin and I'm thankful I didn't collapse. But it's also an extremely annoying, disappointing moment that I was too 'weak' to withstand two hours of Forensic Lab. Can't/Shouldn't/Won't happen again. 

Our first Pathology Lab was equally memorable owing to the fact that the HoD appears to be rather eccentric. The 10 minutes that Vaibhav Sir spent with us was much more informative (although his negative approach can be very putting off. "You have to pay for every moment you waste. Maybe you'll pay for it now, maybe you'll pay for it later, but you''ll have to pay for all the time you waste.") 

The good and not so good aspect is that college starts at 9. Good because we get to sleep more and not so good because we get to sleep more (than we need to.) Our college began much later than it was supposed to, (almost 20 days late) but somehow I haven't been able to really get into the groove yet. It's probably the extended vacation where I didn't study, it's probably a slight decline in motivation levels or it's the 10 day Diwali vacation that we're now having or maybe it's "kobbu". Plus I've been freaking out over how I've forgotten nearly everything I studied in first year, which makes me question how and why did I pass and which makes me all the more worried about how I will cope with second year. Nevertheless, I definitely must start working soon. (Time to deactivate FB, perhaps?)

In fact, on the last (but one day) before the holidays, Dr. Gopinath Sir brought a real patient for us to examine. She was extremely cooperative and allowed us to watch her being examined (usually patients are hesitant and require to be convinced) but the anticlimax was that we were pretty much clueless about how to proceed after the basic history taking. It seemed like an eye opener to many of us as to how much we were lagging behind. The worst possible feeling is when you do not know how to help the patient in front of you. And every medical student should study with that thought in mind. 

Baddie ke Baad. PC: Nammu.

:D

On the fitness front, Baddie in the mornings with Vindhya has been a way to keep fit. Maggie consumption has decreased drastically (I eat fruits while Nammu makes Maggi) and Coffee consumption is yet to begin (The milk+water+dicoction+heaps of sugar in the mess cannot be called coffee.)

In the past 10 days, we watched Bang Bang (for Hrithik Roshan) {speaking of whom, I have a new goal for the next 10 days. Hint: *Dance*}, Bangalore Days (Awwww) and Miss Congeniality (ma'am and I). Apart from this, I've spent 2 whole hours in the Library reading about Routes of Administration of Drugs and nothing else. The worrying thing is all the teachers want to ask questions in class or lab or postings, and that too randomly. (How did they guess it was the best way to freak me out?!)

Beepee, Deepu, Abhi and Me

Roomies. BangBang day. :)

And in the midst all this, there are juniors. And my god, they're a handful! So after the first week, there were plans for a Fresher's day [for the juniors, organized by the seniors (3rd and 4th term, boycotted by the 5th term (well, almost)] and slowly things began to fall in place. The last two days before the event (Udhbhava 2014) seemed like a mad rush and coordinating everything was certainly a logistical nightmare. There seemed to be a few hiccups but it was soon sorted out because in the end, the show must go on.

Being involved in such events can be a great opportunity to learn. Learn about people, from people and to be a better person. Sometimes, it's important to see good in every person. Even if it's easy not to. Doing that will make you a more tolerant person, I believe. Sometimes, when you see people really happy, you just want to step back and watch from a distance, because it seems too special to walk in on their moment. 

For the first time in a seemingly long time, I was criticized for my English and I'm glad that happened. I was probably getting too complacent that what I write sounds good, but the reality check actually made me improve. Apart from this, we had a lot of fun. That's the best part, without a doubt. And yes, of course, I extracted (and will continue to extract) chocolates as payment. ^_^

But first, Let Me Take A Selfie. :P

Abhi Abhii :)

