Category Archives: Learning

T – 1 Week and Counting

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Pardon the language, but “shit’s getting real!” Technically as I write this, it’s less than 1 week. Officially I start orientation at 9:00 AM on Tuesday the 27th. It’s about 9:30 as I write this and publish it. But I think I can say 1 week without being accused of lying.

But then again, technically classes don’t start until Wednesday the 28th. So there’s that.

Then I have my nervous breakdown scheduled for Thursday night on the 29th as reality hits me.

Seriously though, the time is coming fast. I’m finalizing my housing plans (yes, I waited longer than I had planned, that’s a story in and of itself). I’m starting to put together a packing list of stuff I need.

And, I’m trying to set up a dentist appointment because apparently I had a chip come off a tooth last night. Fortunately there’s no discomfort.

Oh and last minute paperwork and drug testing for school.

And projects around the house.

But other than that, I’m ready.

I think.

People have asked some questions, so I guess I should put together a FAQ. (by the way, technically the term FAQ predates my Internet introduction, but only by a few years. It was partially developed by Eugene Miya, a name I know well from my early days on Usenet.)

So, just the FAQs Ma’am, Just the FAQs

  • Is the family going with you? – Nope. Two of the three have local jobs, the third is looking. Besides someone has to maintain the family estate!
  • How long will you be gone? – Two years, but not really. It’s one year of didactic and then one year of clinicals. I have ten clinicals I have to complete in variations specialties. Most will be within 90 miles of where my campus is, but I can do several in other locations including at least one overseas rotation. So more like nine months of the second