First Day of Class

Today was definitely an interesting first day of class. I woke up way too early because I expected there to be a long line for morning showers. But, because our proctor group has a bathroom to ourselves, there was no line to wait in. 

Breakfast was quick. I had bacon, eggs, and some bread. It was pretty good food. I was so nervous to go to my first day of class. I basically clung to Jasmine the whole time. When our Med 101 group met up, it took us a while to find our building, we were basically lost for about ten minutes. When we did get into the room, our TA told us to grab some papers off of the table. On one paper listed who was in each group. I saw my name in group three so I assumed that I sat in the third row. This was a wrong assumption. We were basically supposed to sit anywhere...and I sat with a bunch of strangers. I didn't really know what to say so I didn't talk most of the class time. When we did have our little breaks, I went over to Jasmine's table and talked with her. 

Our instructors introduced themselves and we also did some ice breakers. The way the ice breaker worked was we picked two different colored M&M's from a bag and we had to answer two questions that correlated with our color. I was so nervous to stand up and speak up. I almost introduced myself as California and almost said I was from Chiamaka (yikes). Also, one of my M&M's were brown which meant I had to say something interesting that I had done over summer. I was really nervous so I just said that I haven't really done anything over summer. It wasn't until Jasmine said something to me after class I remembered that I've been to New York, Pennsylvania, and even Washington DC over summer. I felt really bad for that. 

Our class during break

In class, we had a lecture on hearts, lungs, advances in medicine, and also what the steps are to becoming a doctor. Listening the heart lecture was really weird because I thought I knew mos of what there is to know about hearts but obviously not. There was so much information I felt the need to write everything down but our teachers let us know that there were no tests, finals, or homework. Which means that there was basically no need for notes unless it was something we desperately wanted to remember because sometimes the note taking can get in the way of actually paying attention and learning. I respected that, but I felt as if not having grades was kind of weird because usually, most of my motivation comes from getting a really good grade, but I guess this program is sort of like you get what you put in. 

Lunch was sort of awkward. I couldn't find anyone in my proctor group and I couldn't even find Shanti. I did find Jasmine and Stephanie and we had lunch together but there was nothing to really talk about. I found Shanti closer to the end of lunch and she gave me a brief summary of what her class was like so far. It sounded hard. 

After lunch, we had to head back to our classroom, this time we did not get lost, which was fortunate because it was too hot to be lost. There were some moments when I felt droplets of rain, it was kind of weird. When we got back to class, I sort of prepared myself for another lecture but it was more casual. We also had to get our IDs done so we could be able to get around the hospital. I was so excited to find out that I get to visit an OR this Thursday! We also took a tour of the hospital. I think my favorite part of the tour was passing through the children's hospital. It was cute seeing some of the paintings and also this adorable butterfly wall that was there. During the tour, I was able to talk to this girl named Sophia from Taiwan. She was really nice and we had a lot to talk about. I found out that she wants to be a psychologist because she really likes listening to people and helping them. I also met this girl named Allyson. She was a bit more energetic, but I found out that she play the violin, just like me.

It was really cute in person

This is where we'll get most of our hands on experience

I have yoga this week. Like I said in the last blog, I was sort of disappointed because nobody in my proctor group had yoga, so I knew I wouldn't know anyone but it turned out Allyson had yoga with me so that was nice. Yoga was almost everything I expected. I've had some experience with yoga before but the poses we did today were kind of challenging. I can't wait for tomorrow. 

Good luck for 3 weeks please!

After dinner, we had a scavenger hunt. For the most part, I felt sort of useless to the group because I wasn't really finding anything so I felt sort of discouraged. I also felt sort of left out I guess because I had some ideas for some creative poses for our pictures but nobody seemed to pay attention to me (I'll speak up next time). Later on, I found a four-leaf clover which was worth twenty points. But overall, the scavenger hunt was cool. I didn't get to keep the four-leaf clover because my proctor suggested I give it to another group that was in V-house so we could get as many points as possible. 

Today was a lot easier than yesterday. Meeting people is hard but I'm glad that I met some cool people today.