Lake Minnewaska

This weekend was a nice mix of schoolwork and social time.  Today leaned less on the schoolwork side though... I went hiking with my best friend from high school.  I've been wanting to do a winter hike, since it's been so mild here.

Hearts and germs

Today we dissected hearts!  (Cow and sheep).  Then, prepared slides of/checked out E. coli and Staph.  I love learning this stuff.  :) 

Spring Semester

I'm now a week into being a full-time student.  I was actually really happy about school starting again.  I'm very interested in all my of my classes, except Organic Chemistry, which is one of those things you just gotta do.  My first weekly homework assignment for O Chem took up 12 pages in my notebook.  Writing "pre-labs" also seems like it's going to be a major time sink.  Hopefully I'll get better at them-- It's been a decade since I've done Chemistry labs.  Seems like this class will be "fun".. (ugh).  I'm just so psyched to be in it at my local college, where I'm taking everything else!  I feel very lucky.  The professor said that this is the first time that he's seen O Chem 1 offered in the Spring semester (in addition to O Chem 2), and he's been there about 20 years.  WOW.  That kinda hit me...    I'm also taking: Anatomy & Physiology II (which I'm very excited about), Microbiology for Health Professionals (germs), and Developmental Psychology (across the lifespan).  I was very happy to see some friends I made last semester (who are also doing career changes to nursing) in my A&P lecture and lab. 

I had a great time skiing this past weekend at a mountain not very far from me.  I went with some great friends.  It was colder skiing there than any of the trips I've done in the Rockies.  We had a heck of a time getting there.. as it was snowing pretty bad and the roads weren't cleared yet.  We got about 4 inches.  It's back to being warm again, so it's all melting. 

Winter Interim

I'm about halfway through a 3-week stay with my family in Long Beach, NY, taking Intro to Statistics, which is so far proving to be the easiest college course I've probably ever taken.  My professor is a quite stereo-typical Long Island woman.  I don't expect people to act a certain way based on certain things, but I do find it pretty funny when they really do prove the stereotype.  It's adorable; I enjoy her.  I'm also still prepping for the pre-nursing standardized test next month.  My strength for Math is obvious, but I'm being reminded of my weakness in vocabulary.  Science is mostly a matter of brushing up on some basics from long ago.

This past week has actually felt like winter, but now it's back to warming up again.  

I often think of my "mental hiatus": not being a "contributing member of society"/ loafing off my family, and not knowing if I'll get a job, or where the job would be after this is done.  I keep focusing on one step at a time, knowing I'm doing this for the "right" reason.  The increased freedom in scheduling my time is the part I do like.