My Giant Soap Box

I have a soap box. It’s big. And I like to get up on it and announce to the world what I think and that I’m right. I have never been afraid to express my opinions openly, as I’m sure most people know. In fact, I’m kind of crazy in how set in my ways I am. And I’m not afraid to admit it. I have been trying to be more open as I’ve gone through college and medical school. I always try to be respectful of people’s opinions, no matter how ridiculous or strange I think they are. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. Who am I to say what someone else should think?

As a liberal in a family of conservatives, I have had to learn to defend my political leanings. As a Mormon, I’ve had to defend my faith countless times. I don’t care if someone ridicules me for my faith or my liberal ways because it’s not something I can change in someone else. If someone wants to have a civil conversation with me about my political or religious beliefs, I’m happy to do so. Even if, at the end, we have to agree to disagree. However, there is one place I draw the line. (It’s soap box time!)

As a woman entering the medical field to become a doctor, I shouldn’t have to defend anything I do. My life choices are just that: MINE. My passion for medicine and helping people -- a.k.a. my career choice -- should not be subject to derision by those who think they know better than I do.

So, pardon me for choosing something that will make me happy. Pardon me for attending a university that I like and that I respect for their dedication to students and patients. And heaven forbid that one day I marry, have children, AND plan to work too! I won’t apologize for being who I am. The last thing I want to be is untrue to 1.) myself & 2.) to what I want to become. There are days when I wish I could be content to do something else. Maybe I could be happy somewhere else. Maybe I’d be able to go to my friends’ weddings instead of having to study all weekend. Maybe I’d be able to see my family and friends regularly. And you know what, I would probably be just fine.

Here’s the catch. If I were anywhere but where I am right now, I can confidently say that I wouldn’t feel as fulfilled as I do right now. I’m living my DREAM! You know, the one I’ve had for years. I want to yell at certain people and say, “How dare you try to take this away from me?” And when my friends and family support me so much, I can’t stand it when people try to convince me that what I'm doing is "so wrong for me."

I truly admire people who can do the things I can’t, both in their career choices and their family lives. But right now, I’ve chosen to advance my career because I’m not going to sit around and wait for something or someone to happen to me. I’m going to move forward and become someone worth loving or worth even being with. And if that liberal hipster Mormon boy ever comes along to sweep me off my feet, then maybe I’ll be ready and I’ll be the person I should be. But, again, I’m not going to just sit around and wait for him to get here before I become who I want to be. He can join me for the ride if he really wants me.

So that’s my soap box. I’m off now. And I’m going to go study and pass my classes. So I can be this jerk’s doctor one day. And save his life. Perhaps then he’ll realize what he said was foolish and conceited. And that I meant it when I said, “I’m going to be a doctor. And I’ll be a good one.”

Apologize? For being me? Clearly, you don’t know who I am. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

Sanity is Needed Every Now and Then

Yes. I am in medical school. It's crazy, busy, hard, rewarding, fun, exciting, and all of those other adjectives. So rather than bore you with medical school stuff, I will post about the stuff I LURVE that keeps me sane. When you're testing every week, practically living on campus, and studying all the time, you need a bit of an outlet.

Because I am ME and I like to have a lot of alone time (I'm kind of a hermit and love my room more than any other place on earth), I discovered some things that allow me to de-stress. And without further ado (and there was a lot of ado-ing), here are my happy things.

1. Looking at puppies I want to adopt from the Nebraska Humane Society. I am currently obsessed a black lab named Emma. She's perfect. And there are some puppies I just need to go snuggle all day too

http://www.nehumanesociety.org/site/PageServer?pagename=PH_Dogs

2. Tumblr. Oh man. People on Tumblr are cool. It is full of nerdy happiness which makes me chuckle and even pulls at my little heartstrings sometimes. In fact, I'm going to recommend my favorite Tumble-blog right now. Try it. You won't regret it:

http://surisburnbook.tumblr.com/

AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST (prepare for my fan-girling. You know what that means: lots of squealing and swooning)

3. Downton Abbey. BE. STILL. MY. BEATING. HEART. I love this show. British television is PERFECTION. If you haven't heard of it, I encourage you to watch it right this one one. If you are skeptical, I'll give you a rundown. Downton Abbey is about a titled family in England. Lord Grantham and his wife have three daughters and have no direct heir to the title. It starts on the day the Titanic sinks (spanning several years, the second season takes place during WWI) and the current heir, a distant cousin, is on board. He dies and the house is thrown into an uproar (AN UPROAR, I say!) because some new guy is going to come in and take the title. His name is Matthew Crawley. And I love him.

