A long December.

Man, time flies when you're having fun. And by having fun I mean really busy. But with four days off for turkey day I got to fit a little bit of fun in for good measure. Ok a lot of fun.

But as they say, all good things must come to an end and so this week we jump headfirst into our endocrinology block. It still feels like September to me, so the fact that we are barreling headfirst towards 2009 is equal parts disconcerting and exciting. Cardiovascular, renal, pulmonary, gastroenterology, the march through the body and everything that goes wrong in is continues. But a brief break also allowed for a bit of that "reflection" crap that I hear about all the time in our Principles of Clinical Medicine class.

MS2 is has turned out to be quite a comfortable year. You establish your system of studying during your first year, after a certain degree of flailing, and I've found I've been able to stick to that system with only some minor tweaks through my second year. I'm a tactile learner so I like to write a lot of information down, which has proven to be a larger pain in the ass this year with the larger volume of info that gets thrown our way, but it hasn't been enough of an annoyance to force me to change things up yet. The next step will come after the new year when I have to teach myself how to do worthwhile board prep in conjunction to my classes, but I'm sure I'll figure it out. Or I won't, and I'll fail Step 1 and end up in family practice. Either way, I'm sure it will be interesting. I was one of those douchebags that was able to skate through the majority of my academic career without too much effort, and that included the MCAT, so I'm curious to see how this next major standardized test will go when for all intents and purposes your score is an almost direct reflection on the effort you make into preparing.

But so far, MS2 has been a comfortable year. If MS1 is a futon, MS2 is a nice padded fabric couch (and MS3 is sleeping on a wood board over a ravine). Medical school is as much about learning the language of medicine as it is the facts that you cram down your throat, and its definitely the year when things begin to come into a more complete picture. The days tend to blend together the more comfortable you become, but I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. In fact it may be a sign that I'm continuing to enjoy myself in this masochistic path to a career that I've chosen. I don't know if there's much more to say about it. After a while, the first two years of medical school become a certain form of Groundhog Day. Wake up, go to lecture, fit in some fitness, study. Wake up, go to lecture, fit in some fitness, study. It's like watching the proverbial lawn grow on your brain. It may be nice to host a block party on in the end, but no one is going to make any movies about how it got there. So I feel there isn't much to say about the second year of med school in regards to the academic side of it all. It's just more of the same. More learning. More growth. Of grass. On your frontal lobe.

Oh, and since this is MedZag's blog... go Zags. 5-0, with 3 impressive victories over Okie State, Maryland, and Tennessee over the break. #5 in the nation. Good time to be a Gonzaga fan. I'll be in Seattle for the UConn game the day after my next exam doing my best PremedZag impression. Which may or may not involve copious amounts of a liquid that affects your... endocrine system.