Before I get to more serious stuff, I need to get something off my chest:
OMIGOSH-I-CAN'T-BELIEVE-FRESHMAN-YEAR-IS-OVER!!!! ONE-YEAR-DOWN-AND-TEN-MORE-TO-GO!!!!!
*cough-cough* Okay. I feel better. Now I can proceed.
On August 23 of last year (only a couple of posts ago; I know - I need to write more) I wrote about my anxiety over college. I actually wrote the following words:
"Don't worry. In a fortnight, I'll be blogging about how wonderful college is and how great and sunny my existence is turning out to be."
Well, it's been more than a fortnight, and college isn't exactly a sunny wonderland, but it's not the hellish existence I feared it would be. The light bulbs in the bathroom have been out for over a week, there is almost no school pride, and the library is only open 'till 11:45 pm, but I rather like UTPA. Tuition is cheap, it only takes about ten minutes to get to class from waking in bed to arriving, the cafeteria occasionally has whole-wheat noodles, the professors are accessible, the LAC is helpful (Mr. Mike and Dean are wonderful!), Carlos works here as a TA (FYI, Carlos is the greatest TA to have ever lived), and I get to see my family and Yorkie every weekend.
That post from last year reminded me of something about this new chapter of my life. It reminded me that this chapter, too, will end in three short years and another anxiety-inducing chapter will begin: medical school. It reminded me that I need to enjoy and make the most of where I am and what I am doing because it won't last forever.
All in all, it's been a very good year (whoa - I just thought of that Frank Sinatra song!). Now without further ado, I present the Freshman Year Recap, which is a list of some of the things I've done in the past school year.
Freshman Year Recap:
1) Made friends
2) Got stains on my lab coat
3) Went to the hospital (I really wish I had better veins. I think my nickname is going to become "pincushion")
4) Survived Dr. Wedig's lab
5) Didn't have to take psychology
6) Stayed up 'till 4:00 am finishing a biology report
7) Stayed up 'till 3:00 am studying for A&P
8) Drank an undisclosed amount of coffee
9) Learned that coffee demineralizes your bones. (oh, yippee.)
10) Won 1st place (unopposed) at a state HOSA competition.
11) Ran to class
12) Reached into various buckets and pulled out kidneys, brains, and dead creatures (that smelled of formaldehyde). The kidney bucket was the worse.
13) Spammed Noora and Laraib's Facebook walls.
14) Watched pigeons grow and leave the nest
15) Lived in the Troxel dormitory during its last year
16) Went to Moonbeans with Katie and Joana; drank iced coffee, played card games and learned new threats ("Jesus loves you and so do I, but you're going DOWN." Don't ask and you won't know).
17) Learned that anything you don't study WILL be on the test. It's a universal, unwritten law.
18) Learned that India won the World Cricket Championship
19) Learned lots of Biology, Chemistry, and A&P.
20) Learned how to use an ATM machine. *SIGH* That day will forever live in my memory . . . and NOT for positive reasons.
Top 7 Things I Still Don't Understand:
1) How Dr. Edwards has more than 206 bones in his body
2) Why there are random coins cemented into the walkway.
3) If the change machine is ever going to give back the $3.75 it stole from me
4) Why spell check thinks "glucose" and "fructose" are okay but counts "galactose" as incorrect?
5) How people can study all this biology and still insist that the universe wasn't designed
6) Why the crossing signs at the intersection don't let you get back to the UTPA side of the street.
7) Why people who write graffiti go to the library
This year has been great and next year will be even better. In the words of the tenth Doctor, "Allons-y!!!"
