And the word of the day is....

Gonad Shield! (read on for the explanation)

I am still alive. I know some of you were beginning to wonder. It's just that I got socked with homework the first week of class, so I have been working hard to catch up. Also, my brother and his girlfriend came thru Flagstaff for a day on their way to moving to California, so I was busy with that too. So, now that I have finished MOST of my homework for the weekend, I figured I better catch you up.

So far I am really liking school. The instructors seem very willing to help in any way they can. There are some bad points, of course......getting up at 530am everyday of the week, reading, reading and reading some more, having to divide fractions again (I thought I was done with those buggers) and being away from Becky most of the time. But overall I am already enjoying the program. We dove right in straight way with our homework and reading. A&P, Intro to Radiography, Radiographic Positioning, College Algebra and a few other classes and I am plum tuckered out at the end of the day. It really is great to be stimulated again and have to do some critical thinking as well. I have missed that. I have always liked to learn. Even as a kid I would work for hours in the basement with my chemistry set, and I still love to watch the Discovery/Discovery Health Channel.

Now to the word of the day. I will share with you one of the fun new words I have already learned in my positioning class. That being "gonad shield". It is a metalic shield used to cover the gonads (i.e. reproductive organs) while a patient is being imaged, so that little or no radiation is absorbed by the testes or overies. I never knew such a thing existed, but I guess it makes sense. You don't want those nasty rays getting into your sensitive "gonadal" area. Gonadal? Is that a word!? Anyway, I had a chuckle over that. Although I can see that it is one of those things that is funny when you first hear it and then as you use one and hear the word all the time, it doesnt seem so funny any more. Well, I am going to enjoy my little, juvenile mind and get a larf from it while I still can. :-)

The people in my class seem quite varied in terms of ages, genders and backgrounds. I guess I would say there is probably an equal number of men and women, from outward appearances the average age seems to be mid to late 20s to early 30s, but thats just an estimate. Most of the people in there probably think I am about 20 years old when I am actually 26. Becky and I both look younger than we are. There are some on the higher end of the age spectrum (I hope that is a nice way to put it). Some look to be in their 50s. I give them a lot of credit for going back to school after so long. I am sure they will bring a lot of outside experience to the field. As for background, I think it runs the gambit. There seem to be some with little or no higher education (e.g. college) and some with multiple degrees (myself included) and still others with years of experience in the medical field or other fields. It will be really interesting to get to know them all and see all the different personalities interact.

You can see from the pile of books I posted a picture of last time, that I have my work cut out for me. So far the most reading seems to be in my A&P class (go figure) and the Positioning class (which also incorporates some anatomy). One nice thing I have already learned is that in the A&P class we will be covering mostly the A, which is nice. The P was what was making me nervous about that class. I think I will be very good at the anatomy part....memorization, memorization, memorization!

Like I said, I will be very busy this semester and probably every other semester for the next 2 years, so feel free to write me encouraging comments. They would be much appreciated. I read them all and if you leave an email or your blog address I will certainly try to respond to them. From time to time I may not be able to post as much as I have in the past, but I will do my darndest to keep this blog up to date. There is nothing more frustrating than checking a blog everyday and seeing they haven't posted in 2 months. Happens a lot to me, so I will try not to participate in that particular pet peev of mine.

Enjoy the weekend.