Thanks to everyone who has written me! I am so glad that others are out there doing this too - sometimes it is lonely because so few of my classmates can relate to me, or I to them.

Anyway, I had a question about my arrangements last year when I lived away. I found a REALLY cheap apartment that was literally a sleeping room with a built in fridge and stove and a shared bathroom. It was $385 a month, with all utilities included, and a 10 month lease. When I went looking for a place all of the regular apartments just seemed too big for just me, and this place was mostly foreign grad students so it was exceedingly quiet.

It also had T1 internet access - which was good because we set up video conferencing between home and me at school. For any of you who are facing living away from your family, I highly recommend video conferencing over the internet. It made the distance so much smaller. We would open the channel while my husband made dinner and the girls were playing, and I could hear them while I studied. Then he would do story time while I was "there" too - and I could say goodnight. Every morning we would check in just before they left for the day as well. It really made me feel more connected, because the weeks that we had problems with the connection were the longest ones, and the hardest to reconnect when I returned on Friday. My husband and I also would reopen it later in the evening, when he was preping for his class and I was studying. Even though we werent talking, it just seemed like we were in the same room.

M1 year was hard not only being away, but also because I had been out of school for 8 years. At the beginning I studied a lot, even on the weekends. By November, I had settled into the groove, and decided that my time at home, at least on saturdays, was just for us as a family. By the end of the year, I wasnt doing much at all on the weekends, and keeping up by working hard through the week. My advice - find what works for you and gives you balance (ha!) between studying and your family.

This year has been different. Not only is M2 more detailed, but I since I am home, I find it hard to sit down before 9 pm to study. Our class schedule is 8 to 3 every day. That makes it hard to get much in during the week. I have to miss classes occasionally, just to keep up with everything. But I would much rather be here than away. So this year I study a lot on the weekend, and that is when I get most of the work done. The benefit of having twins is that they are playmates - they just do their own thing most of the time, with some interruptions of course. And I have a great support network with my family as well -- so this year the girls go for the weekend before an exam to one of their grandma's. They love it, and grandma loves it, and I get a chance to just worry about school for three whole days!

Whew! So that catches me up to where I am now. I want to use this as more of a blog now. If anyone wants to know more about how have managed anything so far, please feel free to ask! I know I have questions about how others have handled their clinical years!!!

Right now we have two organ systems - Neuro and Musculoskeletal, plus Epi/Ethics that will be exams in Dec, right before break. I love neuro, MS I could take or leave, and Epi/ethics is a joke, unfortunately. Since I like neuro, I am spending most of my time studying that, but tonight I have to get caught up in MS. Rheumatic diseases is sort of interesting, but I just cant seem to get excited about it!

Tomorrow I am planning to go to the hospital to do an H&P through the neuro exam. I am really hating these. We do one about every two weeks, adding another part to it. It is fun to go and see patients, but it just seems like such a burden on them. Most are really sick, and we are poking and proding, and asking them all kinds of questions. The last two have taken me 2 hours each, then another 2 to write up! I am not looking forward to making my patient tomorrow get out of bed and walk for me - but I hope I will have someone who will be able to. One day, I went in to do the full history with a full Review of Systems, and the nurse gave me a man who was on Vicoden. After about an hour, he just couldnt answer any more questions. So I left, went to my car, pulled out of the parking garage all while thinking that I would just write up my history with what I had and note that the patient was unable to finish. But one of my classmates had to redo an entire interview the week before because she had had the same problem. So as I am turning out of the drive, I decide that I just have to go back and find a new patient. So another hour later, I finally have everything that I need. What a pain!!

Well, I had better go tackle MS, or I wont get anything done tonight.