Some of My Fave Nerd Gifts!!!

 It's a tradition in my family to open presents super early (3am). This started when I was a wee girl, and is one of my favorite memories. I would wake up bubbling with anticipation, sneak downstairs just to make sure Santa had made it, then go crashing back upstairs screaming "IT'S CHRISTMAS, IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!" and basically dive bomb my parents' bed to make sure they received the message loud and clear. That first view of Santa's magic is one of my favorite mental images... I peak around the corner of our winding steps... the sounds of Elvis crooning out a Christmas classic in the air... the entire downstairs dimly lit by our four Christmas trees... a silvery glitter trail of Santa dust moving from the chimney to the overstuffed stockings to the cookies and milk to the Family tree... evidence that Santa had been all through the house and quiet as a mouse. Isn't Christmas just magical?

This year was slightly different, thanks to -- you guessed it -- MED SCHOOL! Med school turns my sleep schedule all inside-out. I wake up at 10-11am, and don't go to bed until 4-5am..... 6am during finals. Much to my parents' dismay, it took quite awhile for me to adjust to real life once break started, and Christmas Eve was no exception. At 4am Christmas morning, I finally got tired and tried to sneak upstairs to bed. My sneaking skills have gotten progressively worse over the years, and I woke my Dad up. He suggested we start opening presents! So, without ever going to bed, I got to go straight from Christmas Eve into Christmas Day, which was pretty awesome, and in line with our tradition of opening presents in the early morning hours. Here's where it gets nerdy. My family knows me so well. If you are ever looking for gifts to give your favorite nerd, chances are high that one of these will be greatly appreciated.

Last year, I got these:

This year, I got this:

I am REALLY HOPING this is a trend (get it, nerds.... trends!!?!?!?) and I will be receiving a periodic table gift every year (hint hint.... no pressure, fam).

I also got these:

Anyone in med school knows that the Pilot G2s or Sharpie Pens are the way to go, especially for color-coding nuts like myself. Also, camo band-aids!?!? SCORE! You never know when you might cut yourself and not want anyone to see it... And, because I always forget to charge my phone.... a powermat!

Next, I opened up the coolest gift ever... the DAMMIT DOLL!!!!!!!!! And.... in CAMO!!!!!! What better way is there to work out my boards rage than to whack things with this!!?!??!?! Trust me, I've been practicing.

I also bought myself a Christmas present..... upgrading from the iPad 1 to the iPad 4 (w/retina display). WOWZER! It took a lot of convincing for me to drop that pretty penny when I already had an iPad, but it was totally worth it. I'm now doing all of med school electronically, and the iPad 4 is capable of things I didn't even know existed. Straight up BALLER! My only sadness is that Apple doesn't make a hot pink or purple Smart Cover. What up with that!?

Lookin' flyyyy!

And next... this is a gift my Mom got from my Dad. It's called a Power Pod 360 Jr. None of us had ever heard of it before, but Dad found it in the electronics section, and the salesman convinced him to get it. Dad described it like this:

"You plug your iPod into it, and then stick this end to something. Whatever you stick it to will amplify the sound, basically making any object a speaker."

Mom's reaction was an ohhh-cool-i-kinda-get-it-not-really face.

The abbreviated version of my reaction was something like this:

"OH MY GOD!!!! THAT IS SO COOL! Basically, because the particles in a solid are much closer together and compact, the sound is able to travel faster and with more power through a solid than in the air... as the particles bump into each other and pass on the energy (demonstrating with my hands), LET'S TRY IT ON EVERYTHING!!!!!!!"

Needless to say, I ended up with a Power Pod 360 Jr, because my parents were so taken aback by my enthusiasm that they decided I deserved it. 

DEAR NERDS: INVEST IN ONE OF THESE NOW AND YOU WILL NEVER REGRET IT. 

Lamp shades? 

Car? 

Table?

 Floor? 

Glass? 

Book? 

YES, they are all awesome speakers. 

 Coolest. Thing. Ever. 

Check it out, here!!!!

And lastly, but certainly not least, I got a new Disney Traditions collectible! Isn't Minnie an adorable doctor!?

"To Your Health"

She fits right in with my Dr. Mickey, 

"The Doctor Is In"

Needless to say, I had a wonderful Christmas. I hope you all did, as well!!!! 

