New blog

Well I had fun with my Brazilian blog and have kind of missed blogging so figured I would devote some time (what little I have) to writing about my experience of taking pre-requisites in preparation for either nursing school or physician's assistant school. I'm leaning more towards nursing at this time, but have not ruled out PA.

So what's happened since I left Brazil? Well I got back to the US in March 2009 and kind of spontaneously decided to start taking cell biology, which is the pre-req for Anatomy and Physiology at Portland Community College. I met up with my friend Dave, who had started pre-reqs in the winter term and as I had been pondering a career change and a move in the direction of medicine, I decided to take the leap and start taking class. It also gave me something to do since I was unemployed and had some time to study.

Coincidentally I had 2 friends in the class who I knew from before and a friend of a friend who I quickly became close to. We formed a study group fondly called "Team Mitochondria" and proceeded to kick some cell biology ass. I hadn't taken any sciences since high school (with the exception of geology in undergrad that I didn't really apply myself to and got a C in) and was nervous about diving into the world of definitive answers, but after a lot of studying, and one crying breakdown in the coffee shop in front of my study group, I managed to get an A in the course. It also helped that my teacher was AWESOME and really wanted her students to learn. It was a nice introduction into this journey that I'm on now.

Summer term was my introduction to Anatomy and Physiology and it was a rough one. Summer term is 12 weeks of material crammed into 8 weeks and my teacher was a horrible lecturer. I have her for lab this term and have come to appreciate her in lab, but I had to basically teach myself the material and had to study absolutely everything to be prepared for the exams. I somehow managed to pull off an A, but it was really hard.

This term has been my most challenging one yet for a number of reasons. First of all I work early bird shift Wednesday-Saturday. This means I start work at 4:30AM on Wednesday and Thursday and at 5AM on Friday. Saturday I get to "sleep in" and start at 6:30AM. I have class until 8:50PM on Tue/Thu and 9:30PM on Wednesdays. I'm lucky if I get 5 hours of sleep Tue-Thu nights. I find myself walking around in a zombie like state just doing the bare minimum on those days and then recovering and studying the rest of the week.

I'm taking 2 classes this term, my first term with 2, and one of them is REALLY difficult. I'm taking the 2nd term of Anatomy with a different teacher than I took over the summer. While I think she's a really good teacher, she's also really, REALLY hard. I don't have that nice cushion I had at over the summer term of being able to go into the final exam with a solid A. I'm fighting for every point that I can get and it's a lot of stress. Luckily my Human Development class on Wednesdays is interesting and easy.

Well, I actually need to get studying so will sign off for now, but look forward to writing more about my experiences. I also would love to hear from any readers of suggestions for passing A&P with a good grade and also about nursing school vs. PA school. Or should I take the big leap and try for medical school?! It might be fun to have 2 doctors in the family (my dad is a pediatrician)!!