Musings on the start of sophomore year

Thoughts about my classes thus far:

• Pharmacology: seems really boring, but probably important to know at least some of the material; this class is after lunch 4 days a week, which is clearly going to make it difficult to stay awake/pay attention, especially given the professor's soothing voice
• Preventive Medicine: also boring so far; talking a lot about statistics, etc.; hope it will get better
• Ethics: haven't had it yet - 10 am tomorrow
• Bioanalytical Pathology: will be sort of a cool class; we are learning about how to run different lab tests and, more importantly, how to interpret them - CBC, serum chemistry, urinalysis, cytology, etc.
• Biology of Disease II: probably more interesting than Biology of Disease I last spring; I am happy that it can still be abbreviated as "BoD"
• Toxicology: jury's still out on this one; could be a lot of memorization, but the prof seems cool
• Management: awesome today! We spent the whole 50 minutes going around the room and saying our name, our major, and either the best or worst job we've ever had, and why. We only got through half the class so we will be continuing this on Friday

The first day of classes (yesterday) started with nearly 1/3 of the class showing up promptly at 9 am for our first lab/recitation section of Bioanalytical Pathology, only to find out that there was apparently a tiny note in the course syllabus (which wasn't even available online) that said all 3 lab sections were meeting at 11 am the first day. Would it have been so difficult to send an email to the class telling/reminding us of that? I'm not in the habit of perusing the syllabus before each class for the sole purpose of determining whether we actually have class on the first day at the time listed on our master schedule. Spent the extra 2 hours on campus playing Bubble Spinner. Time well spent.

I miss having cubes. Lockers are ok, but sort of annoying. Plus there is really no communal place to get together and hang out between classes and during breaks. The caffeine addicts are irritated that there's no place to put their coffee pots, and I am saddened that we have only 1 communal fridge that is shared with everyone who uses the coffee building. (Although, the lounge room with the fridge also has like 9 microwaves and a small strip of carpet for practicing your putting....)

It is funny how quickly you can go from being excited about school to getting back in the catatonic, sitting-all-day-in-the-same-seat-in-the-same-room, when-is-Thanksgiving-break condition. From my initial impressions, this semester promises to be dense and difficult, with sporadic interesting and engaging material thrown in. Hope the profs are entertaining, at least!

Not having class till 9 every day (sometimes 11 on Tuesdays, sometimes 10 on Thursdays, never till 10:40 on Fridays) is totally awesome. Hooray for sleeping a reasonable amount, AND exercising!