Semester Number 4

Today I began my 4th semester of college (I suppose 5th is you count the 7 hours I took this summer). It is kind of weird. I still feel like a freshman a lot of the time. I had 3 classes today, and a lab. Here is the 411 on what is going down so far.

1. Microbiology: I am pretty intimidated by this class, but I am actually looking forward to it. I absolutely LOVE my professor. He is awesome. He used to teach med school classes (and he himself is a doctor, of course), so he knows what's up. He did not try and shy away from the fact that this class is going to be incredibly difficult... but I am ok with it I think. He truly loves what he is teaching and his enthusiasm rubs off on us all I think. We had a time for Q&A today, but I sat quietly, as usual. I would have considered talking if I could have thought of a question. Oh well. He assured us that we will get sick many times this semester, seeing as how we will be working with bacterias and viruses in lab. He also pointed out that a lot of the organisms we will be working with could kill us... so we need to make sure to follow safety procedure. Ha. Tight. I know this class will be very difficult, but I am looking forward to it. He is also putting an emphasis on making this a "medical microbiology" class, considering 99% of the students are going into the medical field. That helps make this more exciting, because it will be very practical. I think I will learn a lot from this class!

2. Wellness Lifestyles: This is probably the single most pointless class I will take in my time at obu. It is basically a cross between highschool health and P.E., but it is required, so here I am. It is only 1 credit hour, and definitely won't be difficult, just unnecessary. Luckily, it only meets Mondays and Wednesdays, which is nice. There isn't to much to say about this class. Although, there is a guy in my class from New Orleans. I really wanted to talk to him about the Saints... but he was on the other side of the room and I am such an introvert these days. Maybe I will work up to it one day? haha

3. Lit of the Western World: This is the lit portion of Civ. I already had a history credit, so I got out of Civ for this semester. This seems like a basic lit course. A ton of reading, of course, and daily quizzes, but it isn't horrid. This will be work, sure, but I am not too worried about the class overall.

4. Microbiology Lab: We actually had lab today, which I was not expecting. We went over some safety procedures, seeing as how half of the stuff we will be playing with in lab could infect us and kill us ;). Then we took samples of various things (I swabbed the inside of my mouth, for example) and put it in a petri dish and put it in the incubator. We will examine it next week in lab. We also looked at various specimens under the microscope. Nothing challenging today, but it will get harder. We have two projects during lab. The first, we create our own experiment. The second lab (which is way cooler) will be towards the end of the semester. We are given an unknown pathogen and a patient history. We will have to use the microscope to examine the specimen, look for clues in the patients symptoms and history and use our knowledge about various bacterias and viruses to make a diagnosis. That should be really cool, actually!

All in all the first day went well. I am exhausted, but such is life. Plenty of homework to keep me busy tonight. ;)

Tomorrow I have Arts and Ideas, my skills lab for intro to nursing and jazz and hip-hop. I will post about those tomorrow sometimes. On Wednesday I have my intro to nursing class, which I am sure I will mention at a later date as well. Here we go with the semester... full speed ahead!

Oh yes, and the most important thing of all...

THE NEW ORLEANS SAINTS ARE GOING TO THE SUPERBOWL!!!!!!!!!

Who Dat! :)

The Saints game was very possibly the single most, emotionally taxing, 4 hour period of my life. I didn't handle it well at all. Ha. I paced around my room the whole time, never once sitting down. I talked (very calmly) to each Saints player and shared my hopes and dreams with them. When the fourth quarter came, my whole body was shaking so bad I could hardly support my own weight. I couldn't pick anything up, because my trembling hands would just drop it. My heart was racing faster then it ever had. I almost couldn't bear to watch the field goal. It was ridiculous. But then, they won! I wish I could have video taped my reaction, because I will never be able to reenact it again. The happiness I felt was overwhelming. It was beautiful.