a weird week...

It's been an interesting week, filled with highs and lows. We had our solo ortho practical on Tuesday, which I totally kicked butt on and got 100%. Sweet! I walked into that bugger feeling 150% prepared, ready to perform any skill asked of me. Quite a nice feeling, but then again, hard work generally does pay off. Then that night we had our group presentations in ethics....another 100%! Really, it wasn't that hard to get a perfect score. If you followed the directions and he could understand you, you got 100%. But I'll take it nonetheless. Then Wednesday we had a night lab at a near-by hospital where we got to play around with a bunch of their equipment. It was fun and interesting. Nothing like walking on a treadmill in a harness with other people moving your legs for you...now that's my kind of exercise! :)

So on Thursday we come in to class ready to do our first round of group practicals for ortho. First we get yelled at by our class president that our neuro professor was disappointed in us from the night before. Apparently she felt we were not "professional" enough and that we were not taking it seriously. I guess she had asked our president to "control the class" several times. Mind you, none of us were aware of the fact that we were being rude or unprofessional, so this came as quite the surprise to all of us. My whole thing is, if she asked our president to control us, she sure didn't try to since none of us knew we were out of control. So maybe this is more of a problem of our president not communicating with the class because she doesn't like confrontation. Sorry, but I'm not about to take the entire blame if we were not even warned. A lot of the responsibility lands on our president's shoulders, and I don't think it's entirely fair to get yelled at for it.

Anyway, so then we're filling out the class evaluation forms, and our ortho professor along with our clinical coordinator come in to talk to us. Apparently it was brought to their attention that people were coming out of the practical on Tuesday talking about what they had drawn on their cards, which they consider to be cheating. They had specific names, and they had had a meeting and were prepared to expel people if need be. We were being given the chance to come talk to them by the end of the day and fess up to anything that we had said or heard. Then they would decide on Friday if we all had to take the practical over again since they feel it has been compromised. So then we took our group practicals, and my group kicked butt (awesome!) but everyone was just in a crappy mood after being yelled at twice in the span of 10 minutes.

After the practical, everyone lined up outside his office and we all went in, one by one, to confess what we had said/heard. I think our entire class is guilty in one way or another from one of our practicals at some point. However, none of us have ever said anything with the motivation or intention of cheating. We do it more as a means of calming each other down, revealing that it really is stuff that we know how to do. I'm guilty, in both regards, but fortunately this time I didn't say anything. In the end, they were impressed by the integrity of our class, and decided that although we are all guilty of "cheating", and that even if you find out what someone else drew as their skill cards, if you haven't practiced the skills, it's not going to help you. We're just to never do it again, or they will kick us out, but we don't have to take the practical over again...thank goodness! I was really worried that I'd draw something that I'm not as good at and lose my 100%.

So then we had to take the 2nd round of group practicals, and my group got a TMJ case. Yep, I got to stick my hand in our professor's mouth. We were nervous because we never had a formal lab for TMJ, and were definitely not as prepared. However, he told us that we were perfect and that we should become TMJ specialists....no thank you! I didn't become a dentist for a reason!

Anyway, now I'm studying for finals, wishing I could be having fun outside in this beautiful weather! My finals schedule is as follows, for those of you who care (mom and dad):

Monday: Neuro written
Tuesday: Ethics
Wednesday: Neuro practical (unless she has jury duty, then it'll be Thursday)
Thursday: Ortho written

I can't believe how quickly this term has gone by, but I'm glad to see it gone. It's been nice not being as stressed, but I had a difficult time keeping myself motivated. I got too bored with the information because I had too much time to look at it...never thought I'd say that! Next term should be back to craziness, but I can't wait to be up in SLO with this kind of weather! :) No sign of Grady yet...maybe he's going to hold out until the 2nd so I win the pool after all! Even if I lose, it'll be worth it to have him here!