Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Paying good money for torture

Not much going on in the world of pre-nursing. Our next test on the skeletal system is not for two weeks. I did however decide to finally get motivated to get my butt to the gym and hire a personal trainer.

I chatted with several and ended up choosing a woman that had credentials from the university I am going to for nursing school. She did her initial assessment which included body fat caliper measurements, taking weight, as well as shoulder, chest, thigh, calf and waist measurements. We then covered where I am now physically/weight wise, and what my short and long term goals are. Felt almost like a medical history with all the questions I was answering, but I'm pleased they are thorough.

It was then time to move out onto the gym floor. I'm pretty out of shape and I have not ran since highschool but after 15 minutes of warmup on the treadmill she had me running 20 seconds on/20 seconds off at a 7mph speed to see where I was at physically. For me, 7mph is pretty damn fast, lol.

Before I continue on to the next part, I feel like I need to say that 6 or so years ago I went to the gym 4-5 times a week for at least an hour at a time. I knew what I was doing with the machines as well as how much weight I felt was appropriate.

Or so I thought.

We did a circuit of weights, she would ask at each location what I felt was an appropriate weight to lift. Asked me to lift that weight and then in almost every case doubled what I was lifting. For example, on the leg extension machine I had 105lbs on, did 10 reps and was told I was doing that way too easy. She then put another 80 lbs on (for a total of 185) and had me proceed with doing three sets of 10.

Yikes, by the last set of 10 I was barely able to lift the final 3 reps.

The entire workout went something like that, me telling her where I was comfortable, and her telling me that wasn't good enough. I signed up and paid for 15 1 hour sessions with her, we will see where I am after those sessions, but I'm excited to be pushed that hard.

I have a fitness goal I want to reach before I enter nursing school, and I've got until fall 2012 to get there.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Baby soon?

My wife is pregnant with our second child, and is about to pop. I feel so bad for her knowing how uncomfortable she looks. I really hate that there is nothing I can do but try to occupy our very very whiney 3 year old.

It's really frustrating how much the 3 year old has taken a nose dive in in terms of behavior. I guess this is payback for having a perfect 2 year old?

At any rate, HOPEFULLY sometime in the next week or two we will have a squishy new baby to love.


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Tissues/Integumentary: 4 & 5 of 13

Despite getting the second highest grade on the lecture exam, and the highest grade on the lab exam, I still did not manage to pull off an A for either test. I earned an 88 on the lecture, and a 91 on the practical, not as high as I was hoping for, not much I can do but try harder next time.

Class average after 5 exams: 96.8




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Monday, February 21, 2011

Study Craziness

As I talked about in my last post I've got a test tomorrow on Tissues/Integument, Since that post I've made over 100 flash cards and studied the hell out of them. I even went so far as to hack up my lab manual and previous edition A&P book in order to get color pictures of the tissues to study for the lab practical.

I went through the cards with my wife about 4 or 5 times and by the end of the 5th time I had all but 5 of the cards memorized.

I found this chapter to be my most difficult so far. I really liked the chapters where the material involved some kind of process. Hopefully I will do just as well on this section and I won't have to use this as my drop grade.


Saturday, February 19, 2011

Tissues/Integumentary

Testing on Tissues/Integumentary this tuesday. I have spent about 5 hrs studying for this test so far, usually I pick up the material really quickly, make my flash cards, and after a dozen or so times through them I know the material.

This section though, I've made over 90 flash cards and Im not certain I captured all the needed material.

Heres to hoping I have this stuff down by Tuesday!


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Wednesday, February 16, 2011

No, this is homework!

I Promise. This really is homework.

It amazes me how many different products are available to help you remember A&P, Flash cards, coloring books, videos, and iTunes university lectures, even with all of those options there is one key item you can not buy at your universities book store. Motivation. Anatomy is a class, that you need a lot of motivation to learn, it's not something you can pick up and pass just by attending lecture.

Nearly everyone in my class is going into some sort of healthcare profession, yet over half the class can not seem to pull it together and score above a 60 on the exams. I don't think I want these people near me in a healthcare capacity.


Tuesday, February 15, 2011

3 of 13

Got scores back on my third A&P exam today, scored a 92. Not as high as my previous two exams, but class average so far is a 102. I will be very happy if I maintain an A throughout the semester, this particular teacher only had 4 A's in 4 sections of a&p last semester, so I feel that would be a huge achievement.


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