"paper cut on your butt"

The title of this post refers to an anorectal disorder chart that my classmate Won sent to me today (you see, we have to learn a ridiculous amount of information and many of us share our "disease charts"). This was after we had an amazing lecture by a Colorectal Surgeon who trained at the Cleveland Clinic. With 4 days, yes that's right, 4 days left in the semester we are finishing strong with the gastrointestinal module! So this afternoon was everything that could go wrong with the colon and butt, taught by a self-described "butt doctor".... it was quite possibly the best lecture we've had all year.

Common complaints for the butt doctor:

"something fell out of my butt"

"it feels like a paper cut on my butt"

"i think i have a hemorrhoid" -- apparently it's never a hemorrhoid (I'll just let your imagination run wild with that one)

...and so on.

Richter the Oversized Squirrel

This squirrel actually has multiple chins and when it lands on the patio we feel it in the apartment. Hence it's name, Richter, as in the scale.

Andrea says, "I think he is going to burn out his pancreas and then we'll see him hopping around the porch with a squirrel-sized insulin pump attached to his belly."

Thanksgiving Weekend

I had a lot of fun baking and cooking with my girlfriend this weekend! On Tuesday night I started a sponge for the Rustic Country Bread pictured below. I finished it Wednesday just in time for Andrea to taste after she passed her endocrine exam.

Isn't it Rustic!

Then on Thursday we finished the Sage Stuffing, two types of cranberry relish, a turkey, kale with panfried walnuts, sweet potato coins, gravy, and mashed potatoes. For dessert, we tried Trader Joe's pumpkin cheesecake (decadent!).

Sage Stuffing

Full-on gourmet dinner

To burn all that off, we walked around in the woods. Well, by Saturday we'd managed to get off our keesters. We took Kaaren and Chi to hike on the Banks-Vernonia trail. I think Chili will sleep the rest of the weekend.

Andrea was trying our new camera's zoom.

Oh, you didn't need your pillow, right?

Snow day!

Or maybe a better description would be "classes cancelled due to treacherous icy roads day." As I was stumbling around the apartment this morning with coffee in one hand and my Blackberry in the other I read that classes today had been cancelled. I looked out and saw 1/4" of snow on the balcony....woot! It's actually quite nice to have a snow day because it gives me an extra day to study for tomorrow's (hopefully tomorrow's) endocrine exam. It has been a long 6 weeks and we have been going non-stop through Pulmonology, Cardiology, and now Endocrinology. The fatigue of the entire class is palpable. Prof Von tells us to just hang in there in a little bit longer! After the Thanksgiving break we have GI as our final module for the semester. Then it is back to Montana for 3 whole weeks. It is amazing to realize that the didactic year is now half over and that in 6 short months I will be starting clinical rotations!

Dusting of snow on the porch

Mushrooms!

Last week I got to go on a "walkabout" with the other volunteers from Jackson Bottom Wetland and 2 experienced mushroom hunters. We found MANY different fungi, including the 2 very interesting ones I have in pictures below. The boletus edulis is also known as porcini (Italian for "little pig"). I was very excited to see so many, and such big ones! Because they are so tasty, other critters like to eat them as well: maggots, centipedes, slugs, etc... so it is important to pick only firm specimens, and to remove as many of the interlopers as possible while you are still in the field. I brought a bagful home and sauteed them in butter and olive oil before freezing them for later.

Boletus edulis

We also came upon a whole mini-forest of poisonous toadstools! The brightest ones were Amanita muscaria. These can cause hallucinations, but they also can make a person very ill. Very pretty, though!

Amanita muscaria

Taller than a sunbear

"I'm taller than a sunbear"

Humboldt Penguin bellies

Duck!

I call it drizzle, you call it mist, let's call the whole thing off

So, the fall/winter/spring rains have set in for good it seems. We are living in a cloud, and so to describe our scenery we need more words for this thing falling from the sky (or hovering in microscopic drizzlets) and NOT coming down in Andrea's favorite form, snow.

I found a great page with a spoof of the Beaufort scale, but done for rain in the Pacific Northwest: http://home.comcast.net/~pwmeek/boat/beaufort.html

Also, we thought we'd share a video: a day in the life...

Changing Seasons

As we move into serious, somber fall in Oregon there will be plenty of time to hone my baking skills. Today as the darkness (and Rain) descended, I decided it would be just the sort of day for baking Anadama Bread. This is a classic New England loaf with molasses and cornmeal, perfected in the Cook's Illustrated laboratory, and it did not disappoint!

Anadama Bread

Last week, the sun came out for a few days and we were very excited. I took Chili to the arboretum to document the fall colors and get a walk.

Hoyt Arboretum fall colors

"What is that giant orb of light in the sky?"

