Nothing Like The First Day

Evan's fist day of 2nd grade....

Here is to a fresh new school year. To learning more, and making new friends. Harder math and more challenging reading. Improved handwriting.

But for us, as parents, it is always about so much more...

I don't know about others, but for me, it is always about being one year closer to the day he will leave the nest. One less year to have him with us. It is always the year I will be more involved, more patient about teaching him new things. Watching him grow a little more. One sad day, I will be able to sit back and see that my work is finished. But now, in the middle of the greatest responsibility the world has to offer, I am amazed and realize that these are the days for which to live.

Seriously?

Okay so seriously, it is that time of year. The only other time where it is more expensive to be a parent is at Christmas time. My little list started as just a few uniforms. We inventoried the closet to see what uniforms from last year could be reused and came up with a healthy stack. Next was the list of supplies. Evan's school does something differently: each year, when supplies are donated, they divide them up among the students. Say, for example, that each second grader needs 4 boxes of crayons for the year. If enough crayons are donated so that each child can have 2 boxes, the school does not make us buy the 4, but rather he 2 that are lacking. In the end, the supplies that are donated end up saving each parent some money. So now supplies are added to the list.

But then I start to think about things. He'll need new underwear, and socks. And undershirts. Oh, and shoes. We need a pair of gym shoes and a pair of oxfords. And we can't forget that he needs a couple of new belts. And a light jacket. And of course we cannot forget the backpack. Heaven forbid it not be the preppy one with his name embroidered in the center... And of course somewhere before next Wednesday, we will have to get a haircut. Before I know it, a couple hundred bucks for a few uniforms to add to what is left from last year...well, let's just say that the sum morphs into something else entirely. In the meantime, I mention to him that the plan for later in the day is for us to go school shopping. This is the look I get from him. (See above) Why is he so sad? You would think he was the one footing the bill.

Whatever

Hate My Life @ Yahoo! Video

Ummmm. Do you notice a trend? I post videos when I am too busy to write or when I have nothing to say.

Yesterday, at the gas station, as I was walking in to pay for my gas, some guy asked me if I would give him money for cigarettes. Not food. Not gas. Cigarettes! Beggars have gotten ballsy!

In the meantime, finals week is rapidly approaching, and because of the $1K electric bill, I have been working weeknights in addition to my weekend shifts. I don't think the black circles will disappear from under my eyes any time soon. I have literally been going about 48 hours between chances for even a little sleep. Go to school all day, then head straight into work, then get finished with work and go straight to school. I'm exhausted. And everyone says "Just wait until med school!" Seriously? By then, I will not be working 70-80 hours per week in addition to a full-time class schedule. I do not plan to do this to myself then. So med school? Not scared.

Dealing with the Aftermath

While my professors were really nice about the whole wisdom teeth ordeal, I missed MIDTERM WEEK! I have so much crap to do that I have no time to even breathe. Grrrrr.

School Days, Schoooooool Days.....

oh screw it! I don't know the rest of the words!

I am procrastinating. I have to do the following:

Chem Lab Report
Study for Bio Exam
Study for Chem Exam
Study for History Exam
Study for Bio Lab Practical
Prepare for this week's Chem Lab (We have an exam over required reading before each lab.)
Prepare for Bio Lab (Same as above)

I have not slept since 2 PM on Sunday. Somewhere in this mess, I must close my eyes. I need to motivate myself.

This is my reminder of why I am insistent on putting myself through this torture:

What a Day!

Today was B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L outside. I actually sat outside with my pile of textbooks, wearing a tee and some hot pink flip-flops and got a large volume of reading done for class. Time came for Evan to be picked up from school, so John went to get him, and he immediately changed into shorts a tee himself upon his arrival home. I'm sure the two of us made quite the picture: mother and son on the porch together in the sunshine, both working on homework. Chemistry for me and math for him.
I still have huge volumes to get accomplished before next week, which is really going to be a pain considering tomorrow marks the beginning of my work week. Plus I have bio and chem lectures tomorrow afternoon. I swear this quarter is going to kill me.

On a completely separate, unrelated note, I watched the ER farewell episode tonight and cried. I was excited to see that they brought back the original music for the opening credits. I loved that. They switched it at some point and it was never the same after. Of course John teased me for crying, but I started watching that show from the very first episode. In a cheesy way, it confirmed to the young me that yes, I did truly want to be a doctor. It seems almost surreal that all of these later, I am working on becoming one and the show ends. Hmmm.

