Four hours of neurology. FOUR HOURS OF NEUROLOGY.
Typed, careful notes tonight already at seven pages. That’s rediculous. I hand-wrote at least 12 pages and toward the end I can’t read my own writing.
Brain fried and Speech Science is tomorrow, during a rilly rilly long day.
Am also way behind on Artic and Phono reading and homework. Good lord, I’m tired.
Quick note: I had a fabulous birthday, Peeps, and I love you all dearly. Thank you so much for the good wishes.
Related to that, now that school has begun I find myself entirely unable to be anything but horribly selfish. I have friends who are heavily pregnant, friends who are in the middle of reproduction ambiguity. A ton of people came together to give my kid a wonderful birthday and a ton of people celebrated with me and gave me wonderful things.
I have a fantastic caliber of folk that I know and all of them have things they want to tell me and things they want to do.
Instead, I feel like a Taker. I feel like I had this great birthday and Wallace had a great birthday and all I had time for was to yell “YOINK!”, cram my face with cake, and be off and running again. I’m behind on all of my blogs, I haven’t written a single thank-you note for any of the wonderful gifts we’ve gotten and I have to keep reminding myself to pick up the damned phone and call the people that I care about.
Orientation was on September 11th, and three times that day I couldn’t remember the date. I feel like a traitor.
To all the folks putting up pictures of their kids, they are SO CUTE! To all the folks who wished me a happy birthday, thank you so much because I can’t tell you what it means to me to have a reason to celebrate when things are going crazy. To all the folks having a really terrible time of it; I’m so, so sorry. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help. I might be far away but I will come back if you need me, I promise.
I love you all. I’m so sorry that I’m so distant. I’m having trouble right now just making room for my husband and my son and everything else is suffering and I’m sorry for that. If you just hang with me I promise that I will be back and engaged and fun again someday.
xoxox
KP
HEY CHICAGO, WHATDDYA’ SAY? THE CUBS ARE GONNA WIN TODAY!
CUBS ARE DIVISION CHAMPS!
And on my birthday, no less. YAY!
First of all, thank you Dawn and Kate and all the facebook folks who cheered me on and up. You guys rock. Today was much, much better. Even just writing it all down yesterday and admitting to the panic was enough to bring it down several notches. I took some time and carefully wrote up a list of things that need doing and important dates like papers due and quizes and exams. Just seeing it listed out made it easier because suddenly I didn’t have to be afraid I was missing something.
TT was superhubby, and even though he’s working sometimes three jobs a day, he took over Wallacing for the entire evening and I got 200+ pages read. At school today we had Anatomy lab and, beyond the cool which I will tell you about in just a mo, there was no homework assigned. Thank you, Jebus. I was able to stay afterward and watch some videos I have to watch for Speech Science class.
I knew that there was no way through this without the first two weeks being terrifying. Until I know just what kind of detail I need to have and how each prof expects and grades work, I won’t know how to allocate resources. There’s also that extra niggling worry that comes with knowing that at some point I’m going to be working with a mom or a kid or a person who really needs my help, and I will need to know what I’m learning now. This isn’t high school, or even undergrad learning. I knew that I’d be feeling the pressure and yesterday it really hit.
Luckily, I’ve moved past the stage. Another ability I have now that I did not have even a short while ago is the ability to know that if I start and keep going, eventually I will be done. Also, how much organization helps me stay calm. It’ll happen again, I’m sure, and I’ll be here going AGGGGHHHRGHGHGHGH! soon.
Even with doing work today I was able to get home early enough and work hard enough that I got the bulk of the waiting housework done. I cleaned toilets and did laundry and dishes and took care of the cats and cleaned up and mowed the yard and gave the dogs a bath and generally got the house back in a state of non-embarassing-stink mode, which is my favorite house mode.
I’m feeling much, much better and will do some more reading after Wallace goes to bed tonight. There’s a lot on my plate, but I’ve been working every day and in that respect I’m ahead of the game.
Also, it’s my birthday tomorrow, and I’m going to try and get away with doing minimal homework this weekend. W00T!
Funny story: The problem with my email was apparently that there was another Christine Poopyhands at the school who is still employed by the school. Her name is now Christine Chowderchunks because she’s married, but in the system all Christine Poopyhands mail is still going to her. Unfortunately there’s nothing to be done about that. She gets dibs.
They were going to make me Christine “L” Poopyhands, thinking that that would help, but unfortunately Chowderchunks’ middle initial is also “L”. Crap.
I begged them for “Krissy Poopyhands” or “Christine Poopyhands2″ or something. Unfortunately, they decided that they just had to do “Christine X Poopyhands”. And of course I had to send out an email to everyone letting them know that my email had changed. I’m not only the only one with a middle initial, but it looks damned dorky/impressive.
I am now the only one with a Speech and Language Pathology actual Superhero Name:
Krissy X
I have a hand sign and everything. Do not fuck with me.
As the week goes on I have more classes and get farther and farther behind. Although the profs didn’t give us the Syllabi until the first class, that first class has reading associated with it that, of course, we haven’t done. So in each class I have two weeks of reading to do.
I just had a class finish where she gave us four assignments. ONE of those assignments is to read 150 pages and three separate studies and be prepared to comment and respond to questions on all. Then one of the other assignments, we did a practice question and the conclusion she came to was that we couldn’t possibly know the answer. But she gave us the work to do anyway. Each class is like that.
The house is suffering from terrible neglect, the animals have not been cared for properly, and the chores aren’t done.
Right now I’m going to run out and do a couple of chores and then desperately try and get some things done before I have to get C from school. I don’t know when the cleaning/literbox stuff is going to get done.
