Tuesday, October 7, 2008

A month



A month has gone by since my last post of early September, and while I tried not to neglect writing in this blog, the lack of time to relax has caused me to be quite absent. Before starting my university studies, I have been told stories about how quickly classes move, and for that matter, time itself. It seemed just like yesterday that I first posted in this blog, and now a month has gone by...it's gotta be the lack of adequate sleep.

Its only right for me to recapitulate my first month to you and give you a glimpse of my journey so far. If I happen to make horrendous grammar errors or spelling mistakes, I'd like to blame Full Throttle/not sleeping too great. With that said, here's what happened, neatly arranged in categories:

Academics: A bias that I held until early into September was the notion that asking questions in class was a no-no and would cause you to be cast down to the bottom of the barrel. I quickly realized how wrong I was. My professors are generally very nice and caring people, and actually promoted the asking of questions in class. I don't know where I got this bias from, but it helped relieve my stress of asking questions in class without being ashamed. I realize how fortunate I am to have great profs who are passionate about what they teach and show a level of concern for their students.

Like all premeds I'm sure, we make vows to ourselves on things like: not sleeping in class, staying on top of all class material, reading up on future lectures, etc, and like all premeds (I'm pretty certain) we don't meet many of these goals we set for ourselves. We have this preconceived and idealized version of what our journey will be like, not readily understanding how much change and re-working will be done to our plan(s). An ode to this realization is illustrated by my breaking of the very first vow I listed - sleeping in class.

My general biology lectures are held in a theater room that accommodates around 300 students. The lights in this room can not be turned up brighter than a dim, and the seats are perfectly fitted with velvety-cushion. This combination provides for one of the best in-class sleeping experiences ever. I find myself regularly dozing off within 15 minutes of class time, only being awakened by the soft-snoring of the person behind me. One advantage of being in a sea of students is the ability to not be singled out by the professor, who, I might add, speaks with the perfect makes-you-fall-asleep voice. As a blade of grass in a lawn of green, I like to justify my in-class sleeping by the fact that I rarely learn anything new with having followed my third vow that I listed - reading ahead ;)

For the lab component of biology, I remember having trouble sleeping the night before my first lab, which is probably a symptom many nervous-wrecked premeds demonstrate before tests, assignments, and labs. Even though the first lab was on basic microscopy, I read the whole lab outline around 3 times over, repeated the procedure(s) in my head around 2 times, and checked to make sure the lab sheets did not run away from my bag around 5 times. Mind you, this is a habit I repeat before every lab.

....Continued in next post....