Month: June 2017

Do’s and Dont’s of Medical School

Coming into medical school, I didn’t know much of anything aside from hearing that the journey would be incredibly hard and I’d spend a lot of time crooned over my Macbook studying. I had no mentor. No older friend in med school to pester with questions. Before arriving, I drank a lot of beer with my friends, bartended, and went in with no advice or guidance, forcing myself to learn many lessons along the way. While I can’t go back in time to last year and tell myself what I know now, I can write an article that hopefully some incoming first year students will read and learn from.

Not all of this advice comes from my personal experience – some comes from witnessing my classmates make mistakes as well. Also, I ain’t gonna give study tips, but rather I’ll give advice on general life and how to conduct yourself, a seemingly overlooked aspect of your years in med school.

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Live in the Moment: My Love For Live Music & Favorite Shows of All Time

Since graduating high school, live music has been an essential part of my livelihood. Just the other night, in a very inebriated state at three in the morning, my friend and I went back to my house and ran downstairs to plug in my guitar for some late night drunken jamming. We traded on and off, playing riffs back and forth. I probably sounded awful. While my friend played, I sat there mesmerized as he simply strummed a couple simple chords. It doesn’t need to be complex. There’s something about hearing those tones swoon out of my semi-hollowbody electric guitar, through the amplifier and into my eardrums that sends a shiver through my limbic system.

Live music can be found anywhere. Whether I’m buzzing from a few beers at a local bar and hearing a couple kids play an open mic set to fifteen people or watching a legendary rocker electrify a sold-out arena, live music in all forms, like humor, is a universally connecting human experience. There aren’t many other places in the world where you can have a frat guy on your right, and a bonafide hippie on your left, both sharing the same joy.

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Soze’s Movie Reviews: Volume I

Last night was a quiet, warm summer evening.  I worked out, grilled some burgers, and relaxed with a movie. As I stated in my last post, this is the last free summer of  my life before becoming a slave to my Step 1 score, the ensuing clinical rotations, residency, a career, retirement, then death. After working extremely hard this past year and devoting so much time to school, I’ve decided that I can be completely lazy, lounge around, without a care in the world, freed from any sort of guilt that might accompany lying on your couch and watching movies all afternoon.

So, aside from lifting, working on my tan, reading books, watching a few Sketchy Videos, doing weird things at music festivals, getting drunk with my friends, working on medical research, and bartending once in a while, I’ve been nurturing my inner cinephile by checking out an array of different movies every week to fill the void between Twin Peaks episodes.

I enjoy putting my thoughts and opinions on music and movies into word format, but I don’t have the time to write an entire post reviewing each movie, nor do I have the energy to write that much on most movies without being redundant. While I could easily churn out 10,000 words dissecting Mulholland Drive, ain’t nobody got time for that. So, I came up with the idea to write short reviews on the last few movies I’ve watched, while assigning a numerical value from 1-10. There is no rhyme or reason behind my rating system. Just here to give my honest take on recent movies I’ve watched, and hopefully give ya’ll some good recommendations.

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5 Ways To Become More Successful In Med School

I was already drunk when the dean called me telling me I was accepted to medical school. Then I got more drunk. Then I arrived at school and had no clue what was going on.

Throughout my first year of medical school, I slowly but surely started to understand what was going on, which was pretty great. Went from average to mildly-above-average to top of the class. So, I will share what I learned throughout the way for your reading pleasure.  Through trial and error, I learned to maximize my efficiency – I learned how to study smarter, I discovered ways to become a happier person, and my love-hate relationship with med school tilted heavily to the former by the end of M1.

If you’re an incoming medical student, or a second year in search of refining his/her methods, or simply a wonderful human being reading my site because you’re one of the 7 people on earth who can tolerate my musings on music, read below for some advice on becoming a more productive and healthier human being.

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