Pictorial evidence of fun in New Haven

Me, my friend Meghan, and a drunk guy called Adrian

Me and Meghan without a drunk guy called Adrian

Me, Meghan and Sarah

I love a sunburnt country?

As a cultural right of passage, I have had my first skin biopsy. Being a good pasty white person I went in for a mole check. Mole checks are apparently not very exciting for dermatologists until I tell them I grew up in Australia (while that is not entirely true, I have spend a significant portion of my childhood sans ozone layer). Once they find out I come from a country where 2 out of every 3 people have some kind of skin cancer, their eyes light up like it's christmas and seeing as though it is christmas time, I was like an early present. However, she did seem a little disappointed that no one in my family has had melanoma - we have only had the boring kinds of skin cancer.

She gave me the all clear, but I was particularly concerned about a rather odd looking mole on my leg. It was a raised pinkish little guy with what looked like a scar on one side. She just told me it was a scar from an old injury. It wasn't till I explained to her the reason I was concerned was that I had never had a injury there and while I am certainly no expert in derm (derm stuff is really hard) it just isn't normal to spontaneously develop a scar. She responded with: hmmm. She decided/agreed to biopsy my scar which, ironically, will leave me with a scar. It will most likely come back as nothing, but I read women's magazines. I know all about the women who either had skin cancer themselves or have a sister or best-friend die because they didn't think it could happen to them and all they can do now is urge other women to get checked - right after you whiten your teeth, remove all your body hair, feel comfortable asking your doctor about all those embarassing questions about what's going on "down there", and lose 10 pounds in a month with their super-easy no-fail plan.

Not looking on the bright side

So it has been awhile, but I am officially done with classes for the semester. However, I do have a paper due tomorrow and 4 finals next week. This is the first year that the school has had a finals week, which would be all well and good, except they kind of forgot to have a reading week prior to the finals week. Administration would not allow finals to be moved earlier, despite student requests. Having all of our finals in 1 week is supposed to be making it easier on us and now that thats been decided it's going to stay that way, because nursing is not about flexibility.

I have gained some extra time though, because my clinical has been canceled for today. There is all this white stuff falling from the sky and connecticut just doesn't know what to do about it. They don't plow and they rarely salt - someone has this great idea to put dirt down, which, from what I have observed, just makes dirty ice. On top of the snow problem, a majority of people in connecticut have a serious case of the can't drives, so going anywhere while it's snowing is not good times.

grr...argh