value the effort, not the results

Lately I've been checking out some blogs for ideas on how to improve Ependimoma Stories, and goodness! There are some excessively talented people out there. I mean seriously, those front page designs are waaay out of my league. Damn you, computer geeks! I envy you very very much!

I'm never going to be able to come up with anything remotely similar, yet I felt inspired to better the looks of this blog, you know, as I said on my last post, spice it up a little. So I tried to design a cool logo/banner/front thing-y, and well ... I definitely suck at this!

You obviously already noticed the changes... and in case you haven't, just look up and please notice the shitiousness of my -shall I say it- best attempt. In my defence I would like to point that the image sort of stretched out a lot when I tried to fit it in one of Blogger's templates, and that Photoshop is a very difficult program to learn to use, especially in just a couple of hours.

I just want to put this out of my system... pinches templates jodidos del mal! Los odio! Why won't you let me do the changes I needed? Come on! I just want the frikin' freedom to chose whatever frikin' colors I want for my frikin' blog. Is that to much to ask? I don't think so Mr. Blogger!! I mean, come on, if you're going to force some colors on us, why not at least make them easy on the eyes? Seriously, I think one of those hideous template colors left me with permanent damage to my retina. Grrrrr

OK, sorry for that little cuckoo moment, I'm obviously exaggerating. (Don't worry, my retina is fine, or at least as fine as my 26mm-long eye allows it) I just hate my computer-ly ineptitude and my complete lack of programing knowledge. Sorry Mr. Blogger... I very much like you -most of the time-.

Anyways, since I really really had the best intentions, and I really really put a lot of effort into it... the new banner/logo/thing-y will continue to bedazzle you every time you visit Ependimoma Stories. At least until I get sick of it or come up with a better one ... whatever comes first.

Spice up your life!

So here am I, its midnight and my eyes are starting to give in, I'm frustrated that this Internet connection feels like its dial-up, I'm cold, and still... I'm here. Why?

mmm... should I confess...

It really is embarrassing ...

Well, what the heck...

Here it goes... I'm waiting for my Spice Girls Reunion Tour video to finish loading. There! I said it! Are you happy now?

You know, I'm not ashamed of that, I grew up in the 90's. They were the shit back then! Come on, who didn't like the Spice Girls then? Who didn't sing along "if you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends"? Who didn't knew the choreography to their songs? Who didn't dress up as them with their friends and "performed" in front of their whole school? Mmm... was it just me? Damn! (I was Sporty, by the way)

Anyways, apparently I never overcame that phase of my teen years. I can't help it. I just loveeeee them! And if they were coming to Mexico I would be one of those persons sleeping in the sidewalks trying to get tickets. Sadly, they won't.

My video just finished loading. OMG! Spice girls, why did you ever separate? Couldn't Scary and Ginger just get along for the sake of the team? Please don't gooooo

Mmm... Ok. I think I've embarrassed myself enough for today.

xo
Lola

PS: GIRL POWER!

Merry Christmas

Hey y'all!! Merry Christmas!! I hope you're having great holidays! Cheers!

By the way, I'm currently at Mexico City. My family and I came here to spend the holidays, following the spirits of invierno en la capital. We're saying we came here because of dad's work, but truth-be-told, it was mainly because of the giant skating ring they set up in the Zocalo. We had to see it, heh

Anyways, its time to sleep and wait for Santa!

xo
Lola

PD: My very untraditional family decided to have (for a 2nd year in a row) oriental food
as Christmas dinner! It was good. I have a feeling we'll be starting to celebrate Chinese New Year in no time! Ujuuu! :)

It's a boy!

Hi there! Long time no see.
I've become such a couch potato lately, I even went from obsessively checking may email about 3 times a day, to not checking it for days at a time. Jeez! What's happening to me!! Yeah, I know, laziness took over me. So be it. I'm enjoying it.

Anyways... big news everyone! I'm a quasi-aunt!! Ujuuuu!!! hehe one of my cousins gave birth to a beautiful baby boy today!