Okay, back to work. Or to sleep. It started raining tonight and the sound of it hitting the roof is just what I need to doze off in the middle of a chem problem.

The Disclaimer

I went on Blackboard, as in the school software that serves as a communication network, a way to post assignments and grades, etc., for school to double check that all of my grades were submitted and there were no errors. There is this little tab that lists the courses in which you are currently enrolled. My list had grown substantially. There were 4 each of chem and bio, etc. It took me a second to realize that next quarter's classes are on there already, along with last quarter's. Cool. I can get a head start.

I start with the syllabus to history, and pull it up so I can print it out. I had a brief moment of panic when I saw that there are going to be graduate students in it, as there are two different sets of requirements for the course for grad students and undergrad students. I had to stop and remind myself that I am a senior and these people are just a year or two further in their education than I am. That turned to "Cool! I am SENIOR!".

Moving on to psych and chem. No biggie for either, though I am scared of chem just a bit this quarter. After all, last quarter almost broke me. And that was at a little campus in a small class. This time I am at the main campus, there are going to be about 300 in my class. Oh well, I digress...

The only given is biology. I save this class for last because it is going to calm me down after seeing the others. I am excited to see that the professor has everything for the entire quarter posted already. PowerPoint presentations, outlines, and even exam reviews. Sweet! I can get started right away on bio, and do really well this quarter, as it is my major, after all. I start with the syllabus, and pull it up to print it. I notice it is taking a long time to print, so I look. Why is his syllabus 20 pages?????! WTF? So I start to read it. There is a damned disclaimer on it, in bold type. In so many words, it says that the course is notorious for a high percentage of withdrawals, D's and F's. That the course is specifically designed for Biology majors and thus is designed for a student who can manage a large amount of information in a short period of time. That if the reader is not a Biology major, they will most likely not be able to be successful in the course, and there are other more basic biology courses that would be more appropriate for them. Oh. Shit.
I am scared. And I am already studying for it. I managed to get all of the material for the first exam printed off. There were 200 pages. Seriously.

Done.

Finals are, that is. I got A's on everything except chemistry, which I don't know about yet, as he still hasn't posted the grades. He has this complicated grading policy, where you choose up to so many points of homework and quizzes. These count as your grade for those, so you get to choose the highest ones to count. IF you perform better on the final, he also has this grade replacement policy. This means that instead of my final being worth 300 points, it becomes worth 500, and my other two exams are no longer worth 200, but will then be worth 100 each.

I am hoping I did well on the final, because then my chemistry grade will be an A as well, and I am off to the next level in about a week and a half. I am such a geek that I am ready to buy my books and throw myself into studying. Of course this is more about necessity than it is about my love of the subjects. I enrolled in 18 credit hours this next semester. That plus work is not a pretty picture. Organization and studying in advance is required to keep it all from falling in on me.

Flu Happens

Forget Chemistry and Biology, work and family and everything else that is going on.
I. Am. Sick.
I have no idea how I am going to manage to be successful at work tomorrow night (or at any other task I undertake in the next couple of days).

Right now, I just know that I cannot call in sick. One coworker is on FMLA because his wife just had a baby. Another took a leave of absence, and I am not sure why, but I am sure I will find out when I report for my shift tomorrow night.

It all started with this benign tickle in my throat. Which made me cough just a little bit, but hey, no big deal, right? I popped Halls Defense tabs like they were going out of style, telling everyone that I cannot get sick. Between school and work, the world will stop turning if I am ill. But then it happened. I was cuddling with John on the living room floor, all snuggled in a blanket, watching a movie, when I started to cough really hard. I coughed so hard I urrrrrppped. Gross. And John, God how I love him, helped me clean myself up and helped me get tucked in on the sofa for the night. I remember waking up this morning, freezing despite the big comforter wrapped around me. The rest of today has passed in a blur of periods of awake and sleep. I would be freezing, and he would wrap me in such a weight of blankets that I should not have been able to breathe. I would wake a few hours later, drenched in sweat, and toss off the blankets. All of this only to repeat the ritual an hour later. The monotony was broken up by him bringing me a dose of Robitussin every 4 hours.

The period of time I would have spent in chemistry recitation came and went. Lecture came and went. In a fit of wakefulness, I ended up emailing my professor this afternoon to let him know where I was today. We have these little cards, worth only two points each, that we turn in during recitation each week. No big deal, but they add up to be a full quiz grade at the end of the quarter. In his response, he told me we would talk when I return on Tuesday. I am sincerely hoping he will cut me some slack on this one.

