Week Four: Snow Days!?

Hard to believe that I’ve been back in school for an entire month now! It does not feel like it has been a month. Actually, it feels incredibly surreal. Routine-wise it feels like I’ve been doing this for years. I’ve become that settled into getting up, going to school, class timing, coming home, and relaxing/homework. Knowledge wise though, I feel like I haven’t learned anything because it is becoming second nature so quickly. Not that that’s a bad thing, mind you. Just two very opposing timeline sensations going on at the moment, which makes this feel surreal. Honestly, I’m very excited that things are becoming second nature so fast, because it means that the teaching is efficient and effective.

This past week was interrupted by Snowpocolypse 2017 in the form of Stella the Blizzard. Tuesday we were dumped with close to 3′ of snow in my area, and surrounding areas received varying amounts. So there was no school on Tuesday. To my surprise though, there was also no school on Wednesday. I expected morning class to be cancelled (I have one in the morning, and one in the afternoon) because of the snow, but not my afternoon one. Since the snow was coming down pretty hard until late into Tuesday, and states of emergency were declared all over the state (meaning hired plows weren’t going to be able to get to parking lots because that wasn’t considered essential travel), I didn’t expect they’d have the school plowed out until the afternoon. What started as a 2hr delay for Wednesday was turned into a no morning classes, but staff report at noon. So I figured that meant I had my afternoon class. Another student interpreted this differently (I found out through Facebook), and that put doubt in my mind. So I called one of my instructors to ask, and sure enough they consider my afternoon class as part of the morning! So the only class that was happening was the 6pm class (part time evening). Instead of one snow day, I got two! Can’t lie, it was pretty awesome to have snow days for the first time in a long time. And we’re totally blaming them on our A&P instructor who, at the beginning of the first class, announced that the syllabus should be good to go because we were free and clear of snow days at that point. Haha, guess not!

Aside from the snow days though, it was an eventful week. In Myology we have begun learning about specific, small regions. So the first part are the bones of the hand. All the phalanx with the carpals, plus metacarpals, plus the eight bones in your hand with their own names. Those are the Scaphoid, Lunate, Triquetrum, Pisiform, Trapizium, Trapizoid, Capitate, and Hamate. Possibly spelled incorrectly by a letter here or there, but you get the idea (and I get to re-write them for memory). We also learned the associated joints, which are much simpler than the bone names. On Tuesday we were supposed to review the muscles that go with them, but alas, we missed that class. So that will probably be what we cover on Monday. If our instructor is as good at helping us remember the names of the muscles as she is the names of the bones, I have no worries. I’m sure she will be though, because her first assignment to us was to write her a letter explaining how we learn best. Monday, at the end of class, we reviewed the findings of those letters and she is actually adjusting her teaching style to incorporate styles that a lot of people said were helpful. How awesome is that!? So rather than having the class mold to how she teaches, she’s trying very hard to teach how the class [as a whole] best learns. That just blew my mind, and I’m so appreciative of it.

Foundations of Massage goes well too, even though we missed a class there, too. We’re starting to learn sequences, and have the legs down pretty solid (at least in prone position AKA face-down). We were supposed to learn the back on Tuesday but with the snow… So that will come on Monday. What’s a little freaky about FOM is the fact that on Thursday we’re going to have our mid-term. Now, there are two days marked on our syllabus for the mid-term (Thursday the 23rd and the following Monday), so I wonder if it has to be split-up due to space? No idea, but it’s kind of nerve-wracking to think about a midterm already! However, FOM is only three-months long, so we are at that point already. So crazy! I just have to keep my cool, because I know what I’m doing. Confidence will let that show. Fingers crossed I can pound that idea into my head well enough to stem any nervousness! Hahaha.

We were supposed to order our tables on Tuesday as well, but since that didn’t work out we’re doing it Monday. Can’t wait for that either, because the sooner I get that table, the sooner I can travel to people to practice my massage work. I would do it here in the apartment, but the only space large enough to do it presently (since the attic is not insulated yet) is in the kitchen which is not very private… So being able to work at someone else’s home where better privacy can probably happen until it’s warm enough to use the attic is essential.

This week I did have the first class that dragged on, too. Thursday afternoon we had a self-assessment class that essentially went over how to study for two-thirds of it. Since I’m pretty good at getting myself to memorize material (and it’s showing that I haven’t really lost this knack the more into the program I get), to me this was not a gripping class. I’m sure there were classmates that found it extremely useful, but to me it was frustrating because as far as I was aware, if we wanted that, we could contact the study-skills tutors to arrange it. I’m sure I took something away from it despite my frustration, but it certainly was not a class I particularly enjoyed. The last bit of it though was about setting boundaries and taking care of ourselves, which I found a lot more useful and a lot more gripping. We switched teachers for each part though, so I can also say that the style of the second teacher is more in-line with keeping me engaged, which helped. I knew eventually I’d find a class that I didn’t really jive with, so if this is the only one then I’m cool with that. Everything else has been fantastic and not seemed to drag, so it was literally just the one class and only for the first bit of it.

So next week is going to be quite the build-up thanks to the FOM mid-term, and catching up on lost time due to the snow days! Regardless, I’m excited to tackle another week, and mark it off on my calendar! I’m a ninth of the way done! :O