| Life thoughts: nice |
[Aug. 26th, 2007|01:41 am] |
The theater retreat was great, but very intense because of the sheer number of people (in a smallish communal cabin/cottage/"retreat thing"), and because of my own lack of sleep. I found I had to "recover" a fair amount today. I had a three-hour nap and just sat around talking to members of my family today and doing Saturday cleaning of the bathrooms and catching up on some dishes (especially since I traded turns with Elizabeth while I was gone). I did a lot of thinking about my major and how that combines with medicine as well this week, and I'm frustrated not only with the angsty thoughts of school just on the brink of starting and me having lots of thoughts of theater involvement and trying to hold lots of new (and pertinant) scheduling and other information in my mind, but because I didn't necessarily do everything I had wanted to do today to keep planning for school starting. My main concerns are really that my bedroom still seems to be an unacceptable mess in lieu of starting 5 courses on Monday with accompanying books and materials to potentially get lost in the mess, and that my school email account is still overflowing. (That part, the latter, really bugs the crap out of me. SIGH.) The email is particularly annoying, because there's a lot of it, but it's so pertinant to school that I certainly don't feel that I can really leave it as one of those "projects that stays undone until when school lets out again.") Darn?!?!
I guess sleeping now as my body and mind are urging me to would not be uncalled for, and maybe I can worry about the clearing-everything-out later. Everything else pertaining to school- the important legal, financial, logistic, transportation, outside duty, employment, college major, and even social concepts- are all taken care of. As my brother and I said to each other a couple weeks ago this summer, "We probably ARE completely ready to go to school. We MIGHT be able to go right now if it were to start! That's probably why we're freaking out and worrying."
With peace and anticipation,
Healthnut |
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| November: Burnt, brilliant orange |
[Nov. 3rd, 2006|06:31 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | college, depression, doctor, exams, happiness, health, homework, life, majors, medicine, peace, pre-med, school | ] |
I can't believe it's November, you know? That happens to me with college. I walked home from [college] in the bright, bright yellow-blue sunny day today, and I watched the leaves, and passed the cold houses, and thought about it being November now.
I've been so busy, and while it IS kind of sad, it's also really nice to let fall and winter come on before I even notice. It takes away from my negative experience of winter and winter blues VERY WELL. For that I am grateful. Today I walked past a house that had some highly creative Halloween decorations up for the last week or so (including some neat Pirate motifs), and I realized sadly that they'd been taken down in the last couple days and I hadn't noticed! I guess with catching rides to school with my dad during the super cold snap, or driving the big monster van to the lab in the dark early morning I missed my usual routine of walking by every house. Ah. Well.
Something wonderful happened: within this day I learn that TWO of the FOUR nasty exams I had coming up all together next week have been postponed: so one of them will be at the end of the week instead of the middle amongst the other ones, and the last one won't be until the following MONDAY! That gives me an ENTIRE weekend to study chemistry! YES! :) And two more days to study bio. And leaves this weekend to write and research two assignments, and study archaeology, without 1 or two or three other things in there, too.
I feel really happy. :) Dispite the work that remains, of course, which could panic me, but let's just let it not, eh? ;)
I'm listening to Madonna and feeling the universal love of a benevolent God wash over me. Life is really not so bad half the time. :) Even all the time, perhaps. And it's certainly not bad when you have a warm bed to curl up on with plently of heat to cut the chill, and lots of blankets, and some good Madonna music pounding in your ears, and a laptop. It's not bad, it's not bad. It feels good. Curse those stupid papers, but hey. I'll get through them like every other filppin' college assignment out there. (Sigh.)
(I wish I could just lie here and sleep and muse and think- but you what I"d be doing if that was ALL I HAD TO DO WITH MY TIME? I'd be dreaming of all these educational goals I have, but not getting anywhere on them, and I guarantee you I'd be somewhat or fully depressed, sleeping during all the wrong hours of the days, and probably wildly depressed in these fall and winter months. Uh, yeah. Rant away. So there....yeah.)
