Yeah, I’m in the School of Pharmacy. Nothing’s stopping me now. I got the world by the ass, don’t I?!
So maybe you’ve noticed the frequency of blog posts has dropped precipitously. Well, let’s chalk that up the full schedule I gave myself. Fourteen credit hours of pharmacy classes. Pretty light? That’s what I thought. So i’ll just add three credit hours from the TA-ing, four credit hours for physics 221 (but that’s not really four credit hours; I already took AP Physics.) That can’t get that bad, hmm?
Well, I was wrong. Here’s a graph showing how wrong I was.
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| Of a 168-hour week, this is my projected activity taking into account the “three hours outside class for every credit hour you take” rule. Also assumed is the ten-minute struggle to campus each day. |
As you can see, this doesn’t leave much room for anything. Anything I do outside of the listed activites needs to come from the Classwork slice. This include laundry, dishwashing, general cleaning, bicycle maintenance, and various other errands.
As for the actual classes, I feel like a wizard. Not “whiz”, wizard. The “expelliarmus” kind. There’s funny clothes with big sleeves, special powers (keypad access to the student lounge!) and “muggles”( or “patients” if you prefer). Then there’s legislation and protocol, a pervasive “it’s a small industry” sentiment, and of course, potions class in the dungeon. We keep getting hit in the face with the notion that we’re professionals now and people entrust us with their lives. Yes, that’s all well and good, but 7:30 is too damn early to be starting into the heavy stuff. Can’t we have 15 minutes or so that we can learn to sit up straight and breathe on our own again? This time of day is very unnatural to us.
Not to mention the fact that we’re stuck in the same room on infamously uncomfortable chairs from 7:30 to 11:20, allotted a two hour break, then asked to return for another lecture. There’s a reason I sit in that chair for 4 hours scowling, go TA a section, and come back and scowl for another hour and half two days a week. It’s because I know my learning drops off after several hours, not to mention I don’t have enough time to consume enough calories to keep me going. By 2:30, I am literally blacking out. Looking back there are giant holes in my memory. It’s terrifying but a little fun. I can’t wait to open up my binder to find what disjointed and enigmatic notes I jotted down. (Why did I circle “the”?) This must be what heavy drinking is like.
There was also the pomp and pageantry of the white coat ceremony. I had to step away from my textbooks one Sunday afternoon, whip on my formal attire and wizard robe, and bike through downtown to a stuffy auditorium filled with beaming parents screaming out for pomp and pageantry.
After we filed across the stage, (and I desperately hoped that no one noticed how I screwed up their perfect little ceremony protocol), I saw the faculty member on the end reach in to a box and hand his compatriot a shiny metal blade with a handle.
“Am I about to get shanked?” I thought as I slowed my step slightly trying quickly to recall my horoscope from that morning.
No, it wasn’t a shiv; it turned out to be one of these.
It must be for counting pills or something. And it’s symbolic since they didn’t give us a pill tray or anything. I guess that means I can’t make sandwiches with it.