The last semester of classroom work!

As of this Monday, I officially began the last semester of my classroom work!  Thinking back to the beginning of my second semester of first year, I was fairly certain that fourth year was this mythical thing that was looming ahead of me but I might never actually reach.  Third year was something I knew very little about, other than at the end we were done being stuck in seats learning from lectures.  Today, I have successfully completed half of my third year, and I am actively beginning to organize my fourth year of school!  As exciting as this all is, I have also spent my first week back (and a fair chunk of my whole school year so far) terrified for what is ahead of me.  Maybe terrified is too strong a word, but I am very nervous about this semester and next year and so far we have been hit with a lot of information and to-do lists to complete in the not too distant future.  Tomorrow we rank our preferences for the rotations that we will take in the fourth year and it's looming over my head as if I don't quite believe we have reached this point yet.  There are many things I am interested in taking, some things I am trying to avoid taking, and some other things that are outside my comfort zone but will be worthwhile pursuing to round out my knowledge base and skill set.  I am going to try and post more on my rotation information in another post once we get things organized as this is really just the tip of the iceberg.  Once we have ranked our preferences for rotations the computer system will randomly generate a schedule for us and we will then be able to add and drop rotations, and rearrange our schedules a bit in order to fill in some external rotations if we want to.  Our class will be the first one at the school using this new system to organize our schedules so no one is entirely sure how well it will work out, but I am guessing that things will work out fine in the end.

It has been awhile since I posted last, and of course we had our finals and winter break.  Final exams last semester were busy but I also felt very pleased with how they went.  By the last exam, which was the third in as many days, I was more than ready to head for home.  I had told my parents and my friends that I would be travelling the 12 hour journey home on Saturday as the last final was Friday and I wanted time to pack and organize.  In actuality I surprised them by returning home Friday instead, and I rolled into my mom's house just before midnight.  I would have been home even sooner had I not stopped at a friends on the way home to have dinner and catch up with her, but it was worth it as I don't see her very often at all.  My mother and Tizzie were both surprised to see me and I was so excited to be home and see them too.  Saturday I went and surprised my father and so began the break.  Three weeks of being on break is not enough really to see all the people who I wish I could, nor spend sufficient time with all of them.  I am always sorry if I don't get a chance to catch up with people, but I promise if I missed out on seeing you this break I will make it up to you when I return home next.  Part of the reason this break was so packed with travel and visiting of friends and family is that I will not be returning home now for the next eight months.  I organized my rotations so that I could have three weeks off in August for some weddings and birthdays, but otherwise until that point I will be here on island doing my rotations which begin in first week in May.  

Upon arriving back home I was greeted to a beautiful scene with tons of snow that was clinging fiercely to trees, wires and essentially everything in sight.  I am not sure I have seen such a picturesque scene in the winter before and been quite as in awe as I was.  Sadly, around Christmas the weather changed to rain and we lost all of the snow that was on the ground.  I don't think Tizzie was sad to see the snow go, or have the warmer temperatures but it made Christmas feel less Christmas like to me.  We were spending the holidays with my sister and brother out where they live and we ended up having a great couple of days out there with them.  For most of the rest of my stay at home the weather was cold but still no snow.  The day I was supposed to leave to drive back to here is the same day an icy system traveled the same route I was supposed to, and unfortunately delayed my return trip so I ended up missing the first day of classes.  Unlike in undergrad, usually our lectures start right in with material- and while I don't always gain a lot by being in lecture I still find them worthwhile to attend, so missing wasn't ideal.  Thankfully I had no labs scheduled and Monday's are my short days anyways.  I made an attempt to leave the house Monday about 5 AM only to have to turn around and go home to wait for salt to hit the roadways. I finally left my house about 7:30 AM and despite having poor road conditions for the first couple of hours of my trip most of the travel was excellent.  Unfortunately the weather hindered my plans to meet up with another one of my friends for lunch so I was bummed by that.  I eventually landed back to my little cottage late Monday night after the cold and windy trip, and unpacked all of my things before retiring to bed.  

Since Tuesday I have been going to class, and while I haven't had them all yet I can say that it is going to be a busy semester.  This semester is organized into three, five week modules where electives are offered for only five weeks at a time.  There are some core courses which are yearlong as well, but the combination of shorter courses and regular length courses means that I have a LOT of exams coming down the pipe and at times my exam schedule will be absolutely miserable.  However, I just keep reminding myself that fifteen weeks goes quickly, and before long we will be into rotations.  This semester I have many different classes but the most daunting and nerve-wracking course is my junior surgery class in which we actually get to perform surgery!  Not only is doing the surgery scary, but other components such as anesthesia and monitoring are making me worried as well (which is somewhat silly since I spent a good chunk of time monitoring anesthesia while working as a technician.)  Today was our orientation lab where we got our lab groups, took a tour of the rooms we were going to be using and needing and learned about how the labs would be working.  While they kept telling us not to be scared I found it very hard not to be anxious.  The labs have tons of components, some assignments, quizzes and of course the patient care.  I am hoping that once we get going I will feel less stressed and more in control and calm about doing things in general as this course is fundamental for my later career.  

Overall, I am trying to get back into the swing of things this week, and by next week I hope to feel like I never stopped going from last semester.  If I can manage to keep up with my school work I will post soon about what my rotation selections were, and what the process has been like- but I know once the semester gets into full swing I won't have the luxury of time to post as much.  If you pester me for slacking on writing posts then I likely will take a breather and write one!  In the meantime,  I am just going to try and stay warm on this bitterly cold place- and hope for some snow!