Matthew will inherit everything leaving the family with nothing when the Earl of Grantham dies. Thus, the Lady Grantham and Dowager (played my Maggie Smith, aka McGonagall the Bad-A) try to set up a marriage between Matthew and the oldest daughter, Mary. Drama ensues.

And that's the basic rundown. It's about politics, intrigue, scandal, the life of servants in the household of an Earl, propriety, and all of those good things. But, because I'm ME, my favorite part of the show is the LOVE. Seriously, the tension between Mary and Matthew makes my heart go a-pitter-patter.

I JUST NEED THEM TO LOVE EACH OTHER. I have never wanted to smash two people's faces together so badly in my life. JUST GET IT TOGETHER, KIDS. And if they don't, I will cry into my white lace gloves just like Mary does in every other episode.

And that, my friends is my life outside of medical school. Exciting, isn't it!?

Woof. I need a boyfriend.

Tune-age

I have some music for the blog. The only problem is that Playlist is failing me. So I'm turning to Youtube for my playlist. It takes more effort on your part if you choose to listen. Sorry...

 Bon Iver- Beth/Rest: 80's power ballad. Two versions.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlO1DgvLSqA (piano version that doesn't sound like an 80's power ballad. But it does make me love Justin Vernon more than ever before)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UtQe0JOCnM (album version)

 Bon Iver- Perth: YES. Just do it. This was the best concert ever. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo6lKQYVUBU 

Coldplay- Paradise

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6ZWlDks0nQ 

Jonsi- Grow Til Tall

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQuz8jmUYDU 

Fleet Foxes- Bedouin Dress

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87TB7GlJ3ZA 

The Fray- Be The One

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJOHNS6ftG4 

Chief- In the Valley

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2T1ozSC8-8 

Ra Ra Riot- The Orchard

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qvk2QabUL0 

Fanfarlo- I'm a Pilot

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt4tj8TtXTc 

Aushua- Hiding Place

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg8bt1o5FZo ENJOY!

A Love Letter That Stings: Erin's Relationship With the Cougars

Cougar Football,

Missing you. I don't like the long distance relationship we have right now. It doesn't sit well with me. But because my love for you is so deep and long lasting, I'm willing to stick it out. We work well together when we both work hard and make this relationship happen. And I feel like I've put a lot of work into this relationship. And you have, too. I know it's been hard this year especially with me out of the picture. You have struggled mightily at times to make me happy and even made some major slip-ups. But I think we can work through this. Let's keep on trekking and I know we can make it. So Cougar Football, I hope that when we have our weekly conversation tonight that it isn't one-sided for me. Because heaven knows I've had enough of those already this season. And I am sorry for my unkind and sometimes even harsh words, but they felt necessary at the time (even now...I still can't talk about that time you...had a run-in with that trashy Utah team and let them take advantage of you). So I'm going to work hard here in Omaha as long as you promise to work hard in Provo. It will pay off one day. And on that day, I will come to visit you in Pasadena, New Orleans, Glendale, or Miami-- really, wherever you may end up when you make it big. I'll be there. Don't you ever doubt it.

Much love,
Erin, The Ever Faithful Fan









It's been a while. Sorry, I've been crazy busy. And cheating on blogspot with tumblr. It you want to check out my tumblr, feel free. It's mostly just me posting pictures and things I think are funny every few days. Basically stuff I like from movies and television...yep, I'm soooper cool!

http://ernbrella.tumblr.com

Nebraska: The Good Life (At least that's what the sign says)

I used to live here:



And here (I kind of really miss this here right now. Boo on BYU for not having a medical school):




But now I live HERE:




And I like Omaha quite a bit. Still struggling with the four general cardinal directions. No mountains and it's noon? I'm totally lost. I don't even know which way is up. I have begun medical school though, and it's still so surreal to me. My white coat is hanging on my desk chair, I have scrubs for Anatomy Lab, I picked up my various packets (more like a tome for Anatomy), and every room I walk into has the words "School of Medicine" on the door. I feel like a total poser, but I'm excited to get started. It's going to be a long road.

Harry's my bestie. Ain't nothing you guys can do about it.

We return again to my most favorite of blog topics. Harry Potter. The final film will be released in just over 26 hours as I begin this blog. I've been with Harry since the beginning, and now I will be with him through to the end.

But, as JK Rowling said at the UK premiere, "Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home." And I will force my children to read Harry so that the Harry Potter legacy will always live on. I do take comfort in the fact that I won't have to force them after the first book, because they will be MY children and they will want to read more than anything.