***
REAL DATE: Tuesday, December 18, 2007.

Well, this is the post I started writing a week ago and -honestly- intended to publish, but heck, I don't even have an excuse for this. I just forgot, and whenever I remembered I didn't have my computer with me, and so forth. Whatever, I'm not even going to try and make up something.

On other things, here are some updates of my life this past weeks:

• I met this really cool Hindu family. It's a weird story, you see, my parents went to an old friends' daughter's wedding and the groom was a and American Hindu, heh. Anyway, the next day the couple's family and close friends had a reunion just across the street from my house, and this time the children - meaning me and my siblings - were invited. So we met the parents, the brother and one of the sister with her family. They were so very nice people. We were very interested in getting to know them, because they are just so different to the people we meet every day here.. And I should tell ya, they seemed equally interested in us. It was fun, we even had them coming over to my house for an in-depth tour of all the rooms and everything, heh.
  
• As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, my nephew was born. Babies are weirdly funny sometimes. Like this baby, who I just call the son since his parent haven't agreed on a name yet, he farts. I don't mean little-baby-farts, they are grown-up-farts! hah I just can't help to laugh every time. Picture this: little baby sleeping, with his little teeny tiny nose, eyes, mouth, hands and just everything is so lovely and heavenly, the lights dim and the sight is a bit blurred to get the angelic-effect going on, and all of a sudden -FART-FART-. I mean, seriously, its just too hilarious. Anyway, the mum doesn't like it when I burst into laughing, so I'll try to put myself together (only half-heartedly, of course) Ahem... moving on.
• I went to the dentist mmm... not much can be said here, nothing really happened, just a check up.
• I attended 2 posadas, which are basically just Christmas-themed-end-of-year parties. (I don't know if there's a word for that in English, if there is, please let me know.) One of them was for the employees of the small-town hotel my mother and her siblings inherited. The other was of my architect cousin company, (not really her company, rather the company she works at). They were both fun in their own way.
• ...

Shit! I don't know what else to write. I mean, surely I must have done more things this past weeks. My life couldn't have possibly be just 4 bullets! Dammit! I hate it when I forget things I did. I guess this is what happens when you set yourself on stand-by mode.

I'll try to post more often. Partly because it'll help me not forget things or at least allow me to leave a written record of thing, but mostly, I'll do it for you guys. I know it must be torture for you not being able to read about my farting-nephew, or my visits to the dentist, or all the other exciting adventures of my absolutely amazing and interesting life. So there you go, there's no need to thank me. I owe myself to you, my faithful 2 persons who read this blog.

xo

Lola

Sweet Home Alabamaaaa

Well hello! It's been a while since my last post. I finished school last week and I've been kinda unhooked to the world lately (and by that I mean, away from my laptop, thus the internet).
I think I did fairly well this semester, at least grade-wise. My final grades will be up probably by tomorrow. Anyways...

So after my last exam on Wednesday, 3 of my cousins came visit me. Thursday we crossed the US border and went shopping to San Antonio, TX. Jeez! Crazy doesn't even begin to cover it. You see, the Friday after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday which according to WP is one of the busiest retail shopping day of the year, it's supposed to be the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Whatever, bottom line: cheap cheap clothes! heh What can I say, I'm a girl with a limited budget and an urgent need for a wardrobe renewal. Next year we're expected to wear formal attire to school everyday, and my washed-out jeans and t-shirts don't really match that description. So switched my target stores. I feel old! Specially when buying my shoes. You see, I really love shoes. I think heels are soooo pretty, and boots, and stilettos 'n all! But I'm such a wuss when it comes to wearing them. My feet just can't take it. So since next year we'll be on call for very long hours I skipped Nine West and went straight to Rockport, Aerosoles, Naturalizer and Easy Spirit. I felt like such an old lady buying the most comfy shoes regardless of the looks. heh However I know my feet will appreciate it next year.

I flied back home Tuesday night and basically slept through Wednesday. Today my mother had to get out of town, so me and my siblings went out for sushi and coffee.

