Scholarly Update

I haven't been nearly as prolific with school related posts as I was last semester. Thanks be, you say. Suck it, I say back. But now in the midst of a fairly grueling final exam period, it's time for minute-by-minute accounts of the minutiae of my school days.

So far, I've had a lab final (A&P), and a cultural diversity final, plus a few major papers/projects. It's 16 credits for me this semester, so all kinds of shit piles up at the end. The lab final, well, I rocked it, and I'm interested to know who is the one person that scored higher than I did. Not so I could triangle choke him or her, just so I would know who he or she is. Really. Like a friendly rivalry kind of thing. Friendly.

Cultural diversity (in health care, of course) final was yesterday. It started at 7.30, fifty questions. I got out to my car at 7.42. It was not too hard. I will cry bitter tears if I got any wrong. Bitter, culturally diverse tears of tolerance and cultural knowledge according to the Campinha-Bacote model. One cool thing, though, was learning about voodoo. And hoodoo, there's a difference. And I know it, so when I get a voodoo/hoodoo patient I will know if they have a gris-gris under their pillow or if they are conjuring shit up. And I wouldn't be all, "Hey, stop that conjuring shit!" No, I'd be all, "Can you tell me more about your health and wellness beliefs? And can I get you some linguistically appropriate care? " One thing I definitely wouldn't do is freak out and throw the gris-gris out the window, except it would just hit the window and fall down anticlimactically, because I would be exhibiting cultural skillz and respecting the gris-gris even if it looked like sticks and pubes tied together with a chicken foot. So it's good that I had that class, I feel more prepared in life.

I have a final Monday, human growth and development which is a weird hybrid of physical development and psychosocial issues over the lifespan. It's actually been a useful class, even though I thought it would suck and be dumb. I will be glad to be done with it, though, because of two people in it that I just do not like. And I was being culturally aware when I said do not like, because it's more like loathe or even wish to annihilate, but just in my head not in practice, and I would still help them if something unfortunate happened like them falling down the stairs at the same time and making a coconut noise as their heads knocked together. I feel confident in saying that the entire class feels the same way. They are the annoying life-story and too-much-personal-info sharers, to the point that even the teacher has to physically anchor her eyeballs when they (girls not eyeballs) talk so they (eyeballs not girls) do not roll sarcastically up into her head. It's not ok to share information about your colon and your families' colons in a class of two hundred people. It's just not. Even I know that.

Then comes the big fat biochem final, which I really need to do well on because I want an A in this class. I will need to study, though, starting now, which is hard for me to do. It is at these times that I remember my college roommates, two in particular. One studied so promptly and efficiently that you could actually hear the syllabus sing, no wait, that was her, rocking it out to the Indigo Girls while she did higher math. And the other one just worked so hard, so consistently, and so patiently that it has actually been an example for many things in my life. I think it was the first time that I actually really saw and understood that small steady incremental pieces of constant hard work add up to success. It was inspiring, to say the least, though not at the time because I sucked at that age.

Then the A&P final, which I should do well on because I've consistently been a curve destroyer up to this point, except for in class attendance which I admit is not my strong point. I was only saved from total skippage by the fun quiz show remote control clicker things that the prof had us use to answer questions in lecture. That was cool.

In the next few days, my goals are:

Study consistently and not at the last minute
Do not yell at my kids
Do not say things to my older son like, "Grow some balls." Oh wait, that already happened. Shit.
Try to eat some fruits and veggies to be smarter
Achieve high achievements
Throw a really good graduation party for my sister

I think that's all for now.