(Almost) the end of another week

It's Thursday (nearly Friday) again, and again I am thrilled that the weekend is approaching.

This semester seems to be another one of those time paradoxes, where you find yourself simultaneously thinking, Wow, I can't believe we've been in class for 5 weeks already, and Good Lord, has it only been 5 weeks??!

Basically, the continuation of the semester has turned out to be pretty much like my initial impression. When people ask me how classes are going, I am hard-pressed to find a descriptor other than "boring."

Have things been going well? Yes. Is some of the material interesting? Yes. Am I learning things that I probably need to know for the future? Yes.

Am I finding myself in a daily struggle to stay awake and focused throughout the 80% of my classes that are dull? Yes.

One thing I know for sure is that whoever is in charge of planning the class schedule needs to seriously consider rearranging things. Why would you think that having Pharmacology (possibly the most boring class in the vet school curriculum) right after lunch 4 days a week would be a good idea? It's to the point now where the entire sophomore class pretty much has an unspoken agreement with each other that nobody asks the professor any questions about the material so he will zoom through it and we can finish early.

So clearly Pharmacology isn't my favorite course. Here are the others:

• Bioanalytical Pathology (a.k.a. Clinical Pathology at any normal vet school): I like it. It's gotten a little repetitive, since they are trying to drill some important information into us by doing case studies with hematology data over and over and over again. But overall it's pretty interesting, and every lecture and lab is directly applicable to something I'll be doing every day as a clinician.
• Biology of Disease (a.k.a. Pathology of Organ Systems at any normal vet school): The material is not always fascinating, but I really like the professor. She is funny and has realistic expectations for what kind of information we should be learning and retaining at this point in our veterinary careers.
• Toxicology: Has gotten better this week when we've gotten a new lecturer. However, although this lecturer is a step up from the last one, nobody knows quite what the main points are that he expects us to get out of his lectures.
• Ethics: Dramatically improved this week, again due to a different person leading the class discussion. People felt like they could actually speak up and participate without being told that their opinion didn't count because the instructor didn't share it. But I think every other class this semester is by the original lecturer... sigh.
• Preventive Medicine: Mixed feelings on this. We are nearly finished with an interminable statistics unit. (And actually, if I recall correctly, an undergrad statistics class was a prerequisite for applying to vet school.... do we really need to be learning mean, median and mode again? I think I remember that from like 3rd grade.) I've found that when I really try to pay attention during this class, the class is more interesting; however, the class also then seems to take about 3 times as long as if I'm doodling or doing the crossword or otherwise occupied.
• Management: Ah, I laugh at the irony. Our professor lectures us on good management techniques, yet there has not been a single class so far where he has showed up on time, much less had the PowerPoint slides up and ready to go by the time the clock hits noon. He makes promises nearly daily about when he will post slides for us to print, or exam grades to look at, and he has not yet lived up to one of those promises. We have just started a chapter on communication, and I have already noticed that he is communicating many things loud and clear about how much he values our time and our dedication to the class.

So, in sum, some good classes, some bad. I do know that there are only 51 days of class left this semester! I really cannot wait for next semester's awesome-sounding courses.