I'm tired, so good night to you.

The beginning of the end

Today we finally had the verbal presentation to our business plan. It was ok, I guess. Anyways, the important thing about today was the meeting we had afterwards. All the 4th year medstudents in my school met with the dean of the clinical department for a brief introduction to next year (otherwise known as the year we sell our lives and souls to the devil).

I guess some explanation is in order. Here in Mexico -well, at least at my school- the 5^th year of Medschool consists of 4 rotations through the major divisions of clinical medicine. That is, Pediatrics, Internal Medicine, Ob Gyn and Surgery. According to today’s metting this is to prepare you in all the basic fields and to let you try a little bit of everything before deciding the field you want to pursue. The whole class is divided in 4 groups of 30-40 people; each group rotates through all the clerkships but in different order. The order of your rotations and the people in it is decided with a lottery. You get to choose your small team, which consists of 10 people. It’s good to think about your team beforehand, because otherwise you get stuck with all the anarchists, jerks, or questionable admissions in the class, and that is not good. You want to be with people you can work with, who can stand you on your worst stressed mood, and who you can tolerate in such mood too. A lot of people take this too personally. They just want to be with their ultra-intimate group of friends, even if they suck at team work or work at all, and then take it personally if they decide to join another team.

Anyways, the meeting started quite well. I'm already scared to death of the dean so his laughing and joking didn't fool me. (I'll call him Dr. E -as in evil heh- for the purpose of this blog) I never let my guard down, its like I'm always expecting the moment he uncovers his true self and starts eating us alive. Luckily, that didn't happen, yet.

• As I already mentioned, there are 4 twelve-week rotations to be covered next year. And well, if you do the math 4*12= 48 weeks and considering the year has 52 weeks... we'll have only 2 two-week vacation breaks next year (last half of Jun and Dec). In between the other rotations we have like a weekend (my dad doesn't believes this part, I bet he swears I'm just exaggerating as always, I wish I was)
• The typical workweek has about 80 hrs (here Dr. E added the sarcastically cheerfull comment, "and sometimes more or possibly less, but hey! You're 5th years know! You can't complain! Your soul belongs to me!! Muajajaja" well, that last part I added, but Im sure he though that)
• The first rotation starts January 4th, though originally it was January 2nd!! Sick doctors! Who in the world would want to star classes a day after new year? Luckily for us, apparently not that many docs.
• We are the bottom step of whichever hierarchy you can think of. Anyone you've ever seen in a hospital sure has more authority than I do.
  
  After these announcements, Dr. E. told us to give him the list of names of each team. A couple of friends and I started thinking about this group thing since last semester and sort of agreed on it. Well, this last week there was a series of unfortunate events (heh) that almost disintegrated the team. We ended up being 6 of the original team and 2 unexpected additions. I think it’s a fairly good group. Not my first option, but I hope we’ll do fine. So, after the chaos of writing up the names of the teams, Dr. E. made the raffle.
  
  The order of the rotations can be very important for a lot of people. What I think is the most feared is Internal Medicine. If only I believed in prayer, I would have prayed for anything but IM. It’s the most-failed clerkship, and I think it’s the hardest. I just didn’t want to do it first because so early on you just don’t know what the fuck you are doing, don’t know the hospital, don’t know anyone who has been through it, etc. It’s just scary, at least for me. I didn’t want to start with Peds either, basically because I guess I see Peds as an easy rotation (heh y andale que repuebo esa!), and also because Jan-Mar is flu season and the Peds department is packed with contagious and crying kids. Ob Gyn can be very bad if you start at a public health hospital. It’s too much work and in very poor conditions. Some people quit in the first weeks of that rotation. Surgery is frowned upon because you’ll finish 5^th year with Ob Gyn and that means no Christmas vacations. Anyways, it’s a lottery, so it’s not really up to you.
  
  My team starts with Surgery, which in itself isn't that bad, if you ignore the fact that you wont get Christmas vacations. My team is a good one, I like it. However I cannot say the same for the rest of the people in my rotation. Lets just hope it all goes well.
  
