Brain Fatigue?

After only 7.5 weeks of school I am suffering from what i like to call brain fatigue... getting my brain to work for more than 10 minutes on something other than anatomy seems nearly impossible. i find myself forgetting fairly important things like what day of the week it happens to be, yet remembering things like cranial nerve 5 is the trigeminal nerve arising from the pons and receives sensation from the face as well as control the muscles of mastication...

I am also socially fatigued. It takes between 30 seconds and 4 minutes to become thoroughly annoyed with certain classmates. I know, i know I am going to be with these people for another 2 years but really I think that more than anything I am just tired of this specific routine of life. I am sure after a couple of weeks away from my classmates I will miss them and be ready to start up again... but once I start again for Fall on August 31st... I will go pretty much non-stop until the end of June 2010. Living the dream... living the dream...

Upside... got an A+ in my Foundations class!! very exciting but really? Master's level class and they give out A+s? interesting, no?

Unbelievable

I took our second anatomy exams today. Practical at 8:30 AM. 5 cadavers, 3 to 4 stations at each body, 2 questions at each station and 90 seconds to answer. Followed by a lightning round where you get 10 seconds review at each station. I did feel like I had done and then later Cortney and I saw Chris at Caribou Coffee. He was grading and he let us know our grades. I got 3 wrong and 3 extra credit so I got 100%!!!!!

I danced a little :)

Strong Work

Chris Bise is the anatomy instructor. Pretty sure he is an ENTP and his highest praise is "Strong Work". Today I got my first one!! Standing in lab over Maurice we were inspecting the common interosseous artery and the AIN when I noticed another artery hanging out. I asked, "Chris, is this the anterior interosseous artery?" He looked up from his disection and said, "Yes! Strong Work!!" I then dance a little jig and four people asked me to show them what I saw. Now if I can just get a good grade on this exam tomorrow I will dance another jig :)

One Less Thing

Today I took (AND PASSED) my medical terminology exam. To think that a mere 5 weeks ago this silly exam was one of the bigger unknown stresses in my life. But as I walked to Alumni Hall to take the exam I was thinking of it as a break for my brain. Who am I that taking a 50 question test is a "break" from the now normal thinking of my brain. good times and one less thing I have to do.

The other test I got back today I was 1/2 a point from an A-... was supposed to have "preparatory" and put "prepatory"... when will someone invent spell check for my head!!

Today in class I taught everyone how to make an origami crane. Out of 50 people I was the only one who could manage to make it from some really bad directions. I was sitting there thinking back to 3-5 grades when I made a ridiculous number of origami things and it came back to me after some good problem solving skills. I want to give a shout out to Andy from my grade school as I think he was the one who got our whole class started on the origami.


After I sat down I heard someone say behind me that I was really smart. I have to confess I was shocked! Even now I think maybe they were talking about someone else. Perhaps I have finally found a place where my "jack of trades but master of none" will help me instead of hinder me.

Back to Blogging

I am back... I was gone for a while but now life is ridiculously exciting. Nothing like living with no margins, stress that causes you to forget your middle name, and classes that cause you to wake up with "sustentaculum tali" in your head.

For those of you who don't know I moved to Pittsburgh to work for two years and then go to school for two and at the end be an occupational therapist. What I didn't know (but I am sure I was told) was that working 9-5 was great (especially now that it is over for the time being) and that school is consuming and lonely. And yet I am living the dream that I have had for a couple years and in some ways much longer... just didn't know it was going to go this exact direction. That doesn't change the fact that while I am not depressed I have cried more in the last month than I did in the year prior to that.

It's all good. I am living the dream.

Kara/OTS

Today I Love My Students

I know I haven't written in a long time! But today I love my students. I am going on vacation next week and so I emailed all of them to let them know. Immediately I received several emails from students that I have worked hard to build relationships with telling me to go and have a great time! I was delighted and unexpected joy bubbled up inside me.

I actually like my students. For the first time since I started this job over a year ago I can actually say I love my students. It surprised me.... and made me a little happy.