Other than all of this, my body is racked with aches and chills, and I truly think I have the flu. My mind flashes back to a time earlier in the week when I saw a headline that the flu is showing some rather resistant strains this year. "That's interesting", I thought, as I went on about my day. Now I am left to ponder that in conjunction with the fact that I got a flu vaccine earlier in the season from work. In fact. they pretty much made me, in that if I did not, I had to fill out this big waiver for the hospital, which in turn is reported to employee health, etc. In other words, just take the damned shot already, and thus I did.

Oh, the irony!

So now I am sitting here, typing this in a haze. I know I should use the time to study, being that I slept all day. I am having a hard time being productive, and am starting to feel hot again, wondering if I am about to break another fever. Blah!

Satan's Horns Have Icicles on Them

I am a good student. The day I allow myself to get less than an A is the day Hell freezes over.

Welcome to Hell. Hope you brought your mittens. Blame Chemistry.
I have already been traumatized by the homework software. Everything we submit is online, through this website. It is the most horrible thing. I can have the completely correct answer at my fingertips, and enter it into the little box it provides for your answers. Then there is this little "submit" button that you click and it tells you whether your answer is correct or incorrect. Pretty standard for online homework. Except clicking the little button is kind of the equivalent of pulling the lever on a slot machine. The other day, I entered this big elaborate chemical equation, which was the correct answer by the way. Submit. Answer Incorrect. Then this little purple box pops up and tells you what you did wrong. I entered spaces between the compounds and the plus and yield signs to keep them separate. On another question, the compounds it was asking me about would not react. I entered "No Reaction" in the box. Answer Incorrect. they were looking for noReaction, exactly as it is typed in this sentence.

Needless to say, my homework grades have never been lower. And no amount of preparation can fix it, because it is not about understanding the material. It is about figuring out the little quirks with this software so it counts the answer correct.

(Side note: I love my husband, who just delivered breakfast to me in my office without me even having to ask.)

So I am having trouble with the assignments. So is everyone else in the course, but I don't sweat it. The prof is going to take the best 10 scores at the end of the quarter, and disregard the others. I can do okay enough, I suppose. What is important is that I have absolutely no issues comprehending what is going on material-wise. My brain is right there with him as he lectures. No Sweat. This will allreflect in the exams, whiuch make up the majority of my grade anyway.

So we report for an exam last week. I studied just like I do/ have done for every other bit of college work I have completed. I feel confident. I am not overly anxious. I've got it under control. I put my things away, except for my cute pink calculator, a pencil for the Scantron and a pen for the written short answer section. He hands out the test and I immediately get to work on it.
The beginning questions were kind of difficult. Some words were familiar. But it was like this exam was prepared for a bunch of PhD's. Not for an undergraduate, though upperclassman, molecular bio major. Are you fricken serious? But I hold it together and wade my way through the questions and try to answer them as best I can. I am fully immersed until He starts parading around the room, announcing that we have 30 minutes left.WTF????

Let me just explain something: I take tests in record time. I always have. Usually, I am very well prepared and know the answers without more than a simple recollection. I have been told by classmates that I am at fault for their poor exam performance because I get up and hand my exams in so quickly that it makes them anxious, as in "Andrea is done and she gets good grades so why is it taking me so long-i must be failing." And the lowest exam grade I have ever received was a 95%. Out of all of my college work. I don't get test anxiety. I don't have to study insanely. I just do my thing. Even for my credentialing RT exams. It was supposed to take 8 hours for both exams and I got them both completed in less than an hour and a half. You know I passed those because I am a practicing RT.

So for me to take this long for an exam is unnerving. And this shit is hard. Why is this shit so hard? I am thinking this as I try to answer the questions. I am actually starting to tear up as I see my 4.0 swirling in the toilet bowl in my imagination. This is not good. This is disastrous. Wtf is the carbon-12 atom used to define? It's atomic weight is exact by definition but why? I should know this crap. I cannot be logical when I am about to fail an exam. After I complete the last question, I flee as quick as I can. Marlboro is the only thing to make me feel better after that. I really want some Grey Goose to go along with it, but alas I have a lecture to get through.

