End of School Year Rewind

Since Traci recently reminded me that I haven't posted in quite some time I decided that I would do a couple recap posts of what I've been up to lately. I really don't have an excuse of why I haven't blogged. I mainly just forgot about it.

The end of the school year was full of a lot of time spent with friends, which was really nice.

For relays weekend it was great to spend time with friends who came back to Drake and just seeing people that I haven't seen around Drake in awhile. Intervarsity sponsored a free taxi service and so Courtney and I helped out by passing out cards on Thursday night at one of the bars. We had some nice conversations with people and all the students were really excited and appreciative of the free taxi service and the ability to get home safely. The actual relay events were also a lot of fun and the weather was really nice so that is always a plus.  I also went along with some friends to all 4 campus bars, which was something that Courtney, Erin, and I have been talking about for the past year. We finally did it and had fun. I also ran my first (and probably only) half marathon on the Sunday of relays.

I also spent quite a bit of time with the ladies from yellow house. We did a lot of random hanging out those last few weeks of school, which was a good time. I'm really glad that these girls came into my laugh during pharmacy school because otherwise these last couple of years would have been quite a bit worse.

Some other highlights of the end of the school year included:

• VEISHEA: introduced Courtney to the celebration and also hung out with Isaac, Carina, and some of their friends
• Had my cousins bridal shower in the great town of Castana
• Courtney's parents were in town and we went to the Flying Mango (a restaurant where we have wanted to eat at since freshman year)
• Mother's Day picnic with my family and grandparents
• Pinning ceremony: all the of the pharmacy students got a pin and nametag before we went to go on rotations
• P3 party bus: after our last final most of our class went together on a party bus
• Finished my classes and took my finals now I'm done with classes forever

I think those are the only big things that happened in the last few weeks of school or at least what I can really remember. It's crazy to me that the school year ended 4 weeks ago and that I won't be in school anymore. It still hasn't fully sunk in to me yet. Here are some pictures from the end of the school year events:

Courtney and I at the parade

Siblings at the parade

Erin, Laura, and Nikki downtown

Some of the members of the old FYS reunited downtown

Chris and I at the relays

Pharmacy girls during relays

Erin, Courtney, Nikki and I at the library

Friends after the half

Family after the half

Grandma and me

Chris and me

At Flying Mango

With the mothers

With the grandparents

Family

Party bus

Pinning Ceremony

Rotations

So today our rotation sites were released to us. We knew it was coming, but we weren't sure exactly when. Part way through therapeutics someone in a group behind me said they were up so of course everyone in my group starting logging into the site and seeing where we were assigned. This excitement of course threw off everyones focus and no one was really listening to what the prof was saying. She realized this and then allowed us each to look at the sites for 3 minutes and told us to focus for the rest of the class period. This helped a little, but really for the rest of the day I wasn't that focused on what either of my professors were saying.

Finding out where I will be spending my next year and where I will be able to put the last 5 years of schooling into practice before going off into the "real" world where I don't have a pharmacist watching what I'm doing was both exciting and scary. It's so crazy to think that in 3 months I'll be done with classes and starting rotations. It honestly seemed like this day would never come so now that it's here it's crazy! I am pretty happy with my sites, I would have liked to have been out of Des Moines for a few more, but overall I think they will all be great and I will get a lot of different experiences.

Do you like how I've written so much about them without actually saying where they are? Well I'll tell you now so you'll know where to find me next year and since I can't post it on facebook since I'm off that right now.

1st block: Des Moines Central Correctional Pharmacy
2nd and 3rd block: India
4th block: Primary Health Care in Des Moines
5th block: Mercy in Des Moines for counseling/discharge
6th block: Broadlawns for a psych rotation in Des Moines
7th block: vacation
8th block: Alaska
9th block: Mercy in Sioux City for my general hospital
10th block: Broadlawns for my acute care

First Week of Classes

On Monday my last semester of college classes started. It's crazy to think that this is the last semester of classes and then I start rotations in May for 1 year and will graduate in 2014. When I started college it seemed like the end would never come, but it has really flown by. I know everyone says that about college, but when you decide to go to pharmacy school for 6 years and watch the majority of your friends graduate and start their "real' jobs it seems like you'll be in school forever. 

I still obviously need to pass all of my classes this semester (which I hope I can do) and then do the year of rotations, but the end is near which is both exciting and scary. I really can't wait to find out where my rotations will be and what I will be doing for the next year. I hope that rotations will help me narrow down exactly what I want to do and if a residency if for me. I also hope I will be in a variety of locations so I can decide where I would like to live after school. All of these unknowns are quite scary, but I know that God has a plan for me and I need to let Him work and all I have to do is say yes to him.

Now back to classes.... 

The first week went pretty well. I was really hoping for a snow day on Wednesday since all the other Des Moines metro school had the day off, but had no luck. I had class in the afternoon and the roads weren't too bad by that time so I made it to classes safely. I'll give you all a little run down of my classes this semester so in case I talk about them in later blog posts you'll know what I'm talking about. (this probably won't happen since I don't really talk about my classes on here, but you never know)

Advanced Pharmacy Skills and Applications (APSA) lecture and lab: this is a class where we learn skills that are important for pharmacists such as: counseling, dispensing, vitals, history of present illness, etc. On Monday we talked about cultural competencies and resources you can use to learn more about another culture.

