the trials of life

Well, I guess it has been a while since I have written anything, and to tell the truth so much has happened and I honestly haven't had the time to sit down and write it all down. So, while I have a brief moment to spare, I'll try and recapture it all.

It's been over a month since the last post so I guess that puts me right around the end of board review weekend. That in itself, is somewhat interesting as I'm looking down the barrel of another 18 hours of board review this weekend. Anyway, the drive to study for boards has since diminished a little. After that last round, I was exhausted! Fortunately, the faculty was kind enough to grant us a 24-hour reprieve and reschedule our Cardiology exam for Tuesday. So, I spent whatever energy I had left on Sunday studying a bit for the exam. Then, I spent all of Monday in class as you can plainly see from the previous post. And, obviously, that went so well. Anyway, I desperately tried to study that night, but having spent most of the weekend in books, I was far from motivated. Against all expectation, the exam went well and I was finally able to take a brief moment to rest.

I can't say with any certainty that anything riveting happened over the next couple of days. I wound up taking the weekend to just sit around. I stayed in Friday night, sat around Saturday and studied for part of Sunday. It was really just a good way to get away from school and get my bearings after spending 11 consecutive days in classes. Between classes, finalizing details for the Advanced Airway Lab for ER Club and some of my Student Government commitments, it just seemed like the best thing for me to do was to stay at home and recollect myself.

So, at that point, I still had plans to return back to Champaign on upcoming Saturday to renew my Illinois paramedic license. I figured I would take off Friday after class and get into town around 9pm. Because there were some meetings on Saturday, I wouldn't have time to stick around Champaign and would need to drive back right after critical skills making for a truly hectic drive there and back again. As the Airway Lab got closer and closer, I started to think about how feasible it would be to drive for nearly four hours on Friday night, get into Champaign around 1am, wake up at 7am, drive to Danville, do Critical Skills and turn around and drive four hours back to Kirksville. Typing it out now makes it seem so obviously irrational, but at time something inside me kept telling me to do it. So with only hours before the Airway Lab, I called up my good friend and mentor Mel and had a long overdue talk with her. For me, it was a good way for me to say the things that I have been thinking about for a long time. What was I hoping to accomplish by relicensing? I was trying to hold on to something tangible, some sort of validation that I had dedicated the past six years to something I felt was important. After talking with Mel, I realized that even with the lasping license, that part would always be a part of me, though abstract, something I carry with me every day. Just because a piece of paper says I no longer have the license to practice does not mean that I do not still have the skills and knowledge I needed to obtain it. So after a long talk with Mel, I realized just how insane the whole trek out to Champaign would be. It was another moment of truly understanding what my goals are and repriortizing my life so I could accomplish them.

Other than that, life has been fairly busy with classes and tests. It seems odd that while the information in lectures is interesting, classes seem to be grating on most of the students here. I can't say that I haven't skipped a lecture here or there to prepare for a test. I guess it's just more prioritizing. I've been doing well on all the tests, but sometimes lectures just seem like such an inefficient use of time. In the fifty minutes it takes to get the material off the powerpoint in lecture, I can read through the powerpoint as well as read most of the textbook material. So, that's the class situation.

Last but not least, Dr. David Vick, a professor in the OMM department passed away this past week and several of our class attended his memorial yesterday. It was a bit of a surreal experience, sitting there thinking about how we were under his tuteledge last year and yet knew so little about him. It was also such a humbling experience to listen to his colleagues and family talk about their interactions with him and all that he had accomplished in his life. Out of all this, I was most moved by the last words his wife had to say about him. She said that if he ever had a motto for his life, it would have been "Go somewhere - anywhere. Do something - anything."