Prior to my decision this semester to be a forensic science graduate student rather than a biomedical science grad student, I've felt like the intelligence I'd relied on my whole life was lost. I was truly beginning to believe I wasn't smart anymore. For the past three years everything I did was in preparation for medical school. That's still a different post for a different day, but to make a long story short I was not excelling in the classes I took with the medical students. I had a C in biochem because I hate chemistry with the very core of my being (and I have a minor in it, funny how that works). I didn't really care much about that C. Last spring I took medical physiology with the med students and barely scraped by with a B. I have the unfortunate advantage (an oxymoron, yes but truthful) of being "gifted". Basically what that means in the school district where I grew up is that you're pulled out of classes to go to "gifted" class. I missed taking economics and I like to blame my fiscal idiocies on the fact that I didn't take a class in it in seventh grade. Is it wrong to blame the school? Nah- they can't fight back.
Anyway, since I teach both biology and anatomy and physiology at a community college I thought I would sail through physiology. I never studied more that 2-3 hours for any given test, and have since found out a lot of the med students study five hours or more a day. That's WAY too hard for me, since sitting through a movie is hit or miss some days. Since starting in the forensic program (which technically I'm not officially in yet, but the main people know my plan), I've felt very smart. We do a lot of writing and most of our assignments that have to be concise and to the point. It turns out that I'm VERY good at that. I'll write a whole outline and then go back through leaving only the important terminology (and sometimes I'll hyphenate two words so the computer thinks they're one which is cheating, but only slightly). It's wonderful that I'm finally excelling at something again. The only points I've had taken off were for misspelling aneurysm. How I could misspell it after reading about aneurysms for a week and working in hospitals for five years is beyond me. I deserve to lose points for misspelling a word that will doubtless be used many times in my new career. I'm very glad I found my niche because straight research is not something I would be happy doing.
The picture for today doesn't really relate to the topic, but this is a pic of my oldest (on the left) and a fellow cheerleader sitting at a football game with their coach's niece. I love this pic, so I thought I'd share! Her last game as a freshman cheerleader is today. Next year she moves up to JV. I can't believe my daughter is nearly 15!