  So, my schedule for next year is:
  
  • SURGERY - January 4- March 30
  • INTERNAL MEDICINE- March 31 - June 20
  • PEDIATRICS - July 7 - September 27
  • OB GYN - September 29 - December 19 (theoretically... though they already told us they are moving the dates in order to ruin or Christmas heh
  And so... this is the beginning of my doom. I'm apologizing beforehand for whatever disgusting, whinny, rude, etc post I shall put up here next year. I'll try to record my experiences of my Hell year in here.
  
  Well, let me go back to obsessively checking amazon.com for book prices and recommendations. I've got a ton of books to buy and pretend to read this December.

PS: I don't know how I messed up the margins but I did. So, an apology for that. My lack of Html knowledge restrains me from correcting that

Almost over

I haven't updated for a while, not because I've been too busy, it's just that my life is quite boring lately. But good-boring, heh, if that can be said.

I've finished most of my exams and I'm kinda just hangin'. The 2 exams I had last Wednesday went quite well. The doctor in charged of that subject decided to give us an early Christmas present and made the Pharmacology section extra-easy. So it went well.

On Thursday I had a Public Health exam with a doctor who seems like his hundredth birthday is just around the corner. As always, no one knew what to study, and to be honest I didn't even bother to read my notes. The test ended up being about some Ob Gyn clinical scenario -please note that we studied Ob Gyn almost 2 years ago in a totally unrelated course- in which we had to evaluate the actions taken by all the departments involved (Family Medicine, ER, Ob Gyn). Why did is he asking this, appeared to be general question since the syllabus for the course was basically biostatistics, epidemiology concepts, and such. But hell, I didn't stress about it much, mainly because the doctor usually grades me fairly well but also because after Wednesday 2-exam combo I just didn't care much about anything. I'm completely burn out. I really need some vacations, and sleep, a lot of sleep.

On Friday my roomie and I went to the Red Cross. One of the docs there is a former teacher and friend of ours. We sort of helped out sorting the drugs to be sent to Tabasco for the injured by the flood over there and played doctor for a while. We saw some bloody and gross cases. One was a fifty-something male who had amputated and severed various fingers with an electric saw. Jeez! It looked ugly! We transferred him to a bigger hospital with Plastic Surgery so he could get Surgery to try and keep most of the functionality of his hand. Poor guy, I felt bad we couldn't do much for him, but hopefully he ended in much better hands. We also saw this old guy with TB. I was quite reluctant to examine him, because I'm sure he was soooo contigious at that moment. I swear, I could almost see an aura of mycobacterium tuberculosis around him! I know this probably makes me a none-so-good doc, but hey! I rather live with that, than live with TB! I'm so not into infectious diseases, or really sick people for what that matters. Anyways, the morning at the Red Cross was fairly productive. We learned some stuff that will come handy next year while we rotate. So kudos for that!

That same day I also cleaned my house. Not all of it, but almost. At least the bathroom and kitchen are acceptably clean. I'm happy about it. I've come to realize that I'm very much of a freak when it comes to cleaning. I blame my mother for it. Let me get this straight, I don't like cleaning, yet I love it when things are clean. I, as everybody else in the world, hate cleaning the bathroom, however I get this strange satisfaction when I see the sparkling whiteness of my bathroom hehe. I now, I am that weird. So anyways, I don't really mind cleaning my house, basically because I believe its a small price to pay to see everything shiny and pretty, but also because I let my OCD-self free while I'm at it. I can get pretty obsessive when I clean. Anyways, what I hate most about cleaning, is that people just don't seem to even acknowledge the cleanliness of things and they don't even bother to try and keep things that way. I mean, all the plates are washed, the table is clean, and he comes anyone and just leaves a dirty plates on the table, or get crumbles on my recently-broomed floor. Grrr! It gets on my nerves, because I'm a freak like that.

Anyways...

Later that day a friend of mine arrived and we went to have dinner with her. She's staying at my place so we stayed up until very late yesterday catching up and just girl-talking.