Over the week I keep my cool by hoping that this is typical Andrea: That I did better than I thought, that I am being over-critical of myself. But the problem is that I have this philosophy: there are no bad grades that are surprises. Either you know the answers on an exam or you don't. If you don't, then you can expect a bad grade. If you do, then you can expect an A. Simple, really.I did badly. Everyone had horrible scores, so it wasn't just me. In fact, I had the highest grade in the class. I actually got a 55%, while evryone else actually got thess that 50%. Are you fucking serious?????? The only non-A I have ever received in my entire college career, and it isn't even a B. It is such a non-A that it is an F by normal standards (this class is hard and thus has a slightly different grading scale so in the world of UC Chem, it is a D). This isn't a non-A. This is the Anti-A.

I have been so distraught by this grade that I almost asked a resident at work for a script for some Xanies. Seriously. This is enough for me to abandon all hope of ever becoming a physician. I want to scream at the rooftops that I am Andrea-Fucking-Ferguson! That I do not get anything other than A's. Yes, this sounds cocky and arrogant, but facts are facts. I do not even get B's. 4.0. Perfect. That's me. Until now.

I would say it make me feel better to know that evryone else in my class had issues as well. These are some really bright people. This class is designed expressly for science majors. Everyone is pre-med, pre-pharm or something similar. I am not the only one who already has a degree. As a matter af fact, there is a group of about 6 of us who have already completed at least one degree. We are not stupid people. And we all failed. This tells me there was something wrong with the test, not us. But then again, I have never been the type to judge my success or failure by comparison to the performance of others. I know what I can do, and so I have high expectations for myself.

Chemistry is going to break me.

Nothing Changes But the Seasons

Haha!

My first round of exams has been completed for the quarter.
Biology: Big-Time A, even though most in the class failed it. I am officially the curve-breaker once again.
Chemistry: Hmmmf! I failed the damned thing. I am Andrea, dammit! Yet I failed a chem exam. I shouldn't be too hard on myself. Everyone else did as well. Just when I was about to drop the course, I was reassured when I was told that my prof is notorious for "breaking you" in the beginning. The exam was terrible, really. I literally started to tear up a bit in the last part of it. And when I saw my grade? I needed some Ativan. Seriously. The good news is, since everyone did terribly, he has given us the exam back and we are to prepare a "Self-Assessment" to be submitted in the form of short essays for each missed question, to include what the hell we were thinking that caused us to give the wrong answer, and what the correct answer is with the logic that explains why it is the corrct answer. Lots of work. My rough draft of mine is already completed. I just have to neaten it up a bit and submit it, even though it isn't due until the 17th. I guess I just got excited about the idea of earning back my points. It has been my priority over the past couple of days.
Calculus: I am dropping this course tomorrow morning. It is just too difficult for me to stay awake after my shifts to go to this little 50 minute class. I plan to retake it with the same professor next quarter, if I can.

I am still doing th standard 3 twelve-hour shifts on the weekends. Blah. At least tonight is my Friday.

The Word of the Day: Juggling

Busy, busy, busy me.

John and I have this little thing going. There will be a show coming on the tv at night that I want to see. I will be posted up in my office, studying, and he will let me know when it is coming on. He then helps me transfer my pile of books and notebooks into the living room, where I will lay on the floor while he rubs my back and I study while absorbing the show through osmosis. Ivariably, after about an hour, I will tell him that I need a little nap, and will instruct him to wake me after about one hour of sleep. No matter what I say or how much I gruble or what name I call you, WAKE ME UP! I have x, y, and z to get accomplished because this is my only night to do them. DO NOT let me sleep all night. The problem is that once I am asleep, being as sleep-deprived and busy as I am, he cannot get me to wake up. It is like I go into a coma. After several nights of this same thing, he has finally wisened up a bit, and when I say "let me go to sleep for an hour", he responds with "Hell NO!".

The moral of the story is that I have this laundry list of tasks that must be completed and since I snoozed all of those nights, I have to get them done NOW.
But...

Today is my Monday. I work 12's the next three nights. Monday night I have biology and its lab. I literally have to make use of every free hour I have to get this crap done.

As soon as I log off, I plan to study until 2:30-ish. Then I plan to go to sleep for a couple of hours so I can function at work all night. If I wake up by 1:00 Saturday and Sunday, I can get a few more hours in each of those days. Monday will start with the completion of my night at work, followed by calculus and a meeting with my Pre-med advisor. If I hustle, I can get a few more hours in there before I have to head to Biology. If I stay up till 1:ooAM Monday night (normally I would say 2 or 3, but since I would have worked the night before and not slept, I am being nice to myself), I can get more done then. Thank God that my Chem lab is cancelled Tuesday morning. I don't have class until 2 PM as a result, and if I take all of my stuff to campus with a packed lunch, leaving the house at the normal time, I can get most everything else done with no distractions. Or interruptions. Or temptations.