Therapeutics III: this is the third and final class in the series, which teaches us how the medications that treat different conditions and what side effects to expect, dosages, etc. Right now we are learning about oncology, which is an interesting topic, but also very confusing and difficult.

Quality Improvement in Pharmacy Practice: we have been talking about health care and how in the US there really isn't a system and there should be more done to have consistency throughout the health care system. We also discussed about what quality means and if it is different for the consumer than it is for the company.

Clinical Laboratory Medicine: in this class we talk about common lab values that we will see in practice and how to interpret them and what to do to treat abnormalities. I think this class will be really helpful when I go on rotations.

Advanced Psychiatric Pharmacy: this class goes more in depth in psychiatric disorders as well as how to treat them than our therapeutics class. On Friday we talked about stigmas associated with mental disorders and also played a review bingo of common medications prescribed for mental disorders.

I think I'm going to like a lot of my classes and they will all be helpful next year on rotations. It's also really nice to only have 16 credits this semester and I have already noticed how much time I have to get stuff done. This will probably change once things actually get started, but for now I don't feel like I'm drowning in homework, which is good.

Since I don't really have any pictures to add about school. For some reason I don't take pictures in the middle of class, maybe I should start? I'll add a picture of when I went to Minnesota a couple of weeks ago and went ice skating.

Catch Up

Well I seem to be doing lots of catch-up posts lately so sorry about that. I'm not going to say that I will for sure start blogging regularly, but I will try to more consistent for the rest of the semester.

Here is what I have been up to since August when school started.

• I go to school everyday, but Friday. I'm usually pretty busy with school related things and tend to have a least 1 test and 1 quiz each week if not more than that (hence the lack of blogging)
• So far my classes have been going pretty well and I'm enjoying the majority of my classes as well
• I've started looking at rotations for next year. I'm for sure going to Alaska for my ambulatory care rotation and I'm also looking at doing a rotation in India, possibly for the FDA, and some at a variety of other locations throughout the country, but mainly in Iowa. It's crazy that I'm starting to actually look at rotation!
• I've been watching Iowa State games and have gone to 3. My grandpa has actual seats this year and I got to sit in them for 1 game, but was on the hill for the other 2. Iowa State has been playing pretty well so far and the games have been really packed so it's been a lot of fun. Hopefully they will pick it up after last game and win some more games so it's a little better to watch!
• I went home one weekend and ran a 5k with Traci and Halie. Traci and I also made an appearance at a high school football game where Deb and Aaron met us. It was great to catch up a bit with all of these people and running was fine as well I guess.
• I've started going to "study tables" with a group of my pharmacy friends. That is what we are calling it where we go to each others houses and study on Sunday evenings. Depending on what class we are studying for it tends to be more just eating and chatting and less studying, but it's a lot of fun. I'm glad that I have this small group of girls to keep me sane during some parts of pharmacy school.
• I'm a leader for KQ (Sunday School) and Powerlife (confirmation) this school year. It's a lot of fun so far and I'm leading a great group of kids. 
• Lutheran Church of Hope is currently doing an all church study on The Story. It's been really great so far. The sermons, all children's programming, and adult studies are doing topics based on the weeks reading. So far I've really liked it especially since I'm doing it with all different age groups. I love looking at each story for a little bit different perspective.
• I went to the movie Pitch Perfect on Tuesday and it was amazing. I highly recommend it to anyone. It's hilarious!
• I've been doing quite a bit so far this semester for my pharmacy experiential hours. I'm doing some hours at an ER so that is really cool to be able to see what a pharmacist can do in an ER setting. Also I gave flu shots for the first time yesterday and I'll be giving some more on Friday and Saturday.

Ok that's all I have for now and can remember doing this first month and a half of school. If I remember any other highlight I will be sure to share it, but I don't think there was much more since I mainly just go to school and work.

What I learned in the first week of winter semester

• I like living in small dorm (besides my squeaky bed)
• I may actually enjoy team based learning (that is still TBD)
• I need to stay on top of my homework so I don't get behind
• I'm enjoying not having a position in DG anymore and having more free time
• It was great to be back at Intervarsity and have a lot of DGs there with me
• Being back at Hope for church today was really nice
• Headbands/hats are very important for you walk in the early mornings to class so your ears don't freeze off
• You can actually shower/get ready for class if you don't hit the snooze button
• Laying out your clothes/getting your bag packed also helps with the above
• I now know the beginnings of how to treat a cold, cough, and allergies
• The sampler at BWW is actually very big and is made for 2 people
• Re-heated said sampler is hard when the breaker keeps getting tripped on the toaster oven
• 8 am class everyday is that bad (we'll see how I feel about this in a couple weeks)
• I'm Sexy and I Know It is on the radio a lot even though I didn't notice this until very recently thanks to Traci
• My sister is now in a sorority (Pi Phi) and Erin's sister prefed her!