I’m having trouble breathing. Apparently my threshold is three horribly hard classes full of undoable homework. Class number four today tipped me over the edge into flop sweat and a very, very deep sense that I simply cannot do this. I’m so jealous of everyone in my class going home to a quiet apartment with nothing to do tonight but homework or whatever else they have on the agenda.
Also, my email is broken and so I can’t verify that I’m going to school so I can’t order the Microsoft Office program that I need so everything coming to me from my fellow students and, worse, my profs, I can’t open, save or read. IT is “working on it”.
This week is not going well. Please let me hit my stride. Please.
AGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
Can’t talk! MUCHO STUDYING OH MY GOD HOW MUCH STUDYING.
Crappy bullet point update:
More later! Must go read Speech Science and try not to fall asleep and/or cry into the textbook!
KP
(Wo)man Overboard!
Well, Peeps, it was supposed to be a week of relaxation. I was going to take it easy and work hard to fix up the house, maybe get the basement office finished. Definately clean everything. I was going to be organized and well-rested and maybe even watch a movie.
Monday and Tuesday went just like that. Closets were cleaned. Things were dusted. And it was good.
Wednesday was Wallace’s birthday and from the breakfast pancakes to the fried-exhausted kid that collapsed into bed in the middle of a delightfully post-birthday-messy house, that day was an utter wash. Wallace had fun, but I ran myself down to the nubs.
Thursday was “orientation”. In fact, I discovered that Thursday and Friday would be “orientation”. Then I discovered that “orientation” on both days was, in fact, lectures from 8:00am through to 4:00pm. I took pages and pages of notes. “Orientation” it was not… it was “school”.
The past two days have been thrilling and horrifying. Thrilling in that I really think this is an amazing career. I love love love what we’re discussing. Thrilling because all the women (and one man) in my class are fantabulous people. I have yet to talk to ONE classmember that I dislike. For me, that has to be some kind of personal record. Seriously, these are amazingly cool and smart people. I’m having debates and discussion and laughing my ass off. Thrilling because I’m actually staying awake for those hours and hours of lectures and find them very interesting. Thrilling.
Horrifying because this is, without question, the most difficult task I will ever undertake. We are on a quarter system, so we have 10 weeks to learn everything in a single class. Because we’re doing patient care, we can’t learn it from the test and then go on to forget it. I have to not only take it in, but take it in in such a way that I lay down permanant neurological connections. I don’t just need to know this stuff for a grade, but because I’m going to be messing with someone’s life when they are at their most vulnerable, and that is a big fucking deal. Horrifying because almost every single professor has talked about Dr. P’s Neurology class and how mind-numbingly difficult it is. Make-you-sob difficult. Some of you might remember my relationship with undergrad Neurology. NOT MY STRONGEST SUBJECT.
Horrifying because we just spent two days getting the skinny on the next two years of work and oh holy jesus I don’t know how I’m going to do it all.
This morning we had four hours of the dumbest psychological intro to school I’ve ever had. This woman got up in front of the class. We did social getting-to-know you info about our classmates, and that was actually really helpful. Again, LOVE the classmates. Then we did some “Let’s all talk about our stressors and worries” session that I’m sure is supposed to headshrink us happy, but all it did was freak the fuck out of each and every one of us.
Instead of bonding over our shared terrors, we all sat there and said, “Oh yeah. I didn’t even think to be worried about that.” *silent, brooding panic*
Four hours of that shit.
It was so very helpful that under coping mechanisms the psychologist said to get 8 hours’ sleep a night and eat healthily and get regular exercise. Also, anything that wasn’t school was to go by the wayside. This after Wallace woke up with a cold at 5am this morning and the house is a hellhole and my husband is working a thousand hours a day. I’m supposed to not cope with any of that. I think you know that that woman can fuck right off.
When we were talking about what worried us, I said that available time for juggling home life is a big worry for me. Wallace is getting sick and it suddenly occurred to me that if TT doesn’t work, we don’t eat, but that I’m not allowed to miss classes. What the fuck do we do if Wallace gets sick?
Her: “Wow! Don’t send him places he’s going to get sick!”
*crickets chirp in the room*
Me: “What? Like, preschool?”
The psychologist doesn’t like me much. This is because I have no time for pointless fools. I HAVE NO TIME.
The past two days have been illuminating and exciting and exhausting. My brain is already getting stretched like silly putty and I’m not even, like, working with cadavers or anything yet. TERROR JOY FREAKING OUT.
And the house remains just as much a shithole as it was last week when I was still a working stiff.
I should have quit on the first.
Hello, Peeps! I am writing to you in secret from the inside of the University’s computer lab. I have successfully infiltrated the system and will begin working toward my clandestine degree shortly. Apparently I have maintained the deception and the overlords remain unaware that I am totally fucking old.
Wallace’s birthday day at home was a wild success. He had a wild good time. There are pictures, and still a Chuck E Cheese party to look forward to. As a result he is 100% completely and utterly strung out and I fully expect his teachers today to hand him to me with thick leather gloves and pliers.
Will write more soon!
Student KP
Tee hee!
Amusing story:
On Saturday we got a package from Wallace’s favorite cousin in the world. We’re keeping it closed until the 10th, but when it got here yesterday I said, “Guess what this is for, Wallace? This is your birthday present from Aunt A, Uncle F and Cousin J!”
His eyes goggled and he said, “J?? The pretty girl who lives far away who came to see me at Christmas?”
“Yes!”
“Then I will KEEP THIS VERY SAFE!”
And he picked up the box, which is easily the size of his upper body, and staggered off to his room with it. It’s now sitting in his room in a place of honor where he can keep a very close eye on it.
The joy has already begun!
Dooce takes pictures every day with a Nikon D70
I take pictures occasionally with a Sony Ericsson wireless phone.
Pic of the day
