Bluedocs, the aforementioned gateway to all that is educational, is sluggish to not working. I have taken that as a sign that I am not supposed to be studying this week.
Having so much extra time this week means I was able to volunteer to coach my youngest son's soccer team tomorrow. Their coach is in Vegas all week at the same IT convention as my husband. I'm so glad that everyone else is spending my spring break in Vegas while I dog sit and cover their coaching duties ;) But really, I'm excited about it. If I had a more consistent schedule I would have volunteered to be an assistant coach--maybe in the fall! I do love soccer. I picked up a pair of cleats this past weekend and have had a lot of fun playing with the kids! I'm not as rusty as I thought I would be. I can't juggle the ball at all, but to be honest it was never my strong point.
I'm glad I don't work second shift anymore. I loved my actual job and being on that shift gave me a lot of freedom to gross specimens I wouldn't have otherwise gotten, but it was hard missing out on the kid's lives. One of the great things about this field is that after finishing the program I will have significantly more employment options/control.
I also love than whenever I bring up job hunting my friends all pipe up with how we should come live near them if we can't stay in NC. <3 You guys are fantastic.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Monday, March 26, 2012
Relaxed state of being
The kids and I were extremely idle this weekend. We saw a movie, hit up Chuck E. Cheese, practiced soccer, and played with the dog.
They went to school today and I treated myself to a few things and finished off a Game of Thrones (thanks Jimmy!). Soccer season starts tomorrow so tonight we're just going to work on basics more. I'm taking the day off tomorrow too. There is a fine line between utter relaxation and boredom, four days is about my limit for not having any thing major to do. After that it will be autopsy report, updating the unofficial student guide for the incoming class, and spring cleaning.
Allergy season is upon us (the fifth season in the southeast! Summer, fall, winter, the yellow death, and spring) so I'm striking a balance between airing out the apartment and controlling the amount of exposure to the deluge of pinophytal reproductive material.
After we get back from spring break we have another three months of Body and Disease! It is going by quickly, which is nice considering how long this unit is. Of course that is how it feels on a week where we have a break, so in another two weeks when I'm in the middle of test studying again I might feel differently. :-D
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| Foot prints in the pollen |
Allergy season is upon us (the fifth season in the southeast! Summer, fall, winter, the yellow death, and spring) so I'm striking a balance between airing out the apartment and controlling the amount of exposure to the deluge of pinophytal reproductive material.
After we get back from spring break we have another three months of Body and Disease! It is going by quickly, which is nice considering how long this unit is. Of course that is how it feels on a week where we have a break, so in another two weeks when I'm in the middle of test studying again I might feel differently. :-D
Thursday, March 22, 2012
One test stands between me and a week of (relative) relaxation
I reconnected with a friend I hadn't spoken to in ages and he said that he'd recently thought about a project he critiqued for me and asked me how it was going. And it isn't going. It is on pause. I miss having a creative outlet sometimes but the trade off has been worth it. I knew going into school that it was going to take priority over hobbies, but that the is nature of higher education not just this field of study.
Hopefully my children are paying attention and they notice how much work higher education can be some days so they can figure out that it is easier to do it when you go straight through... high school -> college -> professional school or whatever they end up doing. I can't even complain about my situation because this is what I am doing full time. I have friends who are working 40 hours a week, dealing with a lot more going on in their lives, and going to school. It would get psychologically exhausting but they keep doing it, they keep working every semester for years.
At least for us we have a finite time frame. We have the three major units of the didactic year (Molecules and Cells, Normal Body, and Body and Disease) which breaks the year up into more manageable chunks, as well as our January Intersession that gives us a taste of rotation. I'm glad that our program starts us out as early as it does with surg path and continues it through the rest of the first year. It would be strange to have to wait through the entire didactic year to get to start grossing. I have to wonder how other programs handle it, I never thought to ask any of the PAs I worked with before. Any of my readers want to chime in? You can stay anonymous if you want ;-)
I had surg path yesterday afternoon, it always puts me in a good mood! Our group works well together and we managed to finish all of our specimens early, which is helpful in a week where we have two tests. I feel bad for the medical students this week! We only have toxicology (2 lectures) and environmental pathology (3 lectures) while they have those lectures plus 300 antibiotics to memorize and the chemotherapy lectures. Since we didn't have to worry about the antibiotics, etc we've been able to study ahead all week. At least everyone has all of today to study (there was only one class scheduled this morning but it is was a non-mandatory Q&A session) as well as tomorrow morning (the test starts at 11).
I did have a frustrating moment this morning. I've been focusing on my Robbins this week and finally got around to streaming the lectures last night (they were funny! But I am biased and always think the pathology lecturers are the best... although the chemo guy was pretty good too). I normally take my IRA right after I watch my lectures since everything is still fresh in my mind but wanted to do it this morning to kick start my early morning studying. So I took the kids to school, came home, looked over the annotated powerpoints and went to take my IRA about a half hour before it closed at 9 and found out my internet was down :( I've never missed an IRA before, especially not a pathology one! Sad. I thought about driving to campus and taking it in my car but I wasn't sure if I could get wifi in the parking garage and the drive to campus time + the get to somewhere I know I would have wifi time would have pushed me just over the time the IRA was cut off.
Hopefully my children are paying attention and they notice how much work higher education can be some days so they can figure out that it is easier to do it when you go straight through... high school -> college -> professional school or whatever they end up doing. I can't even complain about my situation because this is what I am doing full time. I have friends who are working 40 hours a week, dealing with a lot more going on in their lives, and going to school. It would get psychologically exhausting but they keep doing it, they keep working every semester for years.