I'm supposed to drive she and her boyfriend to a concert so I gotta go.

Boredom

I'm bored. Like, really, really bored. I haven't been out of my house all day, but for a quick run to the 7/11 2 blocks away. Today was a suck-y day. I've been trying to study, but the more I try, the more my mind wanders. I'm feel like in one of those cartoon where there's an angel and a devil on each of my shoulders:

GOOD-ME
Focus! Your exam is in barely 3 days!

BAD-ME
Oh my god, have you seen Angelina Jolie lately, she is so skinny...

REAL-ME
She is!! I should loose some weight...

GOOD-ME
Dumb-ass! Concentrate!

REAL-ME
Right, right ... so "HIV is a nontransforming human retrovirus belonging to the lentivirus family..." Lentivirus, heh thats a funny word.

BAD-ME
Yeah! Its like the lenticular nucleus

REAL-ME
It is! heh heh

GOOD-ME
Ahem!!

REAL-ME
Right, right... so "The virus core contains the mayor capsid protein p24, nucleocapsid protein p7/p9, two copies of genomic RNA" I wonder if this shit is important. I mean, I'm not going to remember all this dumb proteins by tomorrow. Maybe I should ask someone what they are studying...

(logs to IM)
...

-an hour and a half after-

BAD-ME
Hey, I'm kinda hungry!!

REAL-ME
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

So this is basically what's been happening to me all day. It's not my fault, my intentions are good. I just don't have the will power to go through with them.

Anyways, I'm going to go make some coffee, maybe that'll help. Or not. Whatever, coffee is always good.

Rock on!!

Yesterday was a friend's birthday (as you might have already inferred from my last post) and since his parents came visiting we had great home-y food at his place. We ate seafood prepared in various ways. I ate a little bit too much, and by that I really mean, I ate like there was no tomorrow. I tasted everything, I couldn't help it. My advise to you: never sit right in front of the big food platters. Even if I was already full whenever a new dish came out of the kitchen, with all its deliciousness streaming from it, I had to try it. And don't get me wrong, I tried to fight my gluttony, but in the end I realized I'm weak. I caved in every time. But hell, in my sad situation of being a student, there's usually not much good food around. I had to take advantage of the rare occasion. Or at least, that's what I tell myself. Overall, it was all very nice and fun. I had a really good time.

One of the best part of yesterday was the concert we went to later on. We went to see Soda Stereo, and Oh god, it was so much fun! The whole process to getting to the concert was not so great. I wasn't in such a good mood because of a certain person in my party. But anyways, once the music started, it was all forgotten. You see, Madonna was right, music makes the people come together, heh. We were pretty far from the stage and most of the time I was watching the big screens rather that the stage itself. I know certain people (read: my brother) don't really appreciate the beauty of concerts, specially such massive concerts as this one, and I can understand why. I mean, who could possible like all that many people pushing you, the endless lines to enter the place, the portable W.C.s and the expensive drinks? I don't. However, I think its a small price you pay for being there. Oh, and let me clarify, I'm not Soda Stereo biggest fan, or a music fan whatsoever. I just love concerts. To me there is just no comparison between listening to a song from your ipod or computer to listening to it live. You can feel the music when its live. You can feel people's vibe while thousands of people sing along the same song whereas that can never happen when you're sitting at home listening to a CD. Or, you know, maybe I just have shitty speakers.

Anyways, I had a great time yesterday. I knew and liked most of the songs they played. It was a good day.

***

Today I woke up really late and just as I was about to pretend to do homework, my room-mate remembered me it was another friend's birthday. So we ended up going to a restaurant with a bunch of people to celebrate. Then I came back home, read a bit about sepsis and then this evil thing called facebook caught me and made me start uploading some photos. I hate facebook. But anyways, since I like to pretend I'm cool 'n all I use it.
I also had a temporary ant invasion. But don't worry, its all right now. I took care of it heh. It wasn't really much of an invasion rather a small conglomeration of ants around some crumbles in the floor. But I exaggerate, as I always. I sweeped the floor and mopped with a mop impregnated with antibug liquid. So in the end it was a good thing because it made me clean up my house a little.