I dedicate this blog to all the Harry fans out there. And to all the people who can appreciate the goodness of tumblr pictures that are both hilarious and sentimental. I pulled these pictures from multiple tumblr accounts and thus cannot credit them accurately. However, none (except the last one) of them were made/taken by me. Thus, I do not plagiarize. Or at least I try not to.

In other words, IT'S A PICTURE BLOG!









Why yes, Ronald Weasley. I DO love you.

Anatomy Notes by an Anatomy Nerd

As many people know, I am a human anatomy nerd. As in, I took the class in high school, then in college, and then I took dissection and I became a TA so I could teach others about my passion. It's an odd thing to be passionate about and you don't even have to think about it for it to be odd. But I want to dedicate this blog post to WHY I loved my anatomy class and why anatomy essentially changed my entire view of what the human body is and how absolutely magnificent (cheesy word, but true) it is.

I was a little lost soul before I took anatomy. I wasn't sure what in the sam-hill I wanted to do with my life. Did I want to teach history, make movies, or did I want to go to medical school? It was all up in the air and I was so confused. I liked too many things and was indecisive. So, I signed up for what felt like a million different classes to help me decide. I took film, history, and anatomy in the same semester. And though many of the classes I had taken were biology based, anatomy was the first that really allowed me to study the human body in detail. Of course, I found that I wanted to spend all day in lecture, listening to information about how alveoli fill and collapse during breathing or how myosin heads attach to actin filaments during muscle contraction. There were days in lab when I would hold half of a human head in my left hand and a heart in my right, an experience few people ever have.

So here's the part where I gush about how amazing our bodies are. The human body is arguably the most complex thing known to man. We have a limited understanding of how it functions and, if I'm going to be honest, I don't think we will ever understand it. But think about it: though we don't understand a lot of it, what we DO understand is absolutely amazing. The fact that we can breathe, eat and digest, move, speak, and most of all THINK, is absolutely miraculous. Just to breathe, we contract muscles, the pressure changes in our chest cavity, cells use energy, and blood flows to the right places. And that's not even the half of it. On top of that, the molecular mechanisms we use just to breathe are so small and fast, no one even thinks twice about it.

And then I think about the fact that we can do everything at once. We can walk, eat, and even talk at the same time. We breathe and our hearts beat without us even thinking about it. We can even train our bodies to swim, or play soccer, or throw a football 50, 60, 70 yards (distance is one thing, but accuracy...I digress). I guess, to say the least, our bodies are pretty fantastic.



I don't usually post things like this, but this talk by an LDS church leader, Elder Russel M. Nelson, who was once a prominent cardiothoracic surgeon, is amazing. I particularly enjoy the first section entitled The Remarkable Human Body. Elder Nelson is pretty straightforward about the miracle that is the human body and is much more articulate than I am. If you want to, read and enjoy.

http://jesuschrist.lds.org/SonOfGod/eng/faith-in-jesus-christ/articles/faith-in-jesus-christ

"No need to shout!"

When I watch movies and TV shows by myself, I tend to say or yell things to the characters and the TV show or movie in general. And, for the most part, each show or movie has different phrases that go along with it. So, it’s pretty much what you would guess: a word or phrase I yell at least once an episode for a television show or several times throughout a movie. Let me provide you with some examples.

Chuck- (Chuck makes me swoon-y and giddy. Thus the things I yell are directed at just Chuck or at Chuck and Sarah together.)

“Eeeee! I love you, Chuck!”

“Stop it. Chuck is not (insert spy activity here.)”

“MAKE BABIES!!!” (Actually, this is not specific to Chuck. But I yell it more during Chuck than any other show.)

“They’re so cute and perfect.”

Friday Night Lights-

“Throw the ball, son!”

“You tell him, Tami. Tell him how it is.”

“Flip your sweaty hair, Tim Riggins.” OR “Cut your hair, you nasty kid.”

Alias:

“Hot Face!”

“Yep. Now Jack is going to shoot you in the face.”

“J-brams, why do you do this to me?”

“He’s so goofy!”

Star Wars

“Shut your face, Anakin.”

“But don’t mess with Darth Vader. He’ll getcha!”

“Angry, grumpy, moody Anakin. Why does Padme love him?”


And the list of films and TV shows goes on. I just never realized that I yell these things. Then one day, my sister opened my bedroom door, stared at me, and asked me why I was yelling. I paused and said, “Uh, I don’t really know.” Now, I’m super conscious about it. I’m working on stopping the whole talking-to-fictional-characters thing, since what I say doesn’t make one bit of difference.
†

That one time I made a PowerPoint to prove a point and it didn't even matter:

(Heh! Look how cheap I am? I had to save the proof from my email!)

