The Dog Days of Summer….

… are over and the start of the new semester is right around the corner.  I have been trying to enjoy the last few days of freedom before my classes start on Monday, but I am still not ready!  It seems like this summer has flown by so fast I feel like I didn’t even have one!  I’m sure taking the C.N.A class in June is the main cause of this feeling, but it was worth it. I caught up on some reading I have been wanting to do and some movie watching.  I even managed to organize a few things around the house to prepare for moving.  I sort of feel like I have been in a nesting mode the past week. 

This semester I am taking elementary statistics and pathophysiology.  I already have homework.  Boo!   My pathophysiology professor is going to Beijing next month for research, and to make up some class time, he has already posted the first lecture and materials for us to review (he webcasts his lectures and posts them after class).  I haven’t taken a class where the professor has used this method, but so far I really like the sound of it.  Mainly because if I get a second job and have to work on a night that I have class, I won’t miss anything, plus he is going to be starting class an hour early on Wednesday’s in order to make up some additional time and since I can’t leave work that early  I can catch it on the web.  I watched the first lecture last night and I can already tell this class will be challenging.  I was watching the video and felt that he was moving through the material pretty quickly, and I’m not sure if it was because he was “lecturing” in his office and thus no audience to judge comprehension, or if that is really his method.  He also does not require a book and provides all of the notes and material needed, which means I will have to figure out a good way to study. He has a list of questions to review as we are studying, and most of the exam questions will come from this list, so at least I will know what I need to study.  Last semester I would go to class, take notes, and then use the textbook as a supplement to fill in anything that needed to be expanded upon.  This worked great for me and I felt I really understood the material which helped immensely during exams when I came to a question that we didn’t really go over in class.  I still want to use this method, but since there is no assigned textbook, I think the best way may be to use the review questions as a guide and answer them as detailed as possible.  Just because I have a list of review questions which ask something as simple as, “What is a gamete?” doesn’t mean that I will have the same “easy” question on the exam.  I will need to know what a gamete is, how many chromosomes it has and which method of reproduction it utilizes.  This is where a textbook would come in handy. 

Anyway, enough about my boring study methods.  This weekend we are going to go camping at Lake Wilson.  I have never been there, but I guess it is one of the nicer lakes in Kansas.  We decided to go camping this weekend to do one last fun thing before classes start and there is no time for fun.  Ok, I’m exaggerating a little bit, but it is the end of summer as we know it and we wanted to do one last fun thing while we had a chance.  The only bad thing is because it has been so dry there is a burn ban, which means no campfire.  Camping just isn’t the same without a fire, but I’m sure we will make do.   Break out the sweatshirts and sweatpants!