This is what I mean by "juggling".

So I am left with this question for myself: Do I really want to be a doctor? Is it worth it to torture myself like this for many years to come?

The answer, after some thought: a resounding, unwaivering, Earth-shattering YES!

Call Me Ed. Special Ed.

Evan and I have something in common. We both hate MATH. We both can do rather well at it, but hate it nonetheless. I was just about to blog about my calculus experience today. My innocent little boy is sitting beside me at my desk, working on his math homework and muttering of his dislike for the subject and it hit me that it is precisely what I am going to tell you. Evan is not Special Ed. I, however, most definitely am.

I love a good challenge. But, while it seems completely snotty to say, I have never failed at anything. Give me chemistry and biology and physics. Bring it on. Math? While I do okay, I do have to work at it just a bit. I don't like that. I like it when things are so easy for me I can do them in my sleep.

So I have this calculus assignment. There are only 3 questions, but these are the types of problems that take 30 minutes and about 5 sheets of scratch paper to complete, so it is more than it seems. I am armed with my pink calculator (see the pic, it is too cute and just screams ANDREA!) It is early in the morning, and thus quiet in the house. I am ready. And I get every damned one of the problems wrong. This is for two reasons (actually more, but I am getting to that): A) I cannot work my cute pink calculator I bought specifically for this class. B) I didn't convert my answers back to fractions, and left them in decimal form, which was not how they wanted to answers to be formatted.
Truthfully? Math psychs me out a bit. I know I have to work at it a little more than I do the sciences, and therefore it fills me with terror. I could make some huge political statement about this, if I were the type. I am a woman and society has programmed me to believe that I am inferior to men in the arenas of math and science. I won't do that. That is utter bullshit. I am a woman, and I will kick ass in science any day of the week. Math? Not so much.

So I go to my Calculus lecture this morning, ready to talk to my professor about this issue with the homework. I am armed, ready for him to tell me that I am semi-retarded and do not belong in a Calculus course. That there is some sort of Fundamentals of Addition course that is more my speed. 1 + 1=2 sort of thing.
He tells me to meet him in his office after class.
I do.

I get there, and I sit down across the table from him and pull out a fresh sheet of paper. He gives me a sample problem. I do it. After every step or so, he stops me to check my calculations. I was right.

He gives me another sample problem. I do that one too. I am right again.

He continues to tell me that I am smart. That I am much better off than my classmates. That I need patience. That if I can do chemistry with such ease, then I can do the math. Since I consider myself a science geek, he reminds me that math is a science. That I am a whiz at the sciences, and therefore a math whiz too. He completely gets in my head. The man is brilliant.

Calculus is no longer my kryptonite.

Hello!

My name is Andrea, and I am a senior at the University of Cincinnati!

Yep, that's right. I said Senior. S-E-N-I-O-R! Ha! I love it.

I got my credit evaluation in the mail Saturday. Apparently, it has been finalized. The initial evaluation, as in the one I got immediately after enrolling, only gave me credit for an English course and a history course. For a whopping total of 9.5 credit hours. Wow! (Dripping with sarcasm right now, of course.)

Well, the one I received Saturday was significantly different. As in 136.5. And I am enrolled in 16 credit hours now. There truly is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Which is good...and bad. Very, very bad. Before you are thinking I am insane for thinking being closer to the end of my undergraduate education is terrible, let me explain a little bit. Well, not a little bit. There are two words to sum it all up for you:

MCAT

Applications


I have not even looked into the med school application process. Well, I have, or I wouldn't have a clue what I am doing. Since I do most definitely have a clue, let me rephrase that: I have only taken a gander at it to ensure that I am on the right track. What I have not done is start the process. And while I have been looking at the MCAT for some time now, I am in no way ready for it. I still have the chemistry and physics to get through, and while I have had some, I have not had the quantity I would like.

So yes, the news is good and bad.

Guess What! Calculus Sucks (And Other Random Drama)

The first week of school is officially completed. Biology was okay. I managed to work ahead there, completing an asignment and handing it in a week before the deadline. Chamistry? I guess it is okay too, other than the fact that he made a 3-hour online assignment due the morning after a 12 hour shift, and there was physically no way for me to complete it on time. After a discussion with the professor, we agreed that some points were better than none, and I would complete it for partial credit, with the intent of dropping that grade at the end of the quarter. Calculus? The good news there is that I actually comprehend the lectures. But it completely sucks. I actually have to use my brain. A lot.

