Ciao manhattan

It doesn't matter if it is noon, late afternoon, dinner time, or 1 in the morning. You will most likelye find one or two groups of pharmacy students in S1320 (the anatomy lab). Removing organs, dissecting out veins, ganglia, and identifying every notch or lobe in the abdomen and thorax as if we were actually anatomists. All in a day's work in preparation for our midterm coming up on monday. For some, it has developed into no less than an obsession. I think this attitude has been spearheaded by one of our most popular instructors, Dhillon, assumes this sort of drill sergant teaching style. He just bulldozes loads of information into our head, much more than necessary to pass our tests, so that we can have a more well rounded understanding of why an organ is located where it is. It was intellectually tiring sitting through his review session and lectures, but it holds true to that med school tradition of scholarship and testing your endurance. I'm glad he's making the extra effort to challenge us.

In stark contrast, pharmacogenetics and biopharmaceutics have been not quite as interesting as I expected. Su Guo guides us relatively slowly through a review of basic genetics and is just now skimming the surface of population genetics. The terms (recessive, dominant, allele, genotype, etc) that we must learn are dryly linked in lecture to obscure genetic diseases like sickle cell anemia or G6DP deficiency. Biopharmaceutics is so random because it feels more like an elective than a real core class. We have heard lectures on quite futuristic forms of drug delivery but are not quite applicable to our practice at the moment. It feels like the Pharmaceutical chemistry department is using this class to promote moving their technology into the clinics.

I also did quite a few other random activities this weekend.

I went downtown to union square to ask businesses to donate gift certificates to the APhA-ASP community service auction. The event is put on by the Associated Students of Pharmacy to raise money for our health fairs. In the past, people have been donating services like being designated driver for a night or dinner at someone's house. Apparently, we have been short on donations either due to students putting off asking the businesses or businesses refusing to donate to another charity. Pretty much all the large chains told me to contact their public relations departments since the instore managers do not have authority to do so. This was what a COMPUSA manager told me, but I found on their website that the sales managers are allowed if not encouraged by corporate to participate in local non-profit organizations. Lush cosmetics, a company I really like, did agree up front since they run their operations as if it were local.

When I let myself procrastinate lately, I find myself watching these visually stunning edited clips of Edie sedgwick. Even without the thick black mascara, she's got a way with the camera. I can't wait to see Factory Girl when it comes out in June; it's an almost unreal juxtaposition of the 60's most prevalent pop culture icons: Edie, Dylan, Warhol... I hear Sienna Miller is remarkable in it, but I am not sure why she played her so bubbly in the trailer because Edie seems like one of the most disturbed and despondent figures to be featured on film. And even though Christian Haydenson is awful, he's not bad to look at either. Below is her in Ciao, Manhattan, featuring her precociously deep voiceover in the original video montage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVRmt0J6JNg&mode=related&search=

www.factorygirlmovie.net/