Staying alive, staying alive

YAY! A breather. I miss being able to blog every day. These days I may not get on a computer at all. The days of spending 10 hours sitting in the same chair staring at my monitor seem so far away now. Like a dream. In fact it feels like those entire 8 years were a dream and that now I've woken up to my real life. Only bad thing is I'm 8 years older hahah! Seriously, though I may whine about feeling overwhelmed I still prefer this 10000 times to what I was doing before. I can't even believe that I did that for so long!

We're just about halfway done with the semester already. And you know what that means - MIDTERMS!! The reason I have a few seconds to type this up right now is that I took my first one tonight. It was for Biology Lab. I may have mentioned before that we dissected fetal pigs. We also spent some time doing some histology (looking at tissues under slides). Our midterm consisted of 30 "stations". At each station was either a microscope or a pig (or part of one). The 10 microscope stations had unidentified slides in them. We had to first identify the tissue (e.g. kidney vs. pancreas). Then we had to identify what the structure the microscope pointer was pointing to. There were also some function questions like "what is the function of the cells in part a?" The pig stations had 5 pins each. Each pin would be set within a structure that we needed to identify (If you want to see VERY graphic pictures of it go here, but be warned that they may be disturbing). We were quizzed on absolutely everything from major organs, exotic side views, and every single artery/vein. Oh, and we were given only 90 seconds at each station. Boy, did those minutes and a half fly! After that stressful hour we then had an hour of essays. We were asked things like "describe the path that a CO2 molecule would take from the fetus's skull to outside the mother's nose" and "what are the ramifications of a fetus forming without a foramen ovale". I am sooooo glad that test is over. Though it is technically the easiest of my three midterms it was also the most stressful one because of the format of the test. I think I fared out ok which is good because I'm hoping that motivates me for all the studying that lies ahead. I have to study a good 8-10 hours each day for the next week. *gulp*

My Organic chemistry exam is on Monday and Biology is on Thursday. I am loving the orgo material right now but our professor is notorious for making her tests impossible. The mean in our first one was a 52/100! So I need to overstudy. Biology will also be very difficult and long as we're doing the ugliest topics (glycolysis/Kreb's cycle in all their gory detail) . Oh and I am very behind in that class. So what else is new.

Speaking of being behind and feeling bad about myself. This morning I was in a particularly foul mood. When I got on campus I was overwhelmed by a desire to practice. I had my oboe with me because I was expecting to stay around late. So instead of going to the library to study for my upcoming test I checked into a walk-in practice room. I hadn't played in 3 days which is the longest non-playing stretch I've had since returning to school. As soon as I took out the instrument and played the first few notes I teared up. It was a mixture of sadness, hapiness, and rapture all at the same time. At that moment I was so grateful to be doing exactly what I wanted to be doing. I had missed my oboe so much and I was so happy that I was still able to play. I realized yet again how music is indeed my true love. It's going to be a continual and painful struggle for me to balance things so that I can make time for it. But for that moment time froze and it was just me and Luna. And the world seemed absolutely perfect. Even my reed cooperated with me during my session and did not sag in pitch in the upper register. I was able to get a nice, well-rounded 70 minute practice session in: long tones, scales, technical exercises, and an etude. I emerged from there feeling refreshed and at peace. This allowed me to devote 3 intense hours to going over the material before the exam. I went in with a much more positive attitude than I would have had I not practiced.

The dental vs. medical battle has been raging at full force ever since I've been back at school. Days like today I feel very strongly that though I may be more interested in medicine from an intelletual point of view, that I HAVE to follow the path which allows more favorable lifestyle (i.e. dentistry). Why is it so hard for me to let go of the physician thing and just settle into dentistry happily?

I just need more days like today where it is 100 percent clear what is most important to me. Because then the choice is obvious.

Anyway, today has been good. I had a nice practice session which invigorated me and I think I did ok on my first test. If I can get to next Thursday I will have yet another chance to get my butt in gear and stay on top of things so that I can play more.