Concert at Old Church and Other Adventures

Since it is Wednesday again, I rode MAX into Portland for the weekly free concert at Old Church near the central library. It was a mixture of contemporary and classical piano and guitar pieces. Not bad for the price.

Oldest church in Portland

Church bathroom fixtures I liked.

Crazy people doing windows overhead caught my eye

After the concert I found my way to the local haberdashery shoppe and was milling around, feasting my eyes on all the nice things when lo and behold who should walk in but the lord of nerdy cooking and editor of Cook's Illustrated, Chris Kimball!!! The nice shop lady took our photo.

We both like hats, and cooking

While in town, I was able to meet up with my little brother and go on a longish hike around the posh, terraced neighborhoods above NW 23rd Street. It really is amazing how much UP you can do in the "west hills" (a.k.a. Tualatin Mountains). You don't notice until you walk it all.

Fancy pumpkin carving! (Micah, for scale, is 6'4")

Even the stairs are green in Portland

HOW many more steps?

Forest Park find en route to Pittock Mansion

Andrea's midterm election editorial

Lunchtime walk around Hillsboro

Andrea and I munched on deli sandwiches and then walked around neighborhoods near campus. We found this tree in a boulevard. It's so huge the sidewalk had to be scooted over several feet to accommodate it! I tried to look it up in my "Northwest Trees" book but couldn't find it. Lucky for me I can google: it is a giant sequoia! The cones have really interesting texture, so I grabbed one to draw later.

Andrea snapped this photo with her phone.

Fun with Cardiology

Friday was a day of fun at school thanks to Halloween! As we finished up our first week of Cardiology we had a costume contest and pot-luck lunch. Midway through the afternoon my friend Won decided to remove the monkey from her costume and place it in my hoodie. She was dressed as a disorder we learned about in Men's Health that is common amongst travellers overseas....and that's all I'm going to say about that! Really, you don't want more information. You might be tempted to do a google search and would end up seeing pictures that would be etched in your mind forever, and I just don't want to be responsible for that. Another classmate took this photo during class:

I am dressed as a PA student

Chili's heartbeat is very loud

Wonder Woman Day!

Sunday. A great adventure into Portland's funky SE side where you find free-roaming urban chickens alongside "vintage" boutiques toting (overpriced) used, orange tot-sized plastic school-chairs and mildewy books, and fancy new boutiques with amazing post-cards and gimmicky trinkets. And of course, a shop for comic book geeks that is hosting the fifth-annual Wonder Woman Day, a benefit for a local domestic violence victim's shelter. Nice!

Urban, free-range dominiques

Sweet front-yard coop!

My own, personal Wonder Woman.

Pics by local artists, sold at silent auction for benefit. Nice.

The little uke that could

Way back when we went to Bozeman last month, I got me a cute little ukelele. I'm working on learning a song by The Cure and the Tetris theme song... both in minor keys, but it's funny how a uke has the ability to make even those sound kinda fun.

Any requests?

Cozy Times

Fall Colors

Last year in Bozeman the trees froze before their leaves could change color. We're making up for the non-fall with serious color this year!

Hoyt Arboretum

Our apartment complex

Renal Module Recap

I finished up the renal module with an exam last Thursday. Kidneys are complicated. Issues arising in the kidneys are often a result of something going awry with another system. Hence, the complicating part. I must say that I am very grateful for the physiology primer we had this summer. The renal physiology hurt my head a bit less this time around. Which is a very good thing since we added a lot (UNDERSTATEMENT) to what we learned previously.

With this module, we had guest lecturers almost every day. Now that was groovy. My favorite lecture last week was on acid/base physiology, ok it was definitely not my favorite lecture, but rather favorite lecturer. A doctor from Britain who trained at the Elvis Presley Trauma Center. How many people can say that? Here, it is just one....I'm pretty sure anyway. Aside from the fun factor of hearing someone pronounce aluminum ah-loo-men-ee-um, everything she said sounded so sophisticated with that accent! It definitely made acid/base much more palatable. We also learned new applications for cool Britishisms....such as "that's just pissing in the wind" when discussing erroneous dosages for IV magnesium replacement. Go ahead, say it to yourself with a British accent. It just sounds so proper!

Ready For Cadaver Lab!

Here's my cute girlfriend, all ready in her scrubs for this morning's anatomy lessons at cadaver lab. Time to break out the vegetarian cookbooks!

Picture to sum up the last week and a half

I am in the midst of the Nephrology Module.....more later. Exam this Thursday. Woot!

Road Trip to Bozeman and Josh's Wedding

Here's my "little" brother, Josh, and his lovely bride, Autumn. Their wedding was held at her folks' place outside of Lavina. It was sweet, and such a pretty setting!