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About Me:

Hey everyone, I am Cathryn. I am going into my 5th year of pharmacy at Butler University. I am also working toward a minor in Science, Technology & Society! In my spare time, I enjoy hanging out with friends and writing. I've been working on NaNoWriMo and am hoping to be published at some point in the near future as well. Most of the time you can catch me studying in the library or browsing the Internet. Oh, and did I mention that I got married last summer?

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Archive: January 2013

Fridays off?

Posted on January 24, 2013 by Cathryn

I thooought the P3 second semester schedule was going to be somewhat merciful, with our late start on Mondays and our Fridays off. Turns out I’m going to be spending every waking moment doing:

- 2 mini presentations, two debates, and at least three other presentations

- Two papers

- Two hundred drugs – studying EVERYTHING ABOUT THEM

- Two shadowing experiences

- One community project

- Don’t even get me started on clusters

- Reading two novels

- AND A PARTRIDGE IN A PEAR TREE

All while getting my nonexistent CV together, brushing up on all my necessary certifications to get ready to go on rotations, and somehow finding time to watch every episode of Scrubs available on Netflix in preparation for rotations.

You won’t believe this, but Ashley created a picture of this exact moment sophomore year. Premonition.

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Long weekend surprise!

Posted on January 24, 2013 by Cathryn

I was told by Curtis a few months ago to take off work on the Saturday of MLK weekend, so I did. I asked him what we were doing and he said it was a surprise. Immediately my mind jumped to the circus being in town. Well, it wasn’t.

EVEN BETTER.

ASHLEY SURPRISED US WITH A VISIT!!

If you hadn’t already heard, Ashley lives in NYC now so we don’t get to see her very often. And through a complicated web of communication via carrier pigeon (and/or Facebook), Ashley concocted this surprise visit with our beaus RIGHT UNDER OUR NOSES.

AWWW.

So we took Ashley to get some Yatz, saw some movies, visited the family farm, painted our nails (LIKE OLD TIMES) and ate ice cream! It was such a great way to spend a long weekend!

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First, a story on freshman housing

Posted on January 24, 2013 by Cathryn

For those of you new to the blog, you may not have read back on all of my entries (and if you have … then more power to you), so I wanted to travel back to a prehistoric time when I was a freshman.

I looked like this.

And I requested to live in a triple or quad dorm in Schwitzer Hall. Which meant living with THESE TWO:

That’s us on move=in day. Memories.

But it all worked out for throwing three strangers together. We all liked Harry Potter and none of us had a secret shrine hidden away to our celebrity crush (to my knowledge?). We got through the awkwardness of communal bathrooms and living in one room together. And dropping 8AM math classes. (That was me!)

IN FACT, we ended up living together for the rest of our time at Butler! And it was AWESOME! Are we an atypical success story? Probably. But I can vouch for living in the Schwitzer Hall basement (where the triples and quads are) because it was the best wing ever. The laundry room was right down the hall! :)

Oh, and to end the story, my roommates Kass and Ashley graduated almost two years ago, leaving me to continue slaving away. Kass leaves in Indy still but Ashley moved to NYC and we don’t get to see her often UNTIL…

(to be continued.)

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Rotations!

Posted on January 17, 2013 by Cathryn

The time for figuring out our rotations preferences HAS BEGUN.

For those of you new to the whole pharmacy school thing, here’s how it goes. You do four years in the professional phase of the pharmacy program, and the last of those four years is spent on experiential rotations. These are 10, four week rotations at various sites where we’ll shadow a pharmacist.

And I already know three of mine.

Our electronic scheduling machine (I have no better way to phrase it) just opened this week, but I was placed with my special request for openings at the Cincinnati VA! I AM SO PUMPED. I’ll be doing an ambulatory care, critical care, and psychiatry rotation there!

And the reeest I’m not sure about. I think I’ll be doing one at Butler doing research, and I definitely want to experience long term care. Then I want to do some areas that I know I’ll never work in but I definitely want to experience, like cardiology and nutrition support. I’ve been tinkering with the scheduling here and there, but it’s due next week so I have to make my mind up!

I do know that my expectations are that rotations will be like Scrubs. And every preceptor is Dr. Kelso.

For those of you who are fans of Scrubs, I’m waaay more afraid of Kelso than I am of Cox. I wouldn’t be able to listen to Cox’s tirades for longer than two seconds. Kelso though? He has concise and heartless insults! :( (That show is so great and I think most if not all of it is on Netflix!)

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How we do classes, last semester style

Posted on January 17, 2013 by Cathryn

I DO NOT MESS AROUND. 19 CREDIT HOURS. GO.

Clinical Kinetics – It’s every bit as awful as it sounds. In fact I have to listen to the recorded lectures on Panopto tomorrow. And maybe possibly probably order the book.

Advanced Drug Information – This class sounds redundant. As if pharmacy school isn’t 100% about drug information. Well, anyway, this class is about utilizing resources and understanding how to relay information from scientific articles (etc etc) in a clinical setting so we don’t sound like this on rotations:

Pharmacy Law – I thought I would hate this class buuut after this election year I’ve found myself incredibly intrigued by government policy and other such things so I’m actually looking forward to it!

Therapeutics 4 – As if the title didn’t give it away, this is the fourth therapeutics course we’ve taken. It will be full of therapy.

Intro to Rotations – Wherein we’re given a ton of deadlines, tests over 200 drugs and everything about them, and we listen to guest speakers talk about different kinds of rotations.

Public Health – GOSH I’M SO EXCITED. I’ve felt more and more over the past few months that public health is my calling (thanks to PAWS!) so I’m super excited to be in this class to learn more!