I'm high on the idea of becomming a doctor one day, too, not sure why today, and even though it will have to be years to come from now anyway, but you know, whatever.
I am still undecided about the idea of getting out of college soon enough with a low-credit-hour theater major, absconing to a pre-med biology major (because I DO SO love all that junk), or doing something insane and giving up years of my life to something like a double major of these too, or the worst of all, a minonr in one or the other, where I wouldn't get it on my diploma, but I'd likely spend nearly almost all of the same amount of time over things. I really don't know what to think. I'll sleep on it, I guess, as they say. And life will go happily on. ;)
Don't know why I'm feeling so great today, but maybe it has something to do with naps, and the original reason for this post (the exams). I'm one of those people who doesn't know why she's happy when something good happens.
See y'all...
Rachel |
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| Life and School. Or Life vs. School |
[Nov. 3rd, 2006|03:41 am] |
Gah. Getting sick of school. Relaxed tonight instead of doing some of the stuff I thought I "had to" do. I dunno. It's interesting, that relaxing during a full school load business. ;) Still crushing out on the, well, uh, Crush. I think it could be because there's not really much else to occupy my mind. School is very much, though not totally, boring me this semester, while also being a whole lot of work that encompasses pretty much a whole lot of my time. So I spend much of it (and nearly every weekend, when I am back home and there's NOT actually any chance of running into him, ironically enough) daydreaming and thinking about him. School's not all dull, and I can certainly tell I'm learning usefull stuff, and, for instance, some of the science I'm picking up is invaluable (like the fascinating [no, *I* DO mean that!] anatomy exam we had at 8am this morning for the biology lab). But the rest? Sigh. Well, let's just say I really am not being challenged by much of it: I'm not getting a ton out of it. Psychology is proving to me that I apparently loved psych all along and know pretty much all of the concepts, though not by their bland, cold cognitive scientific names. I'm not much into cognitive psychology. If anything, I would be more into biological psychology. Biblical Archaeology is a pretty interesting and cool and fun class. But somehow it feels outside and accessory to the other classes: all science or soft science, in the case of the pysch. So maybe I should've never taken the psych, since it's so rediculously easy and is easting up good amounts of my valuable, precious, formerly homeschooled time (I used to think I could do whatever I wanted with my own time). I really DO enjoy the Bible class, I just never read for it... Then again, I never read for it's prerequisite for the same prof last year when I was part time and had elected it totally on my own and with no cooersion of guilt over taking enough courses. I guess that's just the way I am, then, with his classes.
Beginning biology continues to be about things like the AIDS epidemic, vaccines, evolution, diseases, cancer, and other things that I find I know vast amounts of, but the prof's exams are tricky, unneccessarily damaging to nearly every student's former GPA status (for instance, no one does well in this class at all), but my grade has slowly crept up and hopefully might end up pretty good. The lab for it, also, is something I highly value (though it's only worth 1 credit hour to me), and I feel I "needed" that portion, if that makes sense. I wonder if I could've taken the lab only. Hmm. :)
Chemistry is an interesting one all on it's own. Chem, I am learning, is not, and will likely never be, a favorite subject of mine, though again, I am grateful for the genuine chemistry knowledge I am gaining. I feel like I could've learned the same stuff more intensely and more quickly, without the extra time and space taken up with getting general majors through the material and working with kids who hate it- and so do badly. I hate it, but I'm looking at a lot more of it in my future, so while my impulse is to burst into hysterics with the other smart but utterly bored kids who sit next to me, my other instinct is to actually respect (because she's flipping BRILLIANT in her field!) the professor, listen to her, and take notes. I find, again, that in the beginning level class, there are no other pre-med or pre-anything related to science majors who hate the chemistry but need the subject. So I have the option of blowing it off as a core requirement that has nothing to do with me (what the others are doing), enjoying it (I don't), or actually paying attention and learning stuff (I try, but when I've finally ceased to freak out myself about how I'm going to learn it, then I just get plain bored and annoyed and the cycle starts all over again, and just really, really never ceases). All that said, chemistry is like, vaguely, vaguely interesting. ;) I can't deny it. :) It's good to know. Yeah, really. In chem's 1-credit lab, I am receiving a straight A, interesting since my lab grade is at something like C write now. So I'm pulling my highest and my lowest scienee grade there. Which is sort of weird. I find the lab easy, and the requirements easy enough to fulfil. :)
Finally, I'm also taking the biology seminar for potential majors or pre-med persons. I got an A on it's first exam and am enjoying very well. This A was even with the professor who likes to give all evil grades. We're learning about cancer, including a large amount of beginning cell biology knowledge, as well as a half of the class devoted to learning to write about science well, and preparing a large research paper, and these three subjects are topics that interest me very much and the level of the material is at just the right level to apparently sufficiently challenge me to do well but not freak out, nor to bore me to tears, or cause me to dispair or lose hope. In that class, I feel smart and knowledgable. That class is pretty much perfect.
