studies: February 2008 Archives
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