Drugs and Addiction – ALSO SUPER EXCITED because it’s not an area we study in our regular lectures at all, and I want to work with patient populations that may have a lot of substance abuse issues.

I feel like I’m really squeezing in the classes here. This is not a senioritis kind of year, people.

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It begins

Posted on January 17, 2013 by Cathryn

Well, the semester started … on Monday. I can’t say I haven’t been around the block on semesters starting and all of that, so my excitement levels were not through the roof when the time finally came to go to class. In fact, I sort of feel like some grizzled old veteran now that I’m in my last semester and this has been my face during every syllabus reading and all of the group projects we have to do:

The good news is my planner is FILLED OUT and my week is OVER. So I have all of tomorrow to work on the piles of assignments bestowed upon me by my professors. All in all it was a good week, though, because I got to watch Sicko and an episode of Intervention in class! I haven’t watched movies in class in ages! It’s like the good old days again. :)

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A Day Trip

Posted on January 11, 2013 by Cathryn

Last week, Curtis and I visited our friend Anna in Bloomington! It’s a fun ride down there with lots of pretty scenery and it’s only an hour away from Butler (it’s an extra 20-30 minutes from us, and I blame I-465 … and the conventions of distance).

It was so much fun! Anna works at the Lilly Library and knows All Things About Books, so she had awesome things to show us liiike AN ORIGINAL SHOOTING SCRIPT OF STAR WARS A NEW HOPE. (Imagine me shouting this while flailing my arms around.) We also got to see the original written manuscript of Patrick O’Brien’s The Far Side of the World, which my favorite movie Master and Commander is based off of.

Paul Bettany + Russell Crowe + Napoleonic era naval warfare = MASTER AND COMMANDER.

We had a ton of fun visiting Anna’s favorite haunts. It’s so cute and cozy down there! It was nice to take a little trip out of the city to visit our buddy. I heeeard there’s a rotation block down there and I wonder if I should request it! Free housing and everything! ;)

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Semester Goals: A Treatise

Posted on January 10, 2013 by Cathryn

I really need to make a better effort to stick to my goals for this semester, as it’s my last one on campus and I think I could really NAIL IT if I tried.

Here’s what I’m thinking.

1) Early morning workout. I’m going to try and wake up every day at the same time and get a workout in before class. I’ve been graced with an awesome schedule where I don’t have many early days (just one 8am class! which I did to myself!)

2) Friday study times. So I have Fridays off, but I’m taking 19 credit hours (again, WHY AM I DOING THIS TO MYSELF?), which means I’ll definitely need that day to catch up on everything. I’m planning on camping out at the library or Hearthstone on these days, having Internet silence (ie–no Facebook and Tumblr and all the time-wasting sites I go on) while I’m studious.

3) COOKING. Last semester, Curtis and I ate chili and mac and cheese, Hamburger Helper, and fast food. I can’t emphasize enough how excellently we’re modeling a Poor American Diet. I want to make a better effort to plan meals and lunches and get vegetables in my diet.

Example of Poor American Diet:

Those are tacos and refried beans which we dumped queso over. I mean, you know. Priorities.

Last goal: study for two hours every night. This one is going to be the hardest, I can already tell. BUT I WILL DO IT FOR THE GOOD OF THE TREATISE.

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What do I do the week before school starts?

Posted on January 10, 2013 by Cathryn

I go home to Cincinnati. (Am I doing it wrong?)

The whole plan was to make some Cincinnati appointments and get those done since it’s winter break and it’s a good time for such things. Did I make the calls to do that like a functioning adult? No. But I did start a new game of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on my Gamecube.

I hate to think that’s old school but I guess the Gamecube is now two Nintendo console generations behind. Oh, right, about being home!

COULD MY PHONE TAKE A WORSE PICTURE? Wait, don’t tempt it. I guess I could have been covering the camera with my finger or something. Ugh.

Right, so! I’m at my favorite coffee chain: Caribou Coffee! What’s so special about yet another coffee chain? Well Caribou is cabin/outdoor themed so their ottomans are little bears. And their napkins always have hand-drawn designs on them. AND I think they have better coffee than some other people.

The only Caribou in Indianapolis right now is on IUPUI’s campus, so if you’re down there, check them out.

I know that winter break is drawing to a close and this is my last break for an entire year. And my last semester of classes ever. I guess that’s why I’ve been such a lump–or at least not inclined to schedule myself up with tons of stuff to do. I’m really glad that I got to spend some time writing and with that guy that I live with who I didn’t see at all last semester. (Joke: I’m referring to my husband Curtis, who I hardly saw because of our ridiculous class/work schedules!)

So here’s to the end of break. (Insert groan from all of my friends whose breaks ended long ago and I’m sorry. :( )

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Sales

Posted on January 3, 2013 by Cathryn

In my state of hermit zen I have not gone out unless it was super important, and that means I haven’t had too much trouble with shopping crowds. I was lucky enough to not have to leave during our “blizzard” the day after Christmas, which also meant I was skipping out on all of the wild and crazy post-Christmas sales.

I have to grind my teeth a bit when all of the commercials push more and more shopping after we’re all reeling from the holiday shopping. But fine!

I will say I do partake in my favorite pastime, which is waiting for all the Christmas stuff to go on super sale and buying everything I need for the following year. There’s usually only a few things we have to get before Christmas that we have to get at full price (like lights!), but the rest I like to wait and see how cheap we can get.

Like today at Target, we got gift bags for like twenty five cents each. And I bought a desktop light up dove for five bucks. We also got a zillion yards of gaudy tinsel for a dollar a piece.

I named it Helga.

So bottom line, treat yourself to some Christmas stuff because it’s amaaazingly cheap right now. And next year you’ll be like “I’m so glad I got this!” TRUST ME. :D

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