Here is another really cool site for Nerd Gifts.

The Wine Goes In, and the Nerd Comes Out

While cleaning my room -- today's main form of productination (productive procrastination... critical skill to develop in med school) -- I came across the Wine 101 Notes I took in August. My fellow med ladies and I decided to treat ourselves to a wine tasting seminar before school started.

The paper has a few "Basic Wine Questions" to consider when picking out a wine, and outlines how to use each of your senses, in order to have the full wine experience. It was an awesome class that we found on Living Social, so that made it all the better, as we could actually afford to go -- courtesy of the Monopoly Money the government throws at us (Monopoly Money: money that we never see... money that just magically appears in our bank accounts... thousands of dollars at a time... every time we pass 'Go' ... aka every time a new semester begins... we have tons of it, but it will inevitably get us in trouble because we will have to pay it back 3-fold someday... instead of actually buying Boardwalk -- like all our friends think we will do -- we will be in stuck in monetary jail... with no free pass... the good thing is, we really don't have a lot of time to spend all of it anyway... the bad thing is, we have no other income so it all gets spent eventually). 

The lady leading the wine course encourages everybody to take notes. And, being the diligent students that we are, we did not let her down.


Asian --> turns red --> Histamine reaction

Sight: Look at three factors: appearance, color (Cloudy = bacteria!!!) and body (weight).

Dry wine = no CHO

Tannins (in skin of grapes) decrease bitterness with cheese. Skin = vitamins.

Four enemies of wine:
1. Air - ferment
2. Light - volatile
3. Heat
4. Corks - oxidation (it's actually better to have screw-on caps!)

Smell: Stir --> oxidize --> ester --> aromatic      
(My personal favorite. The only thing that would have made this better was if I would have actually drawn the structures... and believe me... they were dancing around in my head.)

Oak barrel --> heat + CO2 + EtOH

Basically, we somehow managed to turn our entire wine tasting seminar into an Organic Chemistry review session.  

Below is one of my fave wine labels, Educated Guess! See? We aren't the only ones who turn wine into OChem! At least these people profit!!! Salute!

One of my fave wine labels!!! Educated Guess! See? We aren't the only ones who turn wine into OChem! At least these people profit!!!

THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow! What started out as a blog to keep my family in the loop has now reached over 10,000 views!!!!!

http://deicinginnovations.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Thank-You2.jpg

Thanks, everybody! In the big internet picture, 10K may not seem like a lot, but for a lowly med student, that number is blowing my mind! So, in return for all of the support, I promise, promise, pinky swear promise, that I will start blogging more frequently! There are quite a few stories I have to tell as of late, especially before we get too far away from the holiday season. If you don't want to miss any stories, you can sign up at the left to receive email alerts when I post new blogs (Memaw, you should do this!!!).

But now, off to Sunday Funday..... aka Step 1 Tutor Group!!!

A is for Airport

Happy Holidays!!! I hope all of my readers had a wonderful holiday and a great start to the new year!!!

Personally, this break has been exactly what the Doctor-in-less-than-30-months ordered. Breaks always begin oddly for me. Finish an exam on Friday, get trashed visit with my friends on Friday night, fly to my destination on Saturday, be depressed and sleep for about 3 whole days, watch endless amounts of Netflix, get bored, study, hate myself for studying, dread going back to school, go back to school. The "depressed" part might sound weird... but I can explain.

Normal people experience bad days, have family issues, know people that die, go through break-ups, have their car battery die (PAMP this one's for you...), need to grocery shop, file their taxes, Christmas shop, etc. etc. etc.

Med students....  study.

I grocery shop about twice a month, usually at Walmart, after midnight, when I'm on my way home, jacked up on caffeine, starving because I just realized I haven't eaten all day, and then realize I have NOTHING but canned soup, pear cups, and hot cocoa at home. As far as bad days/family issues/death/break-ups/ real life things go, I normally do not have time to think about them because if I do, I will be sad, cry, mope about, sleep, binge eat, and essentially waste time studying, potentially leading to a bad grade on that week's exam, which would in turn affect me for the rest of the semester. In med school, if you fail a test, you spend the remaining weeks killing yourself to master that material on top of the material you're studying for that week. You live in constant fear of potentially failing a class, which means potentially delaying your education for an entire year so you can retake it.... and we all know med school costs ~$70,000 a year. Therefore, one bad test could potentially cost 70K. Now, this is an extreme, but I have seen it happen. In order to prevent it from happening to me, I've created a solution.... the little black box. Yep, I file away everything negative into that little box. And then break will start... and BAM!!!!!