Rach
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| Problem (academic) |
[Jul. 16th, 2006|07:23 am] |
I'm having a problem.
Problem is: I wholeheartedly believe in natural medicine, and I am leary of synthetic or otherwise human-made drugs for standard medical practice (I do, however, condone necessary surgery or other forms of emergency medicine when really necessary, and I have a real fascination with such). The problem is, I think I am beginning to feel I "should" go to a naturopathic medical school (who's final licensing options are far more limited at this point than those of a 'regular' medical doctor, and who's graduates are not currently eligible to go on to surgical or some other residencies), and when it comes down to it in another way, I actually want to attend a allopathic medical school, and gain the full American power and eligibilities that graduating from one presents. I don't really want to learn their full system of pharmacology and drug-using or other more interventionist-seeming methods, but other than that I like all forms of medicine. Actually- I take the pharmocology bit back, because I do want to be fully trained in such so I know what I'm talking about and what I'm dealing with in all sorts of patients- many of whom may be on allopathic drugs but may want to be treated with some form of natural method as well. I trust that the accredited naturopathic schools do indeed prepare students to know what they are dealing with in pharmocology, but still...I have that want to just go on and do the 'whole' thing and become an M.D. Gaining such a license would allow me to have full practicing priviledges all across the country and probably most countries outside of ours, which is what I want.
I could go to both forms of school; I have considered this.
The naturopathic ones look SO comfortable and full of good energy, but there are at least a couple allopathic med schools that I feel I could be reasonably comfortable in. Many I think I WOULD NOT be comfortable attending, but ironically, must of that has to do with the huge, huge amount of pressure and time-crunching and other factors that have become standard to medical educations that don't really have to do with the form of medicine being practiced, but they have turned into traits that go pretty much hand in hand with a standard medical education. Ironically again, the naturopathic schools are eager enough to compete with and succeed with the allopathic schools in terms of rigorous and excellent medical education and medical care offered, that they are not necessarily a free and easy place to attend themselves, but at least for me right now I feel like they are still a bit (or actually a lot) more friendly and warm in their general atmosphere.
One final factor is that traditional medical schools tend to have far more demanding internships and trainings, while naturopathic medical schools' internships and such are often limited to the variety of clinics since there is yet no such thing as a fully naturopathic hospital- this makes their rotations and training a little less intense (or at least I would speculate- I don't actually know for sure).
If it were only the two different forms of medicine themselves, and nothing else, I feel like my decision would be easier.
My tiding hope is that traditional medical schools will continue to become more and more inclusive of CAMS (complementary and alternative medicine) modalities and appreciation in their curriculums, and that at the same time, the naturopathic medical schools and licensing standards will continue to expand so that it might begin to be possible to do a surgical rotation with a naturopathic medical degree, or to learn more emergency medicine within the walls of the naturopathic schools. It's a possibility- with 4 more years of college that I need to complete, and the CAMs medicine movement booming, it is a possibility that by the time I actually start applying, it will all feel better to me- my options could be broader.
I hope so.
And this was my problem.
(I want to go to Pritzker School of Medicine. Sort of badly. More so tonight than I want to go to Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine. Ha...so there.)
Rachel |
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