Maybe it is because this is a new thing to me, but the whole issue of being a full-time student, and a mom, and a wife, and a full-time RT...Well the task has been rather daunting this week. I have had no breathing room in my schedule. I keep telling myself that this is because it is still oin the old schedule, where I am not off on the weekdays. This past week was the last week I have to worry about that for awhile. Hopefully this week will be better. I work a 12 tonight, then am off for 5 days, then I go back to working just the weekends.

So what is the other drama? Our neighbors and our landlord. When John called him to make arrangements to get our rent to him, he had some interesting things to say. Apparently the other tenants have been complaining about us and the level of noise that is coming from our apartment. Doors slamming and Evan playing, and even the time I come home from work on the weekend mornings. What are we supposed to do? Evan is 7. He has to play at some point. Toy trucks are loud on hardwood floors, especially with these 12-foot high ceilings, where the sound is amplified. Yet he cannot go outside to play because the yard is full of German Shepherd crap. The doors slamming? Same effect. When you shut a door here, it echos. And Evan's bedroom doors are pocket doors. They make a horrible racket when you close them because they don't slide smoothly on the track. And me? Coming home from work in the morning, I am as quiet as possible, because usually John and Evan are still asleep. But the same thing goes there as well. You can hear the front door to the building, I am sure, because I can hear when they all come and go. But they are complaining that they can hear me enter the building at 7:30 in the morning on Saturdays when they are trying to sleep in. Am I supposed to quit my job???
They say the noise starts at 7:30 in the morning. I can see that. During the week, that is when Evan is usally leaving for school. On the weekends, I am coming home from work. But they say it has been going all day everyday this week. How? Evan has been back in school. I have been in school. When I am not in school, I have been sleeping. Or studying. I guaruntee that Calculus-study does not get me into a wild frenzy enough to disturb my neighbors. The weeks before that? I was working so many nights a week that I was sleeping all day, and under fear of death, John and Evan were quiet to allow it.
I refuse to walk on eggshells. As it is, since we have heard of the complaints, we have stopped allowing Evan to close his bedroom doors. We are turning everything off at night so as not to disturb him while he is trying to sleep in the open room. I am afraid to even leave the house or return because of this. And I have been getting on my child and husband over every tiny noise.
Yet there is Kurt Cobain upstairs (we call him this in the hopes that he will have the same demise). This guy, at about 2 in the morning, will crank his stereo all the way up and try to play his electric guitar along with the songs. Most are asleep at that time, but you know my hours. If I am home, I am studying. On two different occasions, I had to stop because I couldn't concentrate. Yet I did not complain. There are just certain things you have to deal with when living in an apartment, especially in a building that was not designed initially to be an apartment.
The dog crap? It came to my attention that not only do we have Beowulf in the backyard, but the upstairs neighboir is allowing her dog (the ugliest dog I have evr seen) to do the same in the front yard, where I tread to go to and from the house. What is wrong with these people???

So...desperate times call for desperate measures, and I made a discovery that is going to be in the next post because there is too much to tell.

Noooooooooooooo!

I enrolled in my biology course for this coming quarter. (I find the whole quarter system bizarre at a university. It is supposed to be semesters, and the quarters are more expensive: 3 quarters a year as opposed to 2 semesters in a year, and the quarters are as expensive as a semester, and alas you have 3 to pay for. Unfair, but that is neither here nor there...) As you know, I bought my books the other day, and started the beginning ritual I have of studying the first 3 units of a text before the class even starts. I find this gets me prepared for the first lecture, leaves me ahead of the game from the start, so I can continue to study the units ahead of time throughout the course. This way, all I have to do come time for the lecture is pay attention, instead of trying to scribble down everything the instructor is saying. I get more our of the lessons this way, and it is why I have aced every college exam I have ever taken.
But Wait!
There is a problem. Because I am a Bio major, they make me start all over with the bio courses. Okay, I can roll with that. Maybe the courses start at a higher level than normal. Or this will make sure my previously completed bio courses will have me on the same level as the other students who took all of theirs from UC. I can manage this setback, and I am not having to do this for any of the other courses I have previously completed. Okay, so the problem is manageable.
Until I remove the shrinkwrap from the glossy new book and start to read.
Seriously? The first unit is on the relation between chemistry and bio. The next speaks of carbon's realtion to living things. WTF????? We are fricken made of carbon. This is absolutely ridiculous. Between 3 years of high school biology, including a college course in it my senior year, even more college biology as a respiratory student, enough a&p to write a textbook, microbiology, MCAT prep, and more, I think I have this crap covered. This is not cool. This a backpedaling. This is boring.
Yet I have to take this course. I never thought I would actually say that one of the courses for my major would be my fluff course for the semester. Maybe I will get lucky and she will start at the end of the book. Or maybe she will tell me that I bought the wrong book (that would be good, but also bad as I have already unwrapped the $459 tome.) I am disappointed. Where is the meat? The challenge I have been waiting for? Is it going to be like this for the rest of the duration? Molecular Bio is not supposed to be a cakewalk, I don't think. Should I change my major to chemistry? If I am going to have to go backwards and review anything, it should be chemistry. I barely got my A in that.
Too late. I will have to chalk this up to a review. If anything, the Biological Sciences section of my MCAT should have a perfect score....