Anyways, I gotta go, I have to study at least a little while.

Feliz Cumpleaños

Happy Birthday, Birthday-boy!!
Hope you liked my present :)

xo

Lola

PS: no quiero soñar mil veces las mismas cosas... ni contemplarlas sabiamente

Creep

Hi!

Good news people! Remember the business plan I've been bitching about so much? Well, today -after a month-long absence- we finally meet again with the teacher. Apparently none of the other teams have started their papers, which turns out great for us, because we've almost finished ours. Its just a matter of tiny details what's left to do. Yei! Besides, next week we start our finals, so its going to be a very very busy week. I'm so glad I stressed so much about it early enough, heh

On a totally unrelated topic, you've got to watch this!!! It's just way too cool!

gotta go

xo
Lola

Back to my cruel life

Hi there!

I'm back from my break. I had a great time back home. I was so sad as I was saying my goodbyes and getting ready to board the plane. I cannot stop thinking that this December will be my last real vacations with my family in a long long time. You see, as of January 2nd, 2008 I start my clinical practices, like, for real. No crappy calls every few days, this is going to be the real shit. The medstudent cliché of exploitation to probably illegal degrees. Hooray! I can't wait! Bring it on, bitches! (I'm obvioulsy being sarcastic here).

When I get some time I'll talk about it a bit more. Right now I'm supposed to be studying for some test tomorrow morning. But my brain is just starting to become none-responsive, I'm like Glasgow 3 right now. So forgive my rambling and run-ons.

So these days back I haven't done much. I've been studying for my test, and doing the damn business plan I've been whining about. Oh, and I also did a ton of laundry with the subsequent folding -which I hate- and cleaned my room a little. Yes, my life is that boring.

Anyway, I not really thinking clear right now. I guess I should just go and sleep a few hours before I give TB and Dengue another shot. Good night y'all!

xo
Lola

Juegos de Manos son de Villanos

Well, gotta go sleep on my unbelievably-comfy bed because tomorrow will be another day of family bonding and great food. Yei!

Delayed

Hi there!
I haven't mentioned it yet, but I currently live and go to school at a different city than the one my family lives. The cities are in 2 different states and are quite far one from the other. One is in the northeast and the other is in central Mexico.
Anyways, somehow this week my schedule worked out in a way that I had no classes or lectures on Friday which means, Hooray! long weekend!! So ,today I'm flying to my hometown to visit my family. I was supposed to be boarding right now, but because of some none-sense reason we're at leas 1 hour delayed. It sucks! I hate being stuck at the airport. It so boring!
Besides, it makes one realize all the Hollywood-esque fun stuff happening during plane delays are just a big fat lie! I see absolutely no little carts waiting for me to jump in and drive around all happily while some fat and clumsy security guy tries to chase me down. Nor the typical weird or mean kid who I'll hate at first sight but eventually realize is my soul-mate or new BFF.
Now, that would be fun.
Yet, I'm stuck in an uncomfortable waiting-room chair, hungry and cranky, refusing to eat airport food. I'm not playing their game, I'm not buying some 3 dollar soda or 5 dollar bag of chips. I rather spend that money later on ranitidine to treat my incipient ulcer than give it to them.

***

On another subject, today we had an appointment with an accountant to check our progress in the business plan I told you about yesterday. Well, as you may already imagine, it went bad. Basically all we have done is the part my roomy and I did yesterday, which is almost finished, but that in the big picture is very very little. I don't like my team anymore. In fact, the members of the team I didn't like from the beginning, I'm hatting right now. Damn lazy persons! They have done absolutely nothing!! For goodness sake, I doubt they have even understood what the hell our company is supposed to do. Argghhh! I shall kill them in their sleep.

I'm bored and my laptop battery is about to die. I guess I'll go and buy a celebrity magazine or something. I just hope they are not overpriced like the chips and the soda.

xo

Lola

Business lady

Hi everybody, did you miss me? Don't lie, I know you did.