Just over a week ago, I drove to Provo to participate in a ritual that is as old as academia itself: GRADUATION. I donned that polyester blue cap and gown with my yellow Bachelor of Science tassel and sat for 2 and ½ hours in the Marriot Center (soon to be renamed The Jimmer) waiting for the 6 seconds of glory during which I would walk across the stage and have my photo taken by my parents sitting out in nowhere land.
To be perfectly honest, my parents practically had to force me to walk. I technically graduated in December and since BYU does not hold a graduation ceremony for December graduates, I thought I was home free and didn't have to walk. They'd mailed me a diploma and EVERYTHING!

Boy, was I wrong. And I still don’t know why I did it. I guess to make my parents feel validated or something. I practically threw a temper tantrum about having to do it at one point because I’m whiney, mopey and 5 years old. And then I tried another tactic and got creative: I made a PowerPoint about how I shouldn’t have to do it.
Give me a break – I was still in school mode when I made it and, obviously, it wasn’t even a good presentation because I still had to put that 4 cornered hat on. It made my ears stick out. Awkward.

(The program I used to upload this PowerPoint sort of squished the words together...sorry, I hope you can separate them)

Graduation

View more presentations from emavondet

But I was very grateful for one thing: I was glad to know that I had received a good education and that I was moving on. That chapter of my life is over (thank HEAVENS for that) and now I’m ready to move on to a new place with new things to do and more school to undertake. It’s coming up super fast but I am ready…maybe? I guess I don’t have much of a choice about being ready though, do I?

Good thing I’ve got until August to get there.

Ah, cereal guy. I love you.

Why yes, I do live at home! (The playlist which has a song with a bad word)

Another playlist of music I have found over the last few months while I've been living at home. Warning: ONE SONG DOES HAVE THE F-BOMB IN IT. Skip it please if you just can't want it!

Young Blood by The Naked & Famous

Go Do by Jonsi

The Cave by Mumford & Sons

Keep Yourself Warm by Frightened Rabbit (THE SONG WITH THE F-WORD! Avoid if you must!)

Feeling Good by Nina Simone

Marry You as sung by the Glee Cast

Run by Vampire Weekend

Just Say Yes by Snow Patrol

Lovers in Japan (Acoustic) by Coldplay

Give a LIttle Love by Noah and the Whale

Howlin' for You by The Black Keys

When I Go by Slow Club

Saeglopur by Sigur Ros

Waiting for a Year...or Whatever

I am remiss in my blog duties. I apologize to the three people who might actually follow my blog. I will try to be better about writing on a more regular basis.

As many people know, I have spent the last 8 months applying and interviewing for medical school. It's expensive, takes up tons of time, and--most important of all--it makes you CRAZY. I cannot count the hours I spent worrying and stressing myself out over interviews, personal statements, extra curricular activities, and countless other pre-med things. Just ask my roommates.

There are up days and down days. Days when you think, "Yeah! I can get in for sure." and days when you despair and, in my case, call your mom and cry for an hour.

Even though there were times when it felt like I was just jumping through application hoops, it really isn't like that. It's necessary and you want your schools to know EVERYTHING about you. But at some point in the process, you kind of want to throw up your hands and yell "Okay! I've done everything. My applications have been in for months. Just accept me or reject me PLEASE. I won't be mad if you are honest and let me know how it is. This way I can plan my life: do I have to move to Texas/Virginia/Nebraska or wherever school is OR do I have to reapply? " When a school gets back to you quickly with a rejection, it might sting, but it is nice to know that your plans can continue.

During my senior year (and more), I worked in a lab with several pre-med students. We commiserated together about the MCAT and lengthy secondary applications. All of the boys (yes, all of them were male) in my lab are qualified, dedicated individuals. Every single one has spent years working toward med school, not exactly an easy feat. Most of them are just as (if not INFINITELY more) qualified to go to medical school as I am. And yet, a few of them haven't even received an interview invite. I am, to say the least, baffled by this. One of the guys I know from my MCAT class (A.K.A. The boy who ACED the MCAT. Seriously, he kicked some serious MCAT booty) is ever waiting to hear back from schools.

It really is absolutely awful and, at times, unfair. Getting to know these people and understanding their triumphs and knowing they deserve everything they want and THEN seeing their hopes dashed...it's not fun. But it is the way it is. There are, unfortunately only so many seats to fill, and it can really bite.

All of the guys in my lab and the people in my MCAT class will be great doctors. And I'm excited for them to hear back and go to the schools they want to attend. I hope they all succeed. Because I know who I want to call when I'm sick.