The To-Do List, $1200, and Taking the Bait

Yay! IAMOFFWORKTODAY! I have not had a day off since before Christmas!

Of course there is a myriad of things to accomplish today. The first on the list is to get my husband to wake up and move my car. For the past 2 days, there has been a sign on the street that there was to be no parking on the street that runs alongside the house because the city is conducting some sort of leaf removal. Ahh, city life! Why do I have to wake him up? I cannot parallel park very well, and I do not want to conduct an experiment in my newish car.

Next is the lovely task of securing a decal for my car, enabling me to park at the university. Apparently, you must have one for each campus you visit for classes. For me, there are two. I could've done this the other day, but the school had to make my life difficult. I could get them all from one campus, but no! If I go to the Clifton campus (home of calculus, biology, etc. for me) it is $150 per quarter to park my car. If I go to the Blue Ash campus (Site of History and chemistry), the parking decal is free with proof of enrollment, and all I have to do is show them my schedule of classes in Clifton, and they will give me a sticker for that campus as well. Free. SCORE!

Unfortunately, this is the only thing associated with my pre-med BS that is free. I next head to the bookstore to buy my books for the classes that will start in 4 days. Keep in mind that I just finished my respiratory degree in 2006. I had a 4.0 GPA, and thus people were willing to give me large sums of money to pay for everything. The small college I attended allowed us to charge bookstore items to our financial aid, so really, all I had to do to get everything I wanted (textbooks, school supplies, college sweats, bookbags, and even novels) was to sign my name on the line. I am sure I have spent 1000's of dollars each semster, but it wasn't like it was my money. Other than that, the last time I bough textbooks was as a freshman at Ball State in 1995. I took $500 in cash, along with my debit card in case I went over alittle bit. I only have 4 courses, and figured that if I buy used, I should have more than enough. I hand the man my schedule and tell him I need these books. He starts grabbing them off the shelves, and I pay no attention to the prices of each. I mean, I have to have them, right? We get to the register, and he starts ringing everything up. I am still not paying attention, as Evan is cruising the snack aisle, looking for junkfood after I told him he could pick out a snack. I am more worried about hurrying him up. Then I hear something that makes me pay attention: "That will be $998 please." Huh? Excuse me? I have more than that in my bank account, plus the $500 cash. I could cover it, but I had plans for the money. Bills to pay. Groceries to buy. Wtf? I had to call my bank. I was pissed. I got ahold of the VP of lending at my bank, the same lady who gave me my car loan. I told her the situation, and she replied that it would take her time to get me approved for a loan, that it was New Year's Eve and they were closing at noon, not to reopen until Friday. Could she do it then? That would mean the money would be in my account Friday night. No good. Classes start on Monday, I am working almost everyday, and the bookstore will also be closed over the weekend. She tells me to let her see what she can do and she will call me back. God bless her. I have no idea what she did, but within 20 minutes, she called me back to tell me that not only was I approved for the loan, but that the money was already in my checkjing so I just had to use my debit card to pay for anything I needed at the bookstore. All I had to do was go to the bank before noon to sign the paper for the loan. By the time I bought all of the books, then headed to Staples for all of my supplies (including a $200 calculator required for my calculus course), I had spent over $1200. Why did I do this to myself? I am a grown woman with a family and an established career. I don't need to go back to school. But then I remind myself: Dr. Ferguson.

What is next on the agenda? Well, I will give you a hint: John fed Evan mac and cheese for dinner last night. Yes, I must get groceries. This is the task of which I am most frightened. I found this video of a commercial, and I will show it to you, because it sums up exactly why I hate the grocery store!