So, this week is exam-free, no tests whatsoever of any subjects! Wow! That hasn't happened in quite a while! Somehow they -and by they I mean the evil schedule planners, you know who you are!!- managed to pack all our semester with endless exams up until now. Its weird, its like too much freedom for me to handle. I think I can only work under pressure, not that I'm any good at coping with stress. Actually, I'm one of those persons who get cranky and kinda psycho whenever under a certain amount of pressure. Try to imagine how this whole semester has been to those around me. Jeez! I think should get them something for Christmas just for putting up with me. If only I had money, heh.

Basically all I have to do this week is the final project for this stupid subject I'm being forced to take called Entrepreneur. I hate that subject! Its an institutional course -meaning, every student of every undergraduate program has to take it at some point - which is kind of a trademark for my university. They are big in the leadership and entrepreneurial spirit thing (I think I just made that up heh what I mean was espiritu emprendedor). Anyways, I don't really get it why we as medstudents are forced into this thing. You see, the concept of the course is to develop and plan a real business with the hopes of making it happen after you graduate. Most students take this in their last or next to last semester. I think its actually a good idea for those people graduating anytime soon and who are in business-related areas. But for me, its just a pain in the ass. I have no hopes of entering the "real life" for at least 3 more years when I get my M.D. Even then, I will hopefully enter a residency program and continue my never-ending medical trainning with no plans -or money- to start my own business. Which makes this whole course just another thing I have to worry and complain about this semester. Like I needed any more of that.

Anyways, my team and I have been putting off this thing for quite a while, and have just realized its due next week. Did I mention its a 50 to 60 pages-long business plan of which we have basically ZERO progress? Dammit!

So, my exam-free week will be all about this crappy business plan. Noooo! Bring the tests back!! (I don't really mean this, at any cost, please KEEP THE EXAMS AWAY)

Well people, I gotta go find out what problem is my business supposed to fix or whatever.

xo
Lola

PS; did you notice how nice of me to emphasize the Spanish words with a different font. I'm spoiling you guys.

Welcome

Hello! Welcome to my blog, Ependimoma Stories!

For the purposes concerning this blog I'll be simply Lola which may or may not be my real name (as many of the names, places and such things that I will be posting here). All this because, well, Internet people, I’m sure you’re nice and normal and not at all stalkers or psychos, but you never know.

Anyways, I’m 21 yo and currently trying to survive my fourth year of Medschool in northern Mexico. (what? 21 and already 4th year? Well, the Mexican medical school system is not quite like the American. We start Medschool right after highschool. I shall eventually talk more about this is another post)

So probably you're wondering about the title of this blog. You see, one of my favorite courses this year was Neuroanatomy/Neuropathology (the fact that I'm in love with that doctor has a teeny tiny influence on that) and part of the course involved going over brain tumors. Well, one of those tumors is the Ependymoma -yes, I notice that my blog is spelled with an i and not a y, its actually written in Spanish- which is a tumor of the -you guessed!- ependymal cells of the brain, it is a rare primary brain tumor and is not even that cool or interesting. Yet, I've got this thing for funny names, and I totally love the sound [ependimoma] hehe I cannot help giggling every time I hear or say it.

Yes, I am very weird. Get used to it.

Anyways, that's about all I have to say about the title. Well, there's also the all-the-damn-good-names-being-already-taken issue, but I rather not recall my anger about that. I mean it, its for your own sake.

By the way, some disclaimers here. I am NOT a native English speaker, and I don’t intend to pose as one. I love Spanish, yet, somehow it’s easier for me to have inner monologues in English. Blame my overly-enthusiastic English teachers, the darn cable TV, and the Internet. If I feel like writing in Spanish, I will; and if I feel like mixing things up, adding crazy German words or just posting something in an undefined language … I will do it. So, you have been warned. No complaining.

Anyways, its getting late, and I cannot procrastinate my studying any longer.

xo
Lola