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"Rise and Shine, Andrew".
It took 4 tries and 20 minutes to get him to shake a leg.
We are just not morning people.
I made it downstairs, turned on the coffee pot and listened for the sounds of Andrew moving while I pulled my hair up into a ponytail.
Alex and Amanda were my next victims:
"Rise and Shine guys!"
"5 more minutes, pleeeease"
"nope...up, up, up....face the day!"
groan.
I laid out clothing for Aidan and Zoe next to Thomas, who was still sleeping (with Aidan and Zoe cuddled up next to him), grabbed my books, made sure everyone had breakfast, got Andrew into the car, and headed out the door. I dropped Andrew off at the bus stop and reviewed my anatomy note cards while we waited for the bus. Once he was securely on board, I called home and made sure that Thomas was up and that Alex got out to the bus stop.
I got to campus early enough to get a decent parking space and then made the trek to the classroom. I had about 20 minutes left before class started, so I tried to focus myself on the class by pulling out my notes.
Blank.
When that didn't seem to click, I grabbed some of the articles that we were responsible for.
Blank.
Once the classroom door was unlocked, I grabbed my seat and tried to look interested.
"Put away your notebooks and take out a pen or pencil. You will be enjoying another pop quiz."
Fabulous.
"Ummm, Dr. S, that is the same quiz that we took last week" ventured a brave soul from the back of the classroom.
"Well, yes it is. Thanks for noticing. But, since only 4 people out of 100 got the question quiz correct last week, I decided to give it again. Of course, you all came to me with your excuses, but lets get a few things straight.
I wasted 2 hours of my time on Saturday grading these quizzes and the lab quizzes. You all did terribly. I would suggest that 60% of you drop the class altogether. Since this is a class for pre-professional students wanting to go into healthcare, I'd like to also suggest that most of you in this class need to reconsider your career choice.
That's ok . There are other places for you to use your skills...healthcare just isn't one of them for most of you."
He went on to add:
"I don't care what your reasons are for not learning the information. I am not interested. The only thing that I am interested in is your knowledge in anatomy. It does not matter to me what is going on in your life. Your grade will soley be based on your knowledge."
After that spanking, we took the quiz..which I fortunately rocked this time around.
Lab was a little less interesting. We dissected a cow's knee (which in itself could have been interesting) in groups of 7. Unfortunately, I somehow ended up in a group of young kids who were very rough with our knee, and ignored everything that I said. When I found the patella, they ignored me...then finally told me I was wrong. I ended up being right.
Later, we were looking for the ACL and PCL ligaments. I saw them in the joint quite clearly and commented on them.
"No, that's wrong"...
The professor came by later and I asked him about the ligaments that I found.
"Those are the ACL and PCL"
Ahem. That's what I thought. It was really a wasted morning of lab.
I feel very uncertain about the lab test coming up on Thursday. My memory isn't what it used to be...my focus is off...I'm too busy with the kids...and Thomas has struggled to become more supportive. We have have had limited time in lab to look at the different bones and my chances are over. The next time I see those bones, it will be in a testing environment. Boohoo for me. I have notecards, a study guide that I made, a skeleton and skull that I bought....but...it's just not doing it for me. My self-confidence is kind of on the blah side right now too. I keep pumping myself up and studying what I know...and then I try and go back to the bones of the skull or areas that I know less well and my confidence plummets.
I hear what the professor said over and over again in my mind "Some of you just don't belong here."
I don't want to be down on myself, but maybe I don't belong there. I have too much on my plate with the kids. It's making me crabby and resentful, which isn't a good thing either. I have been very short-tempered this week. Maybe I'm just not smart enough anymore...I really feel like I just can't do it. I'm so type-A when it comes to studying for tests...my outlines and notecards are really pretty dead-on...but once I take a break from looking at them, the information just falls right out of my brain. I hope that I don't completely fall on my face on Thursday. Instead of studying this evening, I've been relaxing..and even surfing the web. I promised myself that I would blog and then get to it...so I will. I just need to transition from the kids to studying too...There aren't enough hours in the day.
As we were leaving the lab today, the professor let us know that we will be having an open lab period tomorrow morning at 7AM to review before the exam. "Grades in the course correlete quite strongly with attendance in open lab", he chided.
He made it clear that he doesn't care about our circumstances....but it is obvious that he has a wife who gets his children out the door each morning. There is now way on this earth that I can be at the lab at 7AM
I don't want to sound crabby...but I'm just feeling a little apprehensive about it all. I find myself bouncing between "you can do this" and tears....there isn't much middle ground. I want to learn it...I want to understand it...I am just afraid that I can't do it and am frustrated to be at this place right now. Of course, this is a good problem to have. I know that.
My echo on Monday turned out to be normal (yeah!). I don't imagine needing to check it again for at least another year or more. Tomorrow is my CT...which I anticipate will be normal too...I guess the good news is that I'm so busy feeling crabby about class that I haven't given the CT a second thought! LOL
Well...I promised myself that I would study. Now that I have gotten this off of my chest, I think I can find my groove...I hope!