a weekend off

So much has happened lately!!  First, can you believe tomorrow is the start of my eighth week?  Summer is flying on by, three weeks of classes to go and then finals and theeeeennn ten days of freedom!  The past three weeks were kind of the most insane it's ever been.  We had really huge exams, each requiring an obscene amount of preparation, and sacrificing of sleep both at the beginning of the day and at the end of the day.  It was a huge push to get through, and in the middle of it all my parents and sister came for a visit!!  In my head it sort of didn't register that they were in the same state as me until I finished my immunology exam that Thursday.  We had a super tasty meal out to celebrate, and for the weekend they rented a cabin on a lake about 45 min from Portland. It was so great to see them and hang out all together (minus Micah) for the first time since our move!  Unfortunately I spent all day Saturday studying and then all day Sunday in the cadaver lab, but I hear that they had fun swimming and kayaking around!  JP and I made it up for one night, and it was beautiful even if it was short-lived on our end!

Reading comic books in the morning while I studied...

We finished our third neuro/anatomy/practical exam this past Thursday (one more and done!), and I think they were the hardest exams I have ever studied for in such a short time.  It was one of those times that I could literally have flipped my notes open to any page, pointed to a topic, and focused a day's worth of energy on just that small detail.  For this exam we covered the brain, the skull, cranial nerves, muscles and vasculature of the neck, the eye, the ear and all that those subjects entail in both identification and function.  Sometimes I am in awe that my brain can retain so much, and pull things seemingly out of the blue that I didn't even think I would remember.  Every exam I think that there is no possible way I can keep all of that information straight, I have to call on so many new strategies but so far it's working alright!  I will be so happy to get to the fall semester, into more organized chaos than the crazy way things are in the summer!

In any case, after that gigantic push, I think most of my classmates, myself included, took this weekend off.  This is the first weekend that I barely did anything productive.  JP and I decided to go camping Saturday night, and I didn't even bring a lick of study materials with me.  I might have felt a little panicked Sunday morning thinking about how unproductive I was, but I squelched those feelings and let myself enjoy being outside with my boy and my pups, free of responsibilities.  It was so incredibly lovely.  We made a big fire, took the pups down to play in the water, and grilled meat and drank wine.  Lovely indeed, and just what we needed to gear up for these next few weeks.  

We wore out the pups with all the excitement.  You know it was a good weekend when it ends in pure exhilarated exhaustion like this:

ohhohh livin' on a prayer

I'm really not actually a Bon Jovi fan, and I don't even think I could tell you any other songs that they do but this one was aptly stuck in my head as I finished my 5th week of school and am halfway done with the summer semester!  We'll make it, I swear!  OK, cheese aside it is pretty astonishing to me that we are already at the halfway mark.  Another round of neuro/anatomy/practical exams were completed and I passed them!  Things have amped up a lot lately, and we have two exams every week until the end now.  This weekend was a gigantic pile of cell physiology and immunology as those are the exams this week. The only good part is that they are one exam on the entire subject and then finished.  Unfortunately that means that with only 50 questions a piece, by the end of the week 40% of my biological sciences grade will be determined.  It's quite a juggling feat to have classes from 8-5 every day and also study/learn/integrate all of the things we are doing.  This week might not be heavy on the sleeping portion of life.  In fact, I have sadly morphed into one of those people who consider getting up at 8:00am an indulgent treat.  Boo!  In other news I have a working phone that I love because (among other things, one of which being that it works) it has the capacity to take pictures!  Here are a few shots from the past weeks. 

 

I'm a cemetery person, and there is a gorgeous, incredibly large cemetery right next to campus.  I have been wanting to stop by, and I finally got the chance right before sunset on Saturday on my way home from the library.  

 

 A picture from the beach last weekend.  Dipping my toes in the cold water, thinking about Lake Superior while the pups splashed around.

Dinner on Friday night at my sister's favorite restaurant to celebrate the end of week five!