I'm a student!

Like, officially, with a schedule (uh, that may still be in flux), a list of books to buy (somewhere - I'm guessing the college bookstore? That seems to be where I recall finding such things), a college ID, a parking decal and everything. Looks like I'm really doing this, eh?

Whenever I start to think about this stuff, my mind starts racing in about 50 directions, so I think I'm going to bullet, Wendy-style, so I don't have to sort this jumble into paragraphs:

1) There are a total of four or possibly five courses I either want to take or need to take to apply to grad school. The need to:

- Anatomy and Physiology, two semesters. I've signed up for A&P I, and will be taking that this fall.

- A chemistry course. I need two semesters of "science major" chemistry, with lab. I actually have that, but for whatever reason - I don't recall at this point - I mentally checked out of my second semster chem class, and have a grade that will not do me any favors in an attempt to get into grad school. So, rather than take chem 2 over, I would like to take either organic chem or biochem.

The want to: Exercise physiology. I can't take this until I've had A&P 1, and I can take it concurrently with A&P 2. I'd like to do that in the spring.

2) The complication, part one: Biochem is not offered this semester, and the organic chem class (which I had to get special permission to take because name of my prior chem courses - prereqs. for Organic - is just General Chemistry, not Chemistry for Geeks) is full. Except it might NOT be full as of next week, when they drop students who haven't paid in full for their classes, which means I could get in. Not realizing that at the time I picked my A&P class section (the selection was based on the fact that the section was offered at the campus closest to home for me), I picked a section that coincided with the time organic is offered. SO, if I can do organic, I have to pick another section A&P, if I can. And if I can't, I can't take organic now, because I HAVE to take the two semesters of A&P, no question.

3) If you could follow that, you get a gold star.

4) All of that is based on the idea that I will somehow have ALL of my shit together - which further includes taking the GREs AND getting something on the order of 100 volunteer hours with practising physical therapists - in time to apply for acceptance to school next year - and the school year starts in MAY.

5) It would probably be easier to back off a bit and not even think about applying for 2011 acceptance, but I figure that's a good goal for now, and if it becomes infeasible for some reason, well, OK, it does, and I apply for 2012.

6) So my next steps are to see what happens next week, re: organic and the schedule, and also to meet (hopefully next week) with some folks about volunteering with a local hospital's PT department. I also have to download and start looking at the GRE test prep materials, which are free for download at the whosamajigger testing center, but, of course, are for PC only, not Mac. I have a dual driver on my Mac and do have a Windows side, but I've had a download or two not behave properly over there, so I may have to fire up my old Dell to run the software.

In the midst of this, my workouts have been very, very boringly on schedule, as you can see to the right. *Yawn. Actually having that structure and outside focus has very much helped me stay sane, and I'm sure all of the physical activity has helped me sleep at night, even if I do periodically wake up with my brain going 1,000 miles an hour. This is a bit of a break week in terms of overall running mileage. I have no long run this week, but instead it's suggested that I take a rest or easy day tomorrow and run a 5K race on Sunday. As it happens, I have Special Training on Sunday, so the plan instead is to run 5K at a good clip tomorrow and enjoy the fact that I'm not skipping a run on Special Training Day.

Which I'm not actually looking forward to, for a change. In fact if I didn't need to go (and I do, in order to test this fall), I might think long and hard about skipping this one. It's scheduled to be a beach training, which sounds very nice and romantic (I mean, fighting on the beach? what could be nicer?), except for the full gis and forecast heat and humidity. And it's not like I'm going to want to jump in the ocean afterwards to cool off, because then we have the 3+ hour ride home. I have to wonder who came up with this brilliant idea. Oh well. It'll probably be a great day, in the end, but I'm not looking forward to it with my usual enthusiasm.