Orientation Week

As it turned out, Wednesday’s orientation wasn’t all that exciting.  That’s not to say that I didn’t get anything out of it or didn’t enjoy it.  I think I’m just frothing at the bit and eager to start learning.  I’m even going to go as far as to say that I’m almost bored at times.  Wait a minute, I said *almost*!  I’d better make plans for this weekend though, or I might be changing my tune.  In a couple of weeks when I’m bogged down with work, you can all remind me of this and I’ll give myself a swift smack upside the head... Now where was I? Oh right, the mandatory faculty orientation…

It was great to finally get a chance to meet the people in my program.  Looking around, I would guess that there’s maybe about 150 people, give or take.  I imagine that might shrink soon if you take into consideration that people do tend to drop out.  Everyone I met seemed really nice.  I wish I could tell you’ve I’ve made lots of new bestest friends, but really, I barely even remember anyone’s name yet.  (Does that make me a horrible person?)  It was pleasant, but with no one knowing anyone at that point, conversation was limited to “Hi, this is my name, my educational history, and where I’m from.”   And that reminds me that I wanted to take a moment to thank my Cellular Molecular Microbial Biology degree for sounding so impressive.  I got a lot of ooohs and aaaahs from the crowd.  So raise your glasses to my CMMB degree.  Here’s to you for making me sound far smarter than I really am!  On top of that, people also seemed fairly impressed that I had traveled so far.  Nothing like being a foreigner with a fancy degree to make a girl feel special! 

In the dining hall, we mingled, we ate, and we got to check out stations about various clubs and organizations.  I would like to thank the Student Union station for baiting me with lots of free stuff.  Not only did I get a free planner, deck of cards, pens (thankfully, because as it turns out, all the blue pens I brought with me were OLD >:( and USELESS.  Arggg!!!), and free tickets to the art museum (hurrah!) but as it turns out, the information they had to offer was useful too, and I learned about some of the great things my tuition is going towards, like getting me even MORE FREE STUFF.

After that came afternoon lectures.  But considering that they fed us and gave us coffee, no one seemed to mind.  I would like to say they gave me study material so that I could get ahead of the game, but they didn’t.  Just a really general program outline and a little bit about what to expect from the fall semester.  Then there were a bunch more lectures on services provided to students to keep us happy, healthy, and non-suicidal.  As you can see, it was a fairly uneventful orientation.  The most amusing thing was watching the organizers struggling with the fact that they were running ahead and were trying to shuffle people around while getting guest speakers who hadn’t arrived to get there right away.  There were a couple people who walked in with beads of sweat on their brow because they ran from the other end of campus.  After that, we broke out into smaller groups for lunch where we were able to talk in a more one on one environment.

Anyway, I’m even boring myself talking about it.  So let’s skip a head to Thurs, when I ACTUALLY got to learn something.  What exciting things did we learn on Thurs you wonder?  Well, I got my fitted for my N95 respirator.  So now if there should be any outbreaks, I can keep myself safe and keep the germs contained to the hospital.  I also learned how to properly wash my hands!  (I also learned that 70% of people DONT wash their hands.  Eww… Okay, which one of you isn’t washing your hands?  Really, that’s just gross.  Do you have any idea how disgusting that is? … but that percentage seems a little high to me.  Maybe these are just Ontario statistics.  In which case, what the hell 3rd world country have I moved to?)  And as a demonstration of how starved I am of school, right afterwards I came back to my dorm and wrote out the notes for it.  I hope it’s going to be on a test… I think I might be able to pass this one. 

But hold on, because Thursday got even cooler yet!  I got my stethoscope!  And guess what the first thing was that I did with it… Yup, I listened to my heart and lungs!  I also tried to see if I could hear my stomach, but no such luck on that one.  A CD of normal and abnormal heart and lung sounds came with my stethoscope, so I spent a significant amount of time listening to those too.  That’s not to say that I really know why fourth heart sounds are bad, or what mitral stenosis really is (though I think I have a bit of an idea about both of them.  I’m sure if I had easy access to the internet that would be different, but I won’t get myself started.  Hopefully everything will be set up in my dorm by Monday.) 

I bet you think that’s as good as Thursday could possibly have gotten, but wait, there’s more.  The UofT bookstore had a sale and I bought my first ever official UofT hoodie and long sleeve shirt.  You know what this means right?  Now I HAVE to pass my courses.  It would be terribly shameful if I bought the hoodie and then flunked out of UofT.  Then to top it all off, I would have the hoodie to remind me of it all.  So I guess the pressure is on now!

I guess I could say that yesterday’s student orientation topped off the week.  While I didn’t really learn much during that one either, that one was at least fun!  Though I am rather glad I wore my running shoes, because we did end up doing a lot of running.  What did we do, you ask?  Well, we started off the fun with a good old fashioned scavenger hunt across campus.  We got to play with IV’s, name medical equipment we’ve never seen before, find a book in the library (which might have been easier if the book was actually there), change a diaper on an adult (guess who ended up donning the diaper and playing the patient.  Yup, yours truly, and to prove it, there’s someone out there with a picture of it) and name all the parts of the circulatory system blood travels through, starting from the vena cava.  Thankfully, I remembered my anatomy courses well for that last one.  Then we ran back to the nursing building and actually managed to squeeze into third place (out of 10 groups).  But that wasn’t the end of the fun, after lunch, we had outdoor activities.  That was our final chance to earn more points and take the lead.  As it turns out, after a game of ultimate Frisbee, soccer baseball, a rally and a poster competition, we dropped from third.  Oh well, no pizza party for us.

And to end my week off, I attended my first ever baseball game.  We lost.  Whatever. It was fun.  Plus there is something to be said about those pants they wear… yum… Sorry, I swear I’ll keep it G rated from here on out.

So I guess this is it.  I’m now entering my very last ever weekend of freedom and I’m damn well going to enjoy it.  Laura, over and out.