Black box explodes, I deal with everything I ignored, enter immediate depression, attempt to get over it (aka.... just compress it further and restore it in black box), and then actually begin my break.

This break, I got SMART!!!! I scheduled my fright <-- accidental typo??? my flight for Monday, allowing myself two days to decompress and sleep, sparing my family from witnessing the med-student-in-shambles phase of break.

Monday rolled around, leading us to the Airport Phase of break, one of my favorites. Believe it or not, I am a Chatty Cathy. I talk to basically everyone, everywhere, unless I am really annoyed with people (which does tend to happen more frequently than I like to admit). Airports are awesome. The people watching, the lack of care for caloric intake, the race for the only outlet to charge your computer, and the great conversation... not to mention the abundance of sexy men in uniform that just make you proud to be an American. And where else is it socially acceptable to sit at a bar at 9am? I always consider dressing to the nines when I go to the airport... just in case my future husband is some really rich rockstar in commute to his next gig and I happen to sit by him in aisle 7 or at gate 10. You never know. But, in true Me Fashion, I always opt for the comfy sweats and the oversized hoodie reppin' my alma mater.

Random Insert 1: The ONE TIME I decided to dress up to go to the airport was this past Thanksgiving break (so a little over a month ago). I was flying to the coast to visit my aunt, uncle, and Memaw. My high school sweetheart was stationed nearby and we planned on getting together. He was picking me up at the airport, so, of course, I had to look decent. My flight was at 5am Saturday morning, so I did something I never do, and volunteered to DD for my friends Friday night. We went to the bars, and with water in hand, I somehow managed to do something else I never do.... lose my driver's license. What happened to sobriety and responsibility going hand-in-hand??? So, I spend two hours furiously looking for my license. As we are leaving the last bar, some random kind-hearted individual (please note the sarcasm) decides to chuck a pitcher of green Midori shots into the air, right as I am passing by. The entire pitcher lands on my head, and I am livid because I had already showered, curled my hair, and done my make up to go to the airport, since I had to leave for the airport at 4am. I get home at 2:30 am, reshower, recurl my hair, redo my makeup, and pass on any chance of sleep I may have had. Therefore, I learned two lessons. 

1. Never dress up to go to the airport.

2. Never DD. 

(Only slightly kidding.)

Anyway, back to the Airport Phase. I reach my gate in the Chicago airport, and sit next to a cute old couple. I comment on how the flight is going to be jam packed, and they inquire about my final destination. We start to talk and figure out they live 40 minutes from my hometown (this is really random, since my hometown is in the sticks and very small). We start to discuss the one topic that is universal to people from our area: football. The old debate of which football teams we support commences. My homestate is extremely divided when it comes to football, both at the college and NFL levels, and we are diehard loyal fans, therefore this debate could be a potential conversation ender. I comment on how my cousin played football in her hometown and went to the NFL, maybe they have heard of him. I come to find out that not only have they heard of him, but they live ONE block away from his family, and they procede to name every member of my extended family. Mind. Blown.  I am always amazed at what a small world it truly can be. Gotta love airports. 

Random Insert 2: I am currently sitting on the couch and my mom just got home from work.
Mom: Someone left work with dry heaves today. I better not be getting sick. 
Me: I better not be getting sick either. My snot is green. 
Mom: EWWWWWWW. That is something you tell your med school friends, NOT your mother!!! Haven't we moved past that point in our relationship? 

I take two things from this statement. 
1. My mother is inferring that I am a grown-up.
2. It is inappropriate to give details like that to non-med school friends... which I suppose I agree with, but sometimes it just slip outs.

Five minutes later.

Mom (yelling from the kitchen): Oh! You drank some milk today! Good Girl!!!!

This makes me laugh and I retract statement number one: my mother does not think I am a grown-up.