Week One Survived

Not counting Induction week, my first week at uni is finished, and all I can say is...WOW!  It's everything I hoped it would be and more.  It's so cliché, I know and for that I apologise, but I am just having the best time, there is such a big smile on my face all the time, albeit only visible through the frazzled, exhausted haze my life has become. The smile shines brightly through though.  This week has seen plenaries (lectures) on conception in culture, anatomy of the reproductive systems and pelvis, reproductive ethics and mitosis/meiosis; Life Science sessions on medical imaging, anatomical language embryology of the reproductive systems, the menstrual cycle, spermatogenisis and oogenisis; an essay handed in two days early (nerd that I am) and my first PBL revealing a case on the topic of conception.  Wow :)  Embryology was one of my favourite topics, and I'm so happy that things are coming flooding back to me, rather than struggling to learn them for the first time.  I am certainly glad I did a degree first, actually.  It was definitely the best way for me to do it.  I'm not afraid of hard work, and I know how to take lecture notes, which everyone else seems to be struggling with.

The work load is tough, I can't lie about that - there's so much to do although I do keep forgetting a case unit lasts two weeks so I have twice as much time as I think I do, sort of.  Bearing in mind I don't know what new stuff there will be next week yet... Argh, anyway, tough as it is, I'm loving it.  It's so nice to be back studying again, and to be studying things that are really interesting to me - this must be what it was like for everyone else who picked degrees they liked and got in first time.  I can sit down to study and look up three hours later thirsty and wonder where the time went.  It's awesome!  This was definitely the right course for me too.  I love how everything is taught with a bit of science and then here's the clinical context, straight away.  I went to a plenary on pelvic anatomy, I watched Aclands Dissection videos that we have access to online, I coloured in the anatomy colouring book, I played with models and felt the landmarks on my life science partner and I can now say that I fully understand the anatomy of the pelvis.  It's amazing.  I've never had that sort of clarity built by seeing things many times from different angles before.  Everything is built up, bit by bit and there's lots of cross over between sessions, but with a different slant, so instead of being repetitive, it's clarifying - you see one bit and then it's built upon because this other bit you're learning about is connected to it in some way.  I really hope I can stay this enthusiastic about the course.  I see other medics on TSR complaining about modules of their course, but mine is taught so differently from theirs, I hope it stays this interesting.

My beautiful God-daughter, Irys

In non-medic related news, Mr came down last weekend for my God-daughter's Christening, and he was down this weekend because it was our 3 year anniversary.  We went out for a meal Friday night, Saturday night I cooked for him - gnocchi and bolognese, all cooked from scratch I'm proud to say and enjoyed with wine and Seven Pounds, a Will Smith film I've been waiting to see for ages.  Sunday morning I cooked him his favourite breakfast in bed and then we took a wander up into town.  It was a lovely weekend and it was really nice to see the mr.  My housemates were looking jealously on as I cooked for my mr, and the little bean in my head was saying, well that's what you get having a steady girlfriend instead of a string of girls you pick up in clubs.  Catty bean :p

I'm feeling really lucky at the moment - I'm on a great course, making lovely new friends, with a fantastic mr, and only a few marly points.  Most recently being the fantastic people at SFE who decided to do a manual re-calc of my entitlement and pull my funding for the rest of the year "because my course dates changes"  Wha....? 0_0  Cue one very polite, quietly simmering, angry phone call and a hasty apology, "I have no idea why they did that, I'll put you in for another re-calc tomorrow.  It'll take 4-6 weeks to come through."  Stupid people...

I'm off for a shower before my first placement tomorrow and then blast through some more PBL questions.  Have an awesome week people, I hope my excitement rubs off on you and things go your way.  Good luck for the UCAS deadline potential medics!!!  It is totally worth it.