The moment before I open the first page of an exam, my hands shake a little. Sometimes my entire body shakes. Then there is a hint of hesitation before I throw the page behind it’s staple and dive my eyeballs downward onto the top of the page to see what Professor X has on his menu this evening.…..
Professor X was kind I think. That wasn’t bad last week. Until the next morning, when professor Y served up a rather unpleasant after breakfast tidbit and called it biochem a la nit picky. Not fun. But, in the end, not horrible either.
This was last week.
Last week was a trying one on many levels. I feel like I grew up a little. Had to make some tough life decisions and am going through the process of bearing burdens that come with life circumstances and decisions made. In retrospect, it feels good. Well, not good exactly, but more like appropriate. Then it dawned on me ….this must be how my parents feel all the time. That’s nuts. That’s not such a great feeling. Or maybe you grow into it and ultimately take ownership of it until it becomes a skin that you are comfortable in - this whole adult thing and adult decisions thing. I’m trying to fight the urge to bury my head in my mother’s lap the moment I arrive home. Then again, what else is a mother’s lap for?
21 days.
14 days until my first final exam.
S out.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Free Flowing
Yes, I had a birthday.
I think the silence for the past (almost) two weeks has been a strange avoidance of public acknowledgement on my part – with an emphasis on MY PART. My friends and family definitely made sure that I knew that I was loved. Starting the Friday before the Wednesday that was my birthday with a gathering at one of my new favorite island spots for pizza (yeah, you read that right – p-i-z-z-a), live music, and happy hour. This was followed by dinner at Dodgey Dock, which is also becoming a favorite, on my actual birthday. One of my roommates for next term is a woman of many talents who made me a lucky crane (origami folks, she didn’t genetically engineer it) – it’s quite perfect actually. I’ve always been impressed with anyone that can do extremely complicated things with extremely uncomplicated paper.
Speaking of interesting hobbies, I am working on getting my PADI open water diving certification. I figure there’s no better time or place. The water here is absolutely beautiful and I hear there are some pretty amazing things to see in terms of critters and shipwrecks. There’s also an underwater sculpture garden.
So far, I’ve finished the theory part of the course and the confined pool dives. I ended up having to sign up alone since in a comedy of errors all those previously insisting that they were gung ho somehow managed to have a “good reason” why they couldn’t actually hand over the plastic when the time came. Okay, some of you really did have a good reason, but I can still gripe about it dammit.
Sigh.
BUT – it’s not so bad. I ended up meeting some really great first termers who I did the confined pool dive with (1.5 full days in the pool at the Calabash Hotel does wonders for the pruned skin look if you’re into that) and am very much looking forward to a first open water dive with them this coming Friday. We are going to the afore mentioned underwater sculpture garden, some place called Flamingo Bay, and a shipwreck called The Veronica – if you ask me it sounds like it was doomed from the start (apologies if your name is in fact Veronica).
I think the most amazing thing I learned during confined dive was what to do with a free flowing regulator. When I read about this in the manual you are given to read for the theory portion of the course, it didn’t really make sense. Then, when asked to execute it, I was utterly confused at first. The point is, if your regulator (the apparatus that you breathe out of while diving) begins to expel it’s oxygen continuously for some reason, you have to figure out how to manage to breathe from the air that is escaping like vital meds out of a ruptured IV bag. So, you tilt your head to the right, hold the right side of the regulator in your mouth and let the left side remain out. The air flows out through the left side from which you “sip” it. You would think that you’d end up with water in your lungs instead of air, but you actually can manage to only take in the air.
Frankly, I was dumbfounded. It took me a while to believe that I was actually going to get air in my lungs instead of water, so like the cautious child, I watched everyone else do it first before proceeding. Of course, once that’s over you’re almost out of air, so if it were anything other than a simulation I guess you’d have to pray that your dive buddy had enough for two.
Speaking of things flowing, we started pulmonary physiology today and it’s pretty fantastic that several of the basic principles lectured on today were covered in the dive manual.
Gotta love being inadvertently ahead – even if it’s only by a millisecond.
Hey, I never said I wasn’t neurotic.
I think the silence for the past (almost) two weeks has been a strange avoidance of public acknowledgement on my part – with an emphasis on MY PART. My friends and family definitely made sure that I knew that I was loved. Starting the Friday before the Wednesday that was my birthday with a gathering at one of my new favorite island spots for pizza (yeah, you read that right – p-i-z-z-a), live music, and happy hour. This was followed by dinner at Dodgey Dock, which is also becoming a favorite, on my actual birthday. One of my roommates for next term is a woman of many talents who made me a lucky crane (origami folks, she didn’t genetically engineer it) – it’s quite perfect actually. I’ve always been impressed with anyone that can do extremely complicated things with extremely uncomplicated paper.
Speaking of interesting hobbies, I am working on getting my PADI open water diving certification. I figure there’s no better time or place. The water here is absolutely beautiful and I hear there are some pretty amazing things to see in terms of critters and shipwrecks. There’s also an underwater sculpture garden.
So far, I’ve finished the theory part of the course and the confined pool dives. I ended up having to sign up alone since in a comedy of errors all those previously insisting that they were gung ho somehow managed to have a “good reason” why they couldn’t actually hand over the plastic when the time came. Okay, some of you really did have a good reason, but I can still gripe about it dammit.
Sigh.
BUT – it’s not so bad. I ended up meeting some really great first termers who I did the confined pool dive with (1.5 full days in the pool at the Calabash Hotel does wonders for the pruned skin look if you’re into that) and am very much looking forward to a first open water dive with them this coming Friday. We are going to the afore mentioned underwater sculpture garden, some place called Flamingo Bay, and a shipwreck called The Veronica – if you ask me it sounds like it was doomed from the start (apologies if your name is in fact Veronica).
I think the most amazing thing I learned during confined dive was what to do with a free flowing regulator. When I read about this in the manual you are given to read for the theory portion of the course, it didn’t really make sense. Then, when asked to execute it, I was utterly confused at first. The point is, if your regulator (the apparatus that you breathe out of while diving) begins to expel it’s oxygen continuously for some reason, you have to figure out how to manage to breathe from the air that is escaping like vital meds out of a ruptured IV bag. So, you tilt your head to the right, hold the right side of the regulator in your mouth and let the left side remain out. The air flows out through the left side from which you “sip” it. You would think that you’d end up with water in your lungs instead of air, but you actually can manage to only take in the air.
Frankly, I was dumbfounded. It took me a while to believe that I was actually going to get air in my lungs instead of water, so like the cautious child, I watched everyone else do it first before proceeding. Of course, once that’s over you’re almost out of air, so if it were anything other than a simulation I guess you’d have to pray that your dive buddy had enough for two.
Speaking of things flowing, we started pulmonary physiology today and it’s pretty fantastic that several of the basic principles lectured on today were covered in the dive manual.
Gotta love being inadvertently ahead – even if it’s only by a millisecond.
Hey, I never said I wasn’t neurotic.
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