Recently in studies Category
I've been at "Mungbean High" for 5 weeks now. Although I was sick for one of them, I managed to catch up. Now, imagine my suprise when I was told last week we are having our Nutr1a module 1 week EARLIER! I thought that this was going to kill me (and probably will) and decided to sit down and write out my top 10 lists. I smell an eBook coming!
Step 1. Put off reviewing your notes as long as possible
Step 2. Procrastination is the key to success
Step 3. Drink LOTS of red wine, and eat LOTS of Lebanese food two nights before your exam
Step 4. The night before the exam, spend as much time in the sun as possible. Then get home and highlight all 100 pages of learning material you need to absorb. Don't read it until 10 minutes before bed.
Step 5. After passing out, you wake at 6am with the study notes glued to your face with saliva (and you now know, this is classed as "chemical digestion" but paper has no nutritional value)
Step 6. When you should be working, book a meeting room for 3 hours and pour over the material. Put on a stern look of concentration and have the phone headset on so people won't come in and bother you with inane requests.
Step 7. Panic that you'll forget how many calories in a gram of carbohydrates, and what the hell do lipids do?
Step 8. Arrive at college 20 minutes before the "big exam" after working a full day.
Step 9. Chain smoke your last 12 cigarettes and gulp down a bottle of listerine, douse yourself in deodorant and walk inside to confront the "Tofu-Chomping Bondi-Barbies" who undoubtedly, have done more preparation and are now sitting smugly awaiting to crush your spirit with their fake manolos and hair extensions.
Step 10. Shut up, and spend the next 100 minutes on 80 multiple choice, short answer and case study questions. Glare silently at the bitch who continually coughs throughout the exam, hoping your super powers will cripple their pharynx.
Step 11. Finish your exam, slowly get up and walk out, casually sauntering past the pub, stopping in for "just one drink" with your college pates. 3 hours later you're still there.
Step 12. Spontaneously combust in flames when you get your mark the next week.
So, fingers crossed that my first exam on Nutrition1a is a success.
B
Okay, so the first week of college is over and done with. I am now well into the second week and have time to sit down and evaluate how the hell this is going to work.
Monday the 11th - the first day.
Running late for the train, I trip on a glass bottle, regain my balance and literally jump through the closing doors. It's raining - great! Just what I needed.
5:50PM. I get to the entrance of the college - nervous as hell about the first night - chain smoke about 4 cigarettes (something I haven't done in many years) spray myself with deodorant and casually walk into the campus.
6:01pm. After the lift ride from hell in the "slowest lifts in surry hills" I get from the ground to level 3 and pour myself through the door of the lecture room. A dozen heads look up, then look back down.
"Oh crap, they're all healthy types" I say to myself as I take a seat at the back of the class. The lecturer walks in and proceeds to introduce herself, and begins her first method of humiliation - the "introduce yourself" talk. 20 minutes and a dozen "i'm better than you ares'" later I introduce myself as someone who loves food, and wants to teach others to love food.
The class goes fairly quickly with information overload - we get our assingment outline which isn't due for another month, alas it's going to be easy enough - PROVIDING I can figure out how the hell to structure a "modified essay".
For someone who hasn't done secondary education in a long long time, i'm going to have to fly by the seat of my pants for the first assingment it seems. We leave early that night - all newly educated in micro and macronutrients. I forget everything the second I leave campus.
I spend until 2am wide awake, wired and terrified.
Wednesday the 13th - Anatomy of Chemistry hell.
Very very tired - and it's only the second day. A smaller class of people - but a few regulars. Hmm, looks like a lot of keen potentials doing nutritional medicine like me.
We breeze through the first anatomy lesson, it looks pretty straightforward and fascinating. Things like the "body plane" should be easy enough to retain. One thing of annoyance is the lecturer not noting or hinting what will be in the exam. That causes me grief to think i'd have to re-read the whole bloody module the night before!
