St. Patricks Day

I had a fun St. Patrick's day with lots of pictures.  Now off to Konin, a town about an hour away.  I'm going with Fil and Tomek, Tomek's driving.  May or may not have internet, but I will update with pictures upon my return.  Do widzenia

Warmth

So lately it has been pretty warm, almost 60!  I've been spending my time getting prepared for histology.  We have a quiz coming up and I need to get 17 out of 50 on each of the last 2 to be able to take the final, pretty doable.  We had an anatomy exam last week and I did very well, highest score.  I watched some movie with Dennis about Ghana and learned a lot about their culture.  They have president type of figures but each town has their own King.  The king is somewhat above the law and they can do whatever they want.  They still have some wild rituals about how kings don't step on the ground and expressing displeasure by taking a king's shoes.  I hung out with my friend Valerie and her roommate last Tuesday then went to Karolek, the other dorm, to have an American evening, beer pong!  It was very fun, the champs, Fil and I, held down the table for most the night.  We only played for a couple hours then headed back to our respective rooms for the night.  Good times.  

This weekend was fairly relaxing too.  I did meet with El ProfessOR and Tomek to hangout for a while and I went home before they went out.  I didn't feel like being out until morning time.  Nothing too much else to report.  Here are some random pictures from the last couple weeks.  

Dennis' toothbrush

He actually started using mine for some reason.  I couldn't find it one day then I saw it in the bathroom.  I keep my in my bag on the shelf.  I left it in there one day and I guess he just started using it.  Weird but at least it is better than his old one.  

2 Fridays ago

Last Friday, snow all melted

At the shot bar, post Anatomy Exam with Maja Valeria and Michal

Friday night at 11 in the library.  Yes that is a beer being poured into a coffee cup.  Our friend Christer goes to the gas station and delivers these gifts to those who are crazy enough to be at the library until close on a Friday.  

Nice view from the 2nd floor of the library.  Coffee (sans beer) and my histology book.

Chill Week

So this was the beginning of a new semester.  We finished chemistry, PE, embryology, First Aid and added Biology and Philosophy.  I am keeping my fingers crossed to get out of them as I have done them previously.  As for the week.. nothing really but anatomy and class.  We have an exam Monday so everyone has been studying a lot.  I feel pretty good about it, I have studied a lot and I think I am well prepared.  It is fairly stressful as you can still learn new things but I know almost all of the Board Review Series book on the upper limb, back, head/neck and thorax.  I spent countless hours in the library after class this week so it will be nice to sleep in and get some rest finally.

Today was a nice day.  I went to bed at 2am woke up at 4am and read biophysics for our new seminar class, instead of the lab, thank goodness.  It is at 8am across town so we left the dorms at 7 and this seminar was quite nice compared to the craziness of the lab last semester.  I signed up to present on cell potential Na K Ca.. all the things I learned previous at UCSD so it should be nice.  I do that next week.  I also signed up to give the introduction presentation on xrays.  Today our seminar was on ultrasound, pretty interesting.

Following class I was at the library in the quiet room.  My good friend Valerie studies there and I joined her recently and found that I like it.  I was there from about 4 to 12.  Following that we had some choice beverages at Wilhelm's place and watched the Lion King, pretty awesome.  In the mean time Valerie cut my hair and it looks pretty awesome.  Usually I have people buzz it because it is hard to mess up that way. I thought she could do it old school with scissors and it turned out great, so I have found my new hair cutter in Poland!  Tomorrow I will sleep in and study some more anatomy.  I spoke with a friend today, Michal, about how he felt about the test because he is well prepared like I am and he said he has taken all these practice tests and they are pretty easy so he is not going to stress about studying more, so I will join him with that mentality.  Time to go to sleep though, I have been up for almost 24 hours, again.

Pictures to be posted soon

Joey

This one goes out to our beloved dog Joey.  She is now resting peacefully as her 15 and a half years on this earth were enough.  You will always be remembered and missed.

This week is our intersemester break.  We have a week off and it has been quite nice so far.  My roommate Dennis went home to be with his family and child who now is speaking and saying Dad.  It is nice having the place to myself.  First thing I did was clean it thoroughly.  A great friend of mine Richard Kim came to visit with his friend Khan.  We spent a night in Poznan then extemporaneously went to Berlin.  Berlin was quite large.  I have been to Munich and it was more intimate where going to the main street put you into the thick of things.  In Berlin it was quite different.  Many miles of walking were necessary to see the different parts.  I was glad that they had a decent number of buildings and monuments from the world wars.  We spent a night there and left late the next night.  It was ~$30 to go there via train (2.5 hours) and $30 to go back via van (Berlin express 3.5 hours).  Richard and Khan left the next morning early, it was great seeing Dick.

