Just Call Me Patient Zero

It looks like I've been circulating in a whole new pool of germs, and falling prey to most of them.

While writing my bio midterm last Wednesday night I started coughing and had to excuse myself in the middle of the test. I didn't think too much about it, (other than I was losing valuable minutes!) Well that cough lingered on and a severe head cold settled in. As usual, I proceeded to ignore it -- proving I am the worst patient ever (according to my nurse/sister who is staying with me, along with her husband and kids.)

I continued to drag myself through the scheduled visits with friends I had stacked up for this past long weekend, since I had dropped off the radar screen while getting ready for exams. By Monday, however, I wasn't just dragging with a cold, I turned a corner and got sicker than I've ever been in my life. I now know what "fatigue" means...not just dragging, but STOPPED. In fact, my will went with my energy and I didn't even have the strength to worry about my looming chem exam. I struggled up the 220 steps to get to the doctor, and being out in the cold air made my lungs feel like I was breathing razor blades. Fever, chills, racking cough. I think I cracked a rib from all the coughing, no lie.

Doc says its pneumonia. And whatever bug I had quickly passed to my sister, her husband and my little niece. I'm crossing my fingers that mom doesn't get it...

Just call me Patient Zero.

I've been in bed a week and now have a week's worth of school work to catch up on. Sigh. The only saving grace has been that we've had a couple of snow days, so I technically only missed 2 school days. But it is still going to be a rough go catching up.

Somehow I need to go teach myself logarithms, write up some labs, study for chem and write a psych test...sigh. Well the snow has reminded me that it's not spring (break) yet!

Dropping Like Flies

It's midterm week and I am getting ready for my hated biology exam tomorrow night.

Dread dread dread.

Sounds like a couple of my buddies from class will likely drop before the add/drop deadline this Friday since they are doing poorly in class. Not that I'm doing all that great, but I intend to hang on and fight through, especially since we are at the half-way mark. I keep reminding myself that I just need a C to move on. Still, it makes me sad to see so many of my class mates suffering with this tough prof. One kid is a pizza delivery driver putting himself through school to become a nurse. Very hard worker. Immigrated from the Ukraine when he was a kid, and because english is his 2nd language, he's having a rough go.

Part of me is jealous they are dropping. But I'll fight through that and just press on. As my esteemed ex-husband used to say... anybody can stand on their head in a bucket of sh-- for a short time. (That's what the cadets used to tell each other at the Air Force Academy apparently.

Luckily we have a long weekend coming up, and my sister and her babies are here for cuteness distractions. I'll do plenty of catching up with friends this weekend before digging in for the second half of this quarter.

Counting down the days until this class is behind me.

Trudge trudge trudge.

My Mistake

Okay. 

I got a public talking-to. 

By my professor. 

Seems I grabbed the wrong tube in my biology lab last night. We were mashing up hamburger, straining it off with water, and running tests on in. (Very gory and disgusting.) So we needed to set up a batch of test tubes. And even though he explained the differences between the expensive cuvettes (only for use in the spectrophotometers) and plain old test tubes (to be used for my meat juice,) and even though it was also in my lab write up, I still managed to go for the wrong tubes.

It was like I had kicked his dog.

True, I had just come off 72 hours prepping for his exam, so I may have only skimmed the pre-lab write up. And true, I was operating on very little sleep and a whole lotta caffeine and missed a detail, but come ON man. Throw a girl a bone. So I got meat juice in your cuvette!?  Nobody lost an eye. I didn't release anthrax out on the general public. And we all came out alive.

As it was, I went about my business, finished running my experiment, and am now performing a public service for all biology students who come after me.

Just so you'll know, and never repeat my grievous error...here's a photo that will demonstrate their obvious difference:

Hey...don't say I didn't warn ya.

But seriously folks, he was obviously having a bad day. Otherwise, I enjoy lab with this prof quite a bit. I'm sure I couldn't deal with college kids in five classes and not gnash my teeth at them periodically. 

Plus I'll need to grow a thicker skin. I am going into nursing. I am bound to encounter testy patients, families and medical personnel on a regular basis. And I'll need to learn to roll with it. And I'm going to need to keep my eye on the details!

And I will.