Medical Spanish - 1 cr
Clinical Epidemiology - 1 cr
OMM II - 2 cr
Clinical Skilz I - 3 cr
Neuroanatomy - 4 cr
Physiology - 6 cr
Microbiology/ Immunology - 6 cr
TOTAL: 23 cr
I have had all my classes except OMM, which meets tomorrow and will have few surprises. So I think I have a decent handle on what things will be like this semester.
...And it looks ballbreaking. I sort of can't believe I thought I had it tough last semester. Clinical Skilz is a flurry of medical jargon; all the students stare around at each other in total confusion. Physiology isn't too bad yet, but I have 6 hours of lecture a week, so things can only go downhill. Micro is already piling up, and this class is a bit strange because it is a bunch of stuff I already know with new things stuck in at odd places in the material. Spanish met for the first time tonight and was hilarious because I learned how to count and say the days of the week and greet people and such. [snicker] And Clinical Epi seems like it will mostly not register on my radar until I have to cram for a midterm or final. But none of this matters, because I am taking Neuroanatomy, and Neuro is to be the main focus of my life for the next few months.
There isn't a good way to describe how big this class is. Just... imagine all of the stuff your brain does. All of the ways it processes different types of information, decides what to do with that information, and then carries out its decisions, often through the spinal cord and nerves in the rest of the body. Some part of this happens with each thought, each brush of your clothing against your skin, each inhalation, each blink, each new song, each stressful set of circumstances. All of these things can be condensed into a set of neurological responses that get cycled through various parts of the brain/ nerves. I have to be able to trace these out on an actual brain/ spinal cord while being able to describe what is actually happening (chemically and functionally) and figuring out what would go wrong if anything were injured (and vice versa). My profs have this class highly organised so that we students have great access to a lot of really helpful information that is packaged for maximum retention, but none of that changes the fact that THIS IS A LOT OF STUFF. [panic]
There are two things that keep this semester from being totally overwhelming (just 80% overwhelming). 1. God is in control and I know that "in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." There were many times last semester when this was my only comfort, the only thing that kept me from totally giving up on something. 2. All of the material this semester is so cool! I already know how to take blood pressure and do a basic eye exam. And today my neuro lab group looked at a real brain and for the first time, all the folds and dips and nubby bits started to make sense. That was just the best.
This entry is jumbled, sorry. But that is what is going on right now. 28 hours of class a week and not much else. This is the hardest one. Time to put my head down.