The next day we met Ola's friends.  I've heard so much about them and they visited for a week.  First they were in other parts of Poland, making it to Poznan for the last 2 nights, then they were off to Berlin.

It has been very cold here the last week, some of the coldest weather I've experienced here, wrong time to visit.  I have been spending a lot of time studying anatomy as we have an exam in a week and a half.  It was pushed back since a vast majority of my classmates had extra tests to study for and would not have adequate time for anatomy.

The other night we were at Czekolada, again, and this Polish girl swore I was kidding when I said I spoke only a little Polish.  Apparently the few things I said, I said so convincingly that she would not accept the fact that I was not Polish and thought I was lying to her, a compliment I guess?

Some photos from the week.

Mustache with the creepy glasses, sadly the 'stache is gone

Richard on the right, Khan to the left

William and Fil in the hostel, another good hostel experience.  

Berlin wall

the wall

On the 'old' side of the wall

quite stunning

Bugatti Veyron, 1001 horsepower... the fastest most expensive car ever made.. one of the highlights for me.  

Typical Germany, sadly they were closed since it was 1130 at night and we were looking for dinner

an old American checkpoint that has been kept

just one of the MANY graffiti pieces of art

kind of funny

where the initial screenings took place for the jewish people before they went to the concentration camps

madness

Berlin wall at day

A huge dome over 3 buildings

I think they forgot an L

a memorial for the Jewish people who died during the war

an American Weiner

Yum

The capital building

A Iran rally that was happening, many Police were nearby to ensure its civility 

A crazy art area we stumbled across

Angels represent!!!

I don't think it will be too small

Snow in Poland, the first time is snowed in a month and a half

Michael Contreras in Poznan!?

Woke up in the Sheraton hotel with Richard and Khan to watch ice hockey, ESPN, and Poland versus Ukraine Wipeout!!!  I love that show.  I was so amazed they had it here.  So stoked!

Brr

A taste of Ireland, this goes out to my little bro Scott

Love you Joey

Dick Kim

Richard should be here any minute.  Pretty excited about that.  It has snowed ceaselessly the last two days.  First real snowfall in a month and a half.  The Lech Poznan team won another match, taking them closer to the European title.  

Yesterday I noticed that on all the street signs they have bars that look like service bars followed by a number.  This corresponds to the loudness of the street.  Thus when looking to purchase a house you can choose one on a quiet street.  I also found out that the small rynek near Fil's house used to be the center of the richest place in Poznan.  There are many buildings all around the area that seem to once be very nice.  When Hitler came he made it a point to take over this area first since it was the location of most of the wealth.  Unfortunately the area looks to not have completely recovered from that time as now it definitely doesn't look like one of the ritzy areas.  

Quiet Week Post Chem Final

After the Chemistry final exam, the week has been fairly quiet.  I had some fun Monday night which made for a tiresome Tuesday with 2 sleepless nights.  It has become customary to go to my friend Rahul's place after an exam.  He is a great cook and treats us to lovely dinners after tests.  Ola brought her favorite wine over and that started the good night.   Last night I went to bed at 6pm and woke up at 6am.  Pretty nice!  Today was spent in the library, 8 continuous hours to be exact.  Now I'm watching the Arsenal v Barcelona game.  Not too many photos to post, hopefully this weekend I will get some more as my good friend Richard is visiting from England.  Stoked!  Here are 2 pictures, both quite funny.  The first is what I was studying for chemistry.  Throughout the year we learned tons of structures at other material for the weekly quizzes, on which I did quite well.  For the final we had to learn a ton of new material, including about 50 new structures.  I thought that a final was on the material presented in class throughout the course, but I was wrong.  One day I drew hundreds of structures, and of course the ones they asked on the final happened to be the few that I didn't study, thank goodness for half points.   The other is of a Norwegian friend of mine.  This was during our time studying for Chemistry.  It was tough to study for because what do you do, study new things, or review all the things you learned throughout the year?  She got a in a solid nap, wouldn't be my choice of position.

Not even the half of it.  Click on the picture and zoom in to see all these fun structures.  Dear patient, I don't know what is wrong with you, but I can draw the ATP reaction with the adenosine cyclase enzyme to produce cAMP very well!!!

This year's first casualty.  

More Pictures

Fireworks above the city for one of the many Polish holidays.  I heard Poland has the most holidays of any country.  

A single caution marker for a potentially devastating hole exposed on a busy street.  Watch out! 

Latest biophysics with a light snow dusting 

A screen shot of this very sexy pose of my great friend Alex after our last skype converstation