Then we get onto chemistry. Now, for someone who was never good at math - I freaked at the idea of calculations, especially moving decimal points around. Everyone in the class was shouting out the answers while I was still working out the first one... Fuck... i'm screwed!
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So that was the first week over with. I'm now into the second week, and oddly enough managed to retain a lot of information from Mondays nutrition lecture - I can now, in gory detail tell someone exactly what their digestive system looks like - and how that slice of pizza goes from their mouth, to the sewers below.
More when i'm awake... i'm off to Chemistry/Anatomy tonight and will no doubt spontaneously combust in flames - or by calculation 1.0=10^5000
W
So, after spending a considerable amount of time on the phone with Xena* who seduced me into signing a small bank loan for 1 semester fee of $2,900, I now have a module notes DVD, an enrolment form, and a timetable.
The first day "on campus" won't be till Feb 11th, however I decided to take the day off this week and head to the orientation day to get the vibe of the place. So far, I am anything but disappointed. It's a haphazard Dickens's sweatshop of natural therapy students, eccentric lecturers, really really hot student officers and BEST of all, my class is going to be right next to the fitness studio!
After sticking my head in that room and seeing wall-to-wall beefcake fitness diploma wannabes, I realised I made the right decision to study face to face.
The lectuers are eccentric, healthy types who walk around with a certain air of confidence and laid back attitude. The learning is going to be logical. What I didn't count on was the fact for every 8 hours on campus, I have 10 hours of "homework" . Oops!
So, My new home Mondays, Wednesdays 6-10pm and eight saturdays through the year welcomed me, my credit card, and my open mind to come study.
Now, if only I can get over the ridiculous prices of Anatomy textbooks...
More on my first day when it comes.
*Names changed to protect the innocent
Yes, that is a very good question. Why study indeed! I spent 17 years of my life from 6-23 learning, studying, fighting kids at school, all to reach the end with a B.comms degree in journalism which is basically worthless since I haven't done anything with it.
So, why would I study herbal medicine? Everybody thinks i'm crazy and wasting my time because it's completely different from the fast-paced world of tabloid journalism.
The above is a mix of traditional chinese herbs and flowers which you can mix in with hot water. This small handful will alleviate: Mild hay-fever, Stomach cramps and anxiety attacks. The effectiveness of each ailment is dependant on how much brandy is included in the hot drink of course!
I've preferred traditional medicines to conventional western drugs for as long as I can recall. One day, I woke up and had a feeling that there is some healing capabilities and that I need to figure out best how to harness and use them.
The tough call now is, will my diploma be worthless after i've spent $18,000 over three years? Will I be able to work for myself? The easy part is the study, the hard part is figuring out what to do with it afterwards. I certainly don't want to make the same mistake I did when I went to uni (at a cost of $28,700) only to not use it. Luckily, what I learned at uni will come in handy when it comes to dealing with people.
I'm currently doing my first three modules, Bach Flower Remedies, Nutrition 1a and Anatomy (which is fascinating) and have to January 2008 to complete. Luckily, i'm halfway through!
So, the bottom line is, I have to sit down and decide this year what I want to do with my life post study, do I:
- Continue studying herbal medicine, finish and then learn acupuncture, becoming one of the few "western" practitioners around in Sydney who can also dispense treatments
- Open a "refresh" business with a friend who is an upcoming fitness consultant, dealing with the physical, metaphysical and emotional wellbeing of people through nutrition, herbs and fitness
- Complete the diploma and upgrade it to a B.natural medicine degree and become one of hundreds, if not thousands of Naturopaths.
The toughest part about doing all this, is that most natural practitioners have a "niche" they specialise in. I know mine is supposed to be healing, but what kind of healing? Perhaps, the engine that is the body is what needs to be healed... time will tell.
So, this is my first post of my new blog. Welcome, welcome!
What's the purpose of being here you ask? I wouldn't have the foggiest myself, but I do know that with my studies I will discover many things worth sharing. Time will tell.
