I know it's the summer, y'all, but lemme give a preview of the kinds of things that I've been learning lately at work.  Try out this quiz...See if you can match the brand name drugs with their generic names (Whoo-hoo, what a fun game, eh?!?  HAHAHA!)  I bet y'all will surprise yourself about how much you actually know about drugs!

SYNTHROID                          Carvedilol

AMOXIL                                Levothyroxine Sodium

COUMADIN                           Cephalexin                     

COREG                                 Amoxicillin

MOBIC                                 Amitriptyline

KEFLEX                                 Warfarin

ELAVIL                                 Meloxicam

So, how'd y'all do?  These seven drugs are perhaps some of the most common drugs that we dispense on a daily basis at the pharmacy.  Every time I see this on a prescription (in chicken scratch manner, of course) I am now able to match up the brand names with their generics.  Of course, there are over hundreds and hundreds of other drugs that I have to really memorize.  Good thing about work though is that there is a computer to look up drugs when I am met with something completely unfamiliar.  Like the other day, a patient came in with a prescription with a generic drug name.  I thought that we had had it out of stock because I looked it up on the computer and it matched with a certain brand name.  I looked EVERYWHERE.  Finally, I just gave up to ask one of our Lead Techs only to find out that for some reason or another the drug was kept another brand name!  It was manufactured in TWO BRANDS!  How's that for confusing?!?

I was talking to one of our pharmacists who is a USC-SCCP alumni.  We joke with each other that I am her little sidekick since I am attending her alma mater.  I told her I just couldn't imagine knowing all of those drugs like the palm of my hand.  I mean, it's not even just that!  You have to know what each drug does, how it interacts with anything and everything, how it looks like, and on, and on, and on!  How will I ever know all of these things?!?  She assured me, however, that I shouldn't worry.  Time will come...and well, I'll be taught certain things in school that I will probably never use, too!  Remember those days in Calculus?  When will you ever use finding the tangent of this and finding the derivative of that unless you were going to be an engineer or math genius?!?

Well, here's to learning many new things!  Boy, is summer really coming and going so fast.  It's almost July, and before I know it, I'll be starting my first year as a Pharmacy student.  Oh, but before I get ahead of time and myself, I will definitely have to enjoy this summer first!

Catch y'all later on the flipside, Gamecocks!

Posted by Kriska at 08:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Just when I thought that I'm getting in a "just working rut," I found myself having one of the greatest weekends ever, and I just want to share with y'all one of the fun things I got to do because it sure was a gem of a find that as a Carolina student y'all can enjoy too!

In the good ol' Upstate South Carolina, in one of the most booming cities of the South, what I call as the Red Sox Juniors can be found.  An affiliate of the Boston Red Sox, the Greenville Drive is housed in the Fluor Daniel, West End Field.  Now, I'm not a big baseball fan as it is and I really didn't know much about the Drive, but I sure got into that ball game.  I mean, the Drive was up 5 runs and in just one inning at the top of the 6, the other team scored 4 runs.  Inning by inning, as we inched towards the end, you could feel the excitement grow more. 

So where exactly is the Greenville Drive from?  Well, they're from Greenville, South Carolina, which has perhaps one of the best downtowns I've seen.  With so many restaurants, stores, and boutiques lining the main street amongst the business offices, Downtown Greenville is quite the bustling city for such the slow-paced Southern living.  The city is also very proud of its very strong cultural mark with several museums offering so many different kinds of galleries and several theaters showcasing so many plays--even some shows from Broadway make their tour down through here!  Several years ago, I actually saw Miss Saigon at Greenville's Peace Center for the Performing Arts.

The Drive's season this year started in April, and they will be playing all the way into the first of September.  With Greenville only being about an hour and a half away from Columbia, a weekend trip to stroll through Downtown to shop and dine and to maybe even catch a Broadway show and a ball game is very much a great possibility.  It could be a great short road trip with your college friends to welcome the start of the school year in August or to celebrate the end of the year in April/May!  (And with gas prices being so high, the short drive won't put too much of a dent in your wallet!)  Oh, what a great idea!

Here are some pictures from the game.  Enjoy!

I think this was about the time when the Hickory Crawdads were catching up to the Drive!

I didn't much understand the technicalities, but my boyfriend was more than happy to explain them to me.  And when the game would come to a slow pace, he was willing to indulge me in posing for some pictures!

We sat right next to the home dugout.  I had to keep reminding myself that there was a net so that I wouldn't scream when the batters hit a foul ball!  I didn't want to be like that girl on the ESPN highlight!

They even had a fireworks show at the end of the ball game (which the Drive won!)  The fireworks was set to a "Movie Night" theme.  Theme songs from Mission Impossible, to Pirates of the Caribbean, to all such other classics played.  The very last song was 2001...I kept trying to look for Cocky!  I thought that he'd come out of his box...hahaha!

I hope y'all explore the city one day...Catch y'all later on the flipside, Gamecocks!

Posted by Kriska at 09:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

GAAAAAAME----COCKS!  Are y'all still there?  Coz I sure am.  Although I do apologize for once again going AWOL on you guys.  It just occured to me that by the blink of an eye, a third of my summer has gone by already and I have had yet to catch y'all up on the things that I have been up to lately.  I must be honest with y'all though that it hasn't really been the most exciting summer of my life.  Besides the family get-togethers, watching Sex & the City the Movie with my sisters, and taking a weekend trip back to USC to visit my boyfriend and roommate who are taking summer classes, this summer has been work, worrrk, and more WORRRK!  But before y'all get started feeling sorry for me, I beg of you guys not to!  Working has actually been quite an experience for me this summer, even if I am at the same job that I had last summer.

Now that I am an official Pharmacy Intern (as I have been accepted to the South Carolina College of Pharmacy), this whole working at CVS has taken on a new meaning for me.  Last year, I worked at the pharmacy for the summer because I was trying to make sure that I was heading to the right major and making the right career path.  I knew of all the great opportunities with the major, but I just had to make sure first that I really wanted it before I got myself completely locked into the program.  Last summer, I learned a lot about retail pharmacy, and I realized that it was definitely the field that I wanted to be in.  Now that I am sure of myself and that I'm finally accepted, I am taking this work experience just a tad bit more seriously.  Its crazy how much in this past month and a half I have actually memorized generics to the brand names of medicines.  I can actually also fix insurance rejects now!  There's just something about internships that can be so great.  (Again, please don't feel sorry for me.  I know I'm probably sounding like a real dork right now.  Hahaha!)

There are still lots of family get-togethers, rendezvous with old high school friends, and definitely a beach trip in store for me for the rest of the summer...so guys, don't y'all worry because I'll be keeping busy at work but also getting lots of down time this summer.  I hope y'all will have just as much fun as also a productive summer as I am having.  I'll try to post more often about what's going on here in my hometown, as well as some of the changes going on in good ol' Carolina.  My on-line subscription to the Daily Gamecock has kept me updated with the happenings in Cola.  Latest news: Our track team goes gold at the NCAA Championships.  To see the article, click here!

Let me know what y'all are up to this summer, and catch y'all alter on the flipside, Gamecocks!

Posted by Kriska at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)