So the show began formally (anchored by our batch people only, after some confusion) with a few speeches (by a junior, by me (we're thankful to have good seniors who guided us *cough-Vindhya-cough* and we intend to do the same to the juniors *cough-Joke-cough*) and by the dignitaries on stage (Classic FacePalm moment: the MD of the college says "We hope you will be better seniors to your juniors than the present seniors are to you.") and after this was the informal cultural events, stage based games and other "fillers". The juniors seemed a lot more confident and some of them showed real talent. After this was the Oath Taking Ceremony where the juniors were made to repeat a light-hearted oath which include these tenets:

• I will maintain my attendance at 75%, not less, not more.
• I will not make Biochemistry book my pillow.
• I will not read Anatomy in Physiology class.
• I will read the first 19 pages of Cunningham manual.
• I will prick myself for drawing blood for Hematology experiments.
• I will not marry before the age of 40.
• I will try my level best to like the mess food.
• I will watch the Atkins video instead of Bang Bang movie.
• I will learn to sleep with my eyes open.
• I will drink coffee or tea as frequently as water.

And so on.. After this was the DJ night and Kundu, Anu (only for a short while though) and I were DJ-night mates (just like last time.) Basically we didn't dance, we said we wouldn't dance. But at some point, we realized that this opportunity may not come again, hence we went out there are began mimicking the best dancer around for some basic moves until we remembered that we said we didn't know how to dance, so we came back to our seats. It was a night to remember, thanks to all the people who made it so special. :)

Selfie Spree. :P :D Rajesh, Anu, Govi and I (I look blind, I didn't know where the front camera was. -_-)

The next day we woke up hoping that there wouldn't be any classes but then that's too much to hope for, so we dragged ourselves out and made it to the classes and we were lucky enough to see our first patient (mentioned above). We had classes as usual , (Vaibhav Sir telling us about atrophy, physiological and pathological hypertrophies and also warning us not go binge drinking since he had seen some very disturbing accidents due to drunken driving) and Siddlingappa Sir telling us about the metabolism of the drug (and also that classes would be held on the 18th). 

Post the ritualistic nap, it was time to fulfill a promise. Although I threatened to treat in our canteen, we ended up at Bhatru Pani Puri after which I lost a bet to gulp down Masala Pepsi the fastest and we fought tooth and nail over Alpenliebes. In any case, this is the photographic evidence that my treat has been given (hence it can't be extracted again in future). Moreover, I deserve to be treated for such a bold/courageous/spunky deed. Sometimes, you shouldn't (in any case, I didn't) think too much. Nothing will seem right, everything might seem wrong and you'll never be happy. Just go with the flow, you might have a good time. :) What will come out of unwarranted introspection that will only create more doubts in your life? Spontaneity is good, it's different from reckless, though. Spontaneity adds variety to life. My speech ended with the lines, "It's good to have an end to the journey, but in the end, it's the journey that matters." Maybe I'm a destination kind of person, I don't know. But I can be a journey kind of person too. Maybe, they're both equally important.

Ay-Vi-Em, Masala Puri and Me.

Post snacks, I had dinner (stop gaping, I have healthy metabolism. I don't hog.) and it was time for Adios. Our train reached Bangalore in the early hours, next morning. All I've done since I set foot inside the house is sleep. It's actually bothering me that an individual can sleep so much in a single day. The best part is the surprises that Di had in store for me! :D

Cards, Crafts and more! <3

My phone has been failing me off late and owing to that (and the hectic few days), I haven't been able to contact anybody much (that includes home). Our room had the damned-est network possible and one could only message or receive calls if the mobiles were held in certain angles (which were certainly most inconvenient) and this left us loitering in the corriders, waving the phone frantically in the air, hoping to get that elusive network.

Some times, you grow over some acquaintances, some friendships. It's because one of the persons changes while the other doesn't. After that, it becomes awkward because you fail to see anything in common and you realize you've tried enough. I'm still in the process of figuring out what to do in such cases. You don't want to be rude, you don't want to pretend either.

I'm glad I blog. It makes me realize how lucky I am, how much I've got to improve and it helps me remember to be who I am, no matter what.