In just under 24 hours from the time I’m writing this blog I’ll be starting orientation with my fellow cohort of students at the Christiana campus of Arcadia University’s PA program. I can’t believe it. Everything I’ve worked for in the past 2 plus years is about to bear fruit.

That said, in the last 24 hours I’ve had two dreams.

The one two nights ago had me starting class. Strangely, one of my classmates was my wife. While she loves medicine and enjoys hearing me talk about it, she decided years ago that my path wasn’t for her. Still, it was an interesting subconscious take on where I’m headed. What’s interesting is we decided we’d sit in completely different parts of the classroom. You’d think we’d want to sit together, but we realized (at least in my dream) that our learning styles were different enough that we’d be better of separated. In any case, in that dream, things were going smoothly and I felt confident and excited.

Contrast that to the dream I had this morning. In reality, last night, via GroupMe, I started to organize a get together dinner for my classmates tonight. So far it looks like 8 of us (out of 49) will be showing up. That much is accurate.

But in my dream, I had been sitting on a sidewalk in the downtown of some city (I’m going to assume it’s Wilmington) when a childhood friend (who now lives in Florida) shows up and tell me it’s 6:27 and I had promised to make the reservation for 6:30 so I really had to move. I started to follow her to her car and then lost track of her. Fortunately after turning around and taking a turn, I found my car. Which turned into a bicycle when I got there. Which would be fine, but I had a large box of items I needed to carry with me. So I figured I’d text or call my friend back but now mysteriously on my phone all her contact information was gone.

Some more hijinks ensued, but suffice to say I didn’t make it to dinner in time and was panicking.

So in 24 hours I had gone from confidence and excitement to panic.

I suppose this sort of mirrors the thoughts swirling in my mind. I’m excited, but I’ve got to admit a bit of panic running through my head. Can I cut it? Will my current knowledge help me enough to get through? Will my improved study habits make a difference? What am I forgetting to panic? Will I make friends? What will it be like being the oldest student in my cohort?

Well, tomorrow I will find out!