September 1

Yesterday I spent four hours in the assessment and skills labs, where I did a respiratory exam on an real, live person (one of my labmates) and then practiced a few things on the mannequins. The mannequins live in the skills lab, which looks like a hospital ward, complete with hospital beds and curtains and alcohol-based handwash. Then there’s Sim Man, who is completely programmable and has changing heart, lung and GI sounds. He also talks, apparently, although he didn’t say anything yesterday (even when he was experiencing low oxygen levels), so we didn’t hear some voice going, “Help me, I can’t breathe! It hurts! I don’t feel good.”

The location of my apartment is fairly excellent. I’m enjoying it. I can walk to school, to a tasty Indian restaurant, a good pizza place, and a variety of other restaurants/stores. And some bars. Yesterday I hung out with my one friend, whose parents were coming in from Huntsville, Alabama (where she is from) for the weekend. Huntsvull. She said, “I can’t wait for you to meet my parents, they’ll shit Southern all over you … you won’t know what to do!” So we had dinner with them, and maybe they didn’t exactly “shit Southern” but it was pretty close. They were nice. And totally repulsed by the sushi that we ate (from a seafood restaurant that also served massive amounts of fried fish). I think they were just repulsed by the entire idea and appearance of the sushi – it didn’t have any raw fish in it. Some shrimp tempura, I think.

I guess I can imagine thinking sushi is gross … but it’s pretty hard.

I think I’ll go take a ride on my pretty yellow bike.