I'm in love with sleep. I can sleep for 9 hours and still have trouble getting up, it's probably in some way unhealthy. Some people would probably call it an euphemism for being lazy. :)

kind of random but I got a bloody nose today! I wasn't picking my nose or anything, forreal, I was standing there and it felt like my nose was getting runny then all of a sudden I got one! Creeepy.

After my first official day of work in the pharmacy, I felt like I knew nothing and was really dreading my second day. I also made some mistakes but everyone was really nice about correcting me and teaching me what I did wrong. For example, I forgot to have customers sign the credit card receipts. I got confused because for debit purchases and credit purchases under $25, they don't need to sign. Since no one officially "taught me" how to use the register, the one transaction I watched the tech do was a credit under $25 so there was no signature. Whoops...! Also, I pulled ALL of the scripts from the courtesy refill que and you're only supposed to do ones coming up within the next 3 days. I accidentally processed ALL of the prescriptions up to July 6th! Which means those prescriptions will be sitting there collecting dust until july 6th and will eventually have to be returned back to stock even though it's not even really time for them to be filled yet.

Ok to non-pharmacy folk, that probably didn't make much sense. BUT today was my SECOND day and it was already much better! So maybe I won't be dreading work as much as I thought!

There was this crazy customer today who started demanding his medications "NOW" even though it had to be transferred from a pharmacy in Santa Monica and re-processed. -_- He claims the pharmacist there told him we'd have it for him "right away." It got intense. The pharmacist starting yelling back and he was saying something about how she doesn't speak English and started mocking her grammar. I kind of wanted to say something to help explain why his prescription wouldn't be ready immediately but I didn't know if I should get involved since I still don't know much about anything.

I hope I don't one day become a pharmacist yelling back at some customer from behind the counter, no matter how unreasonable he is.

Today, I had to go to this meeting for NCCCP. I'm a co-chair for this organization next year and to be honest, I'm not even sure I know what the abbreviation means... there are so many these days, I get them all mixed up. I think it's Northern California Colleges for Clinical Pharmacy? I'm too lazy to google this right now.

Sooo.... I was kind of bummed about this meeting because on the day before I have to leave for San Francisco, instead of watching the Laker's game or hanging out with my friends... I had to muni, hitch a ride and sit in a car for 2 hours in traffic to attend a meeting to discuss NCCCP next year.

Andddd it totally wore me out! I think not riding in cars that much made me more prone to getting car sick because I was not a happy passenger but in the car, I still had to make small talk with the pharmacist who was driving me. Ahhh.

But today made me think a lot about the balance between responsibility and ambition. In our meeting, the co-chairs and I discussed a lot of things for next year and I started to get really overwhelmed. Applying for grants to get funding for events, recruiting members, going to an ACCP (national chapter) conference in the fall to present a poster, uhhh planning events with other pharmacy schools in Nor-Cal, starting up a Stroke Volunteer Project at UCSF, getting a display case space to get our name out, writing articles for the newsletter thats going to come out this month... my head was seriously spinning and I wondered what I had gotten myself into!

Then after taking it all in, I felt more at ease about it and kind of felt like hey... i could do this! But I still had a headache.

Really, even in grad school, everyone is striving to excel and to do amazing things. There is so much ambition floating around in our class all the time and sometimes, it's a good thing because it spurs us on to do bigger things and break boundaries, set records. But at the same time, most of us students are just burnt out all the time from our load of responsibilities.

It made me think about my motivation behind all of this. Like yeah, I want to help patients, yeah I want to get the word out about stroke, clinical pharmacy and advance the field, but in the long run, what is this all for? Do I do these things because I truly enjoy them? Or am I just doing these things because I committed to it and have to be responsible and execute? Am I doing this to serve the Lord or is it for myself?

Aw, SOP Class of 2012.

Starting this Friday, we will officially be P2's!!!!!

One thing I've noticed in pharmacy school is that I especially like all of our pharmacy lectures that let me "assess" myself and "counsel" myself! We had a lecture about acne the other day annddddd here are some interesting things I learned.

Interesting fact #1: There are two types of acne, non-inflammatory and inflammatory. Non-inflammatory would include "closed comedos" and "open comedos", aka whiteheads and blackheads. The black in the blackhead isn't dirt! It's actually melanin and it looks "black" because it gets oxidized when your follicle in your skin gets so plugged up the plug pokes out of your skin. Inflammatory would include pimples, papules and pustules. Pimpes are the small red bumps, papules are even bigger inflamed bumps and pustules are just papules filled with pus.

Interesting fact #2: There is no proven relationship between what you eat and getting acne! (I can keep having my chocolate, I suppose!) Although... we are still taught to tell patients to avoid any trigger foods that they feel like make their acne worse.

Interesting fact #3: The salicylic acid in your facewash really isn't making that big of a difference! After watching all those commercials on TV, I used to beg my mom to let me buy those facewashes they advertised, usually containing salicylic acid as the active ingredient. We learned that when you use these in a cleanser, your skin doesn't absorb much of it and most of it is actually rinsed off. Even though salicyclic acid can be a helpful treatment for acne, when you wash your face and rinse it off, there is little active ingredient left on your skin to help with your acne! Solution: use an astringent cleanser, gel or lotion instead that will stay on your skin. Another good active ingredient to look for is benzoyl peroxide, concentrations 2.5%-10%. More importantly than the product you pick, just wash your face (period). Cleaning your skin is of utmost importance :) Oh and pat dry, don't rub.

Okay, maybe those facts weren't super interesting but in a nerdy way, I thought they were!

Back to studying!

It's kind of crazy that first year is already coming to an end! I literally feel like I just got settled in. I finally reached pro status on how to muni surf with style in my heels, where to find boba and I can now time exactly long it takes for me to pack up my stuff, run outside and not miss the muni as it rounds the corner on 9th and Judah.

I will miss my lovely friends over the summer although I know in the fall, we will all be back again in the HSW lobby. Considering how fast this year passed by, I wouldn't be surprised if this summer passes by even faster.

I'm looking forward to a lot of things this summer, mostly the simple so-cal things I've missed so much.

Hanging out with old friends and being with my fam.
Swimming and sitting out in the sunshine with my books and magazines.
Driving, even though it's going to be really hot.
Working as an official pharmacy intern at Rite Aid!
Eating all you can eat korean bbq.
Vegas in July.
Wearing shorts, sleeveless shirts and sunglasses.
And hopefully, plenty of rest and chillin.

I think after this year in SF, I'd still consider myself an LA girl... I think. Ok, maybe 50/50.