Best Comercial - watch more funny videos

I splurged on something for myself for my B-day: I bought myself the 4-book Twilight series. Apparently there is this craze over it, so I was reluctant to even try it. I usually try to keep away from those. But then I saw a coworker reading one of the books at work. The whole series was apparently marketed for young adults, and thus was too young for me older self, but then I remembered that Harry Potter was originally for children. So I snagged myself of some copies of the books and started to read the first one on Thursday, between the end of my 12-hour shift and the beginning of my 4-hour shift later that night. I found that I actually am very into the story, and could not wait to get home from work later that night to continue reading. Now, I am almost finished with the first book. Very interesting.

The Smell of Citrus is in the Air

This is the commercial for UC to air during the Orange Bowl on Thursday. I am a big 'ol sap. I got a little teary-eyed watching this earlier this afternoon. This is my school. This is my hometown. It's great to be back, doing what I have always wanted to do, in my hometown. I will not leave again.

Day 5 or Day 6??????

Hell, I don't know anymore. I know I am never ever signing up for this many shifts in a row again. I realize that as I hit med school and a ghastly residency I may be forced to do this. But for now, I do not have to. So I am here, at work, sitting at the computer in my little cubby of the ER, waiting for my pager to go insane and debating on whether to go to the gift shop and buy the latest Cosmo or if I should be doing some organizational tasks to prepare myself for the pre-Med Hell that begins one week from Monday. Uh-oh....Pager went off.....Inhaler instruction with a spacer.

So Anyhow...Class starts January 5th. Somehow I managed to end up in a little Chemistry marathon on Tuesdays and Thursdays, between the lecture, lab, and recitation. Monday and Wednesday are reserved for Calculus, which I have not touched since I was a senior in high school, circa 1995. Monday and Wednesday nights are my biology nights, which should be easy for me. Yes, I actually think biology is fun. For me, the Krebs cycle is as much fun as shopping. I threw a history course in there somewhere, but I forget where. I knew UC would expect me to take something other than my science courses. They actually expect me to be well-rounded. Ha!

How am I going to do this with work? Good question! It's really too bad that I do not work at the other campus of this hospital. The RT's there maily just sit, read, play on the computer, watch movies in-between doing an occassional EKG or nebulizer treatment. They rarely touch a critical care patient because those patients are all sent to us here. There was actually even one situation where an ambulance picked up a patient who went down in their ER parking lot and brought the patient here instead of taking them there first. My point is that there, I would have alll of the time in the world to study. But the clencher is that I would be bored to tears and any critical care skills I have would go completely soft. Plus, here, I rub elbows with some individuals who could potentially write some very impressive letters of recommendations here in a year or so. In other words, I'll keep my job.

Where Do I Start???

I am home. As in I can walk outside in the brisk winter air and see the skyline. It is so surreal.
The new house, well it has been interesting. Cable hook-up was an adventure, and my phone and internet were installed before Thanksgiving and we never knew it because apparently the phone jack was not hooked to anything other than the wall. But all is well now. I am back where I have always belonged. Cincinnati.

So I am here in my new office, just off of the kitchen. It is very drafty in here, but I like things cool anyhow. I can see cozying up in here with thick socks and cozy sweats with a piping hot cup of coffee, studying away. The house, or better yet, the part of the house we are renting, stretches straight back. In order, it goes like this: Our bedroom, Evan's bedroom, the living room, the bathrooms and pantry, followed by the kitchen. My little area is at the very back, and all I can hear are noises from the street. Absolutely perfect.

Okay so what next? Evan's school...We started my baby boy in his new private school. It is amazing how they treat the children when you are paying them large sums of money. His first day was consumed by testing. He did very well, scoring 92% overall for the tasks he should have mastered for first grade. On many of the sections, he scored 100%. The principal said he is "exceptional". There are some areas that need work, such as handwriting, so they kept him in first grade. But because they have such small classes, they were able to tailor-make a curriculum just for him, so the areas in which he excels will be handled differently for him than they are for his peers. When we went to pick him up from his first day, his teacher actually walked him out to our car and told us how he did that day. Our only main obstacle is that we need to find uniforms for him. Nothing major: a baby blue polo with navy blue khakis. No problem, right? Wrong! Have you ever tried to find a little boy's baby blue polo in the middle of winter? I am hoping that now that I am back online, I will be able to find what I need via the internet.

I guess the only item left to update is my great return to a higher learning environment. I have officially been admitted to the University of Cincinnati as a Cell and Molecular Biology major. I just officially accepted my small fortune in student loans to pay for this next step in reaching my goals. The stage is set. I'm ready.