The last big push!

Don't worry peeps, Melissa passed Mini 3! In fact, she did quite well on it; she set a new personal record, score-wise. And that's just after she set the record on Mini 2!

I'll tell you her super secret for the recent improvement (hopefully she doesn't mind...). Ok, so these tests are multiple choice, right? Melissa's tactic is simply to cover the answer bank as she reads and processes the questions. So she works out the solution before seeing what misleading answers are given. Usually this gives her even more confidence in her choices, and helps keep the distractions to a minimum. So any of you out there who are still taking multiple choice tests: this one's a freebie. Use at your own leisure. 

In other news, I'm makin' some bread! Granted, it's a box recipe, but I did take a muffin mix and convert it to bread, so I did a little work (not really). It smells pretty good now, but I hope the oven doesn't cook it too quickly. This propane tank thingy can be a little stressful at times, let me tell ya.

Also, it seems that Rosco has hit a growth plateau (finally!), which is good for me because I wasn't sure he was going to stop. Sometimes I remember when I could still fit him in my back pack, and it blows my mind that that was in January. How time flies!

So Melissa is still studying as strong as ever, getting reacquainted with old material and revisiting lectures from blocks 1 and 2. She really has a good system down, which is awesome to witness, because I can see that she isn't stressed in the way that a lot of students seem to be, which is "ARGH-there's-so-much-stuff-I-didn't-learn-the-first-time-and-I-need-to-boost-my-block-scores-and-there-isn't-enough-time-and-OHMYBRAINISEXPLO-". Or something like that. Let's just say that campus is a high stress zone right now. Not too fun. But Melissa is doing all the right things and setting herself up to do her best. 

In short: Melissa is great, Rosco is taking a growing break, and my banana-nut bread is hopefully not burning.

Wait, let me go check.

...

Ok, it's fine. Still looking and smelling good.

Take care!

Eric

Look Who's Talking Syndrome

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the reference in my title, there is a series of movies from the late 80s/early 90s called Look Who's Talking (followed by Look Who's Talking Too and Look Who's Talking Now), starring John Travolta and Kirstie Alley. Oh, these movies. You see, the basic premise/schtick of this series is that babies (and ultimately dogs) are thinking all sorts of crazy things, and articulating these things through the voices of Bruce Willis and Roseanne Barr. Yes. I'm not even kidding. And when you're a kid with younger siblings, you like to believe that they do it too! So you start to create motive for whatever strange or funny things they do, all while saying things like, "Oh, I bet Jonah's thinking, 'Hey Mom, why'd you take my round thing? I need that!' Haw haw". 

It gets old pretty fast. See for yourself: go try to watch any of those movies (maybe on Netflix? I'm not sure).

But anyways, the reason I bring this up is that now with a dog, I find myself doing this when he's playing with the other dogs from downstairs. I start narrating his actions with specific human emotions, because I still think it's funny. Also because it's adorable.

Take for example today. The other boy dog, Coco, had a chewy bone that he was working on. Apparently he stole it from Jelly Bean, one of the girl dogs who happens to be a little older, and also has a rougher history of being a street dog for a while. So when Jelly Bean figures out what Coco is up to, she goes a little cray-cray and starts barking at him pretty ferociously. Meanwhile, Rosco is standing next to Jelly Bean, with this look like, "Hey now, come on, why you barking at him? Take it easy...", and he even tried to put his paw on her to calm her down. Pretty cute. But I can't help but verbalize what I think he's thinking to the other dog owners outside because I think it's so awesome when he acts kind of "human-y". It must just be one of those things that people do with their kids/siblings/pets. I can't be the only one; you've probably done it too.

In Melissa news, next week starts the big final push! Monday she has 2 practicals (histology and anatomy), Tuesday she has her Mini (on Repro), and Wednesday she has CCSB (clinical assessment, like taking an HPI and doing basic tests on a patient). Then the Tuesday after that is the Final! It is almost upon us! This semester has flown by, but I guess it's true what they say: "Time flies when you're anthropomorphizing your pets."

Take care!!

Eric