At least for us we have a finite time frame. We have the three major units of the didactic year (Molecules and Cells, Normal Body, and Body and Disease) which breaks the year up into more manageable chunks, as well as our January Intersession that gives us a taste of rotation. I'm glad that our program starts us out as early as it does with surg path and continues it through the rest of the first year. It would be strange to have to wait through the entire didactic year to get to start grossing. I have to wonder how other programs handle it, I never thought to ask any of the PAs I worked with before. Any of my readers want to chime in? You can stay anonymous if you want ;-)
I had surg path yesterday afternoon, it always puts me in a good mood! Our group works well together and we managed to finish all of our specimens early, which is helpful in a week where we have two tests. I feel bad for the medical students this week! We only have toxicology (2 lectures) and environmental pathology (3 lectures) while they have those lectures plus 300 antibiotics to memorize and the chemotherapy lectures. Since we didn't have to worry about the antibiotics, etc we've been able to study ahead all week. At least everyone has all of today to study (there was only one class scheduled this morning but it is was a non-mandatory Q&A session) as well as tomorrow morning (the test starts at 11).
I did have a frustrating moment this morning. I've been focusing on my Robbins this week and finally got around to streaming the lectures last night (they were funny! But I am biased and always think the pathology lecturers are the best... although the chemo guy was pretty good too). I normally take my IRA right after I watch my lectures since everything is still fresh in my mind but wanted to do it this morning to kick start my early morning studying. So I took the kids to school, came home, looked over the annotated powerpoints and went to take my IRA about a half hour before it closed at 9 and found out my internet was down :( I've never missed an IRA before, especially not a pathology one! Sad. I thought about driving to campus and taking it in my car but I wasn't sure if I could get wifi in the parking garage and the drive to campus time + the get to somewhere I know I would have wifi time would have pushed me just over the time the IRA was cut off.
Monday, March 19, 2012
New class and social news
So we have an official class list for the class of 2014 and have made our introductions! It is exciting and weird to think that it has only been a year since my class was in their position. We sent out a introductory email and got replies from everyone. We have a couple folks with histotech backgrounds, some with gross and autopsy experience, one forensic photographer, and at least one person that is graduating this summer that also works as a lab tech. It should be an interesting mix!
We had the third Body and Disease test today. The tests start at noon instead of the 9 am starts we had in Molecules and Cells and Normal Body. It gives us the morning to go over more notes before the test, which is helpful. After the test today a couple of us went out for a late lunch and had a really good time. It was a great way to unwind!
Speaking of unwinding, one of our classmates has appointed herself our social director and is coordinating the things we'd like to do during our non-test weekends. We're going to a Tiger Sanctuary! And possibly an airshow on the coast. It is pretty awesome.
We had the third Body and Disease test today. The tests start at noon instead of the 9 am starts we had in Molecules and Cells and Normal Body. It gives us the morning to go over more notes before the test, which is helpful. After the test today a couple of us went out for a late lunch and had a really good time. It was a great way to unwind!
Speaking of unwinding, one of our classmates has appointed herself our social director and is coordinating the things we'd like to do during our non-test weekends. We're going to a Tiger Sanctuary! And possibly an airshow on the coast. It is pretty awesome.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Lab Instructor Awesomeness
Normally in lab we have organs to examine and case studies* to go through. We didn't have any organs today so we managed to power through the case studies for the next two weeks. Since we're going to have all this extra lab time our lab instructor asked us if there were any particular disease processes or specimen types that we wanted to see that we hadn't already seen. There were a variety of different requests made so it'll be neat to see what kind of stuff he will be bringing to share.
Tuesday we got to see a heart that had a Starr-Edwards mitral valve replacement, which is the kind of thing that we still might see on autopsy but that will become progressively less common as replacements are more and more from animals or of cadaveric origins. Apparently it also sounds interesting if you listen to the heart sounds of someone with that style of replacement valve.
I had an open mouth insert foot kind of moment today. It was unexpected... have you ever have one of those instances where you realize that words are coming out of your mouth but at no point did they pass through the discretionary filters of your brain? That was sort of what happened to me... I was speaking without having made any conscious thought to speak. Completely mortifying. Surprisingly well received though.
*The format is usually a few lines with the symptoms they presented with and relevant history. Then we get a gross and microscopic description and have three to five multiple choice questions about their condition. So it might be something like an 83 year old woman, who immigrated from Malaysia five years ago, presents with low grade fever, cough and enlarged lymph nodes. An x-ray reveals multiple 1-5mm nodules disseminated through the liver, lungs, and spleen. What do you think is the primary cause of the disease? What type of co-infection would you most likely expect?
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| From wikipedia: An older mitral valve replacement option |
I had an open mouth insert foot kind of moment today. It was unexpected... have you ever have one of those instances where you realize that words are coming out of your mouth but at no point did they pass through the discretionary filters of your brain? That was sort of what happened to me... I was speaking without having made any conscious thought to speak. Completely mortifying. Surprisingly well received though.
*The format is usually a few lines with the symptoms they presented with and relevant history. Then we get a gross and microscopic description and have three to five multiple choice questions about their condition. So it might be something like an 83 year old woman, who immigrated from Malaysia five years ago, presents with low grade fever, cough and enlarged lymph nodes. An x-ray reveals multiple 1-5mm nodules disseminated through the liver, lungs, and spleen. What do you think is the primary cause of the disease? What type of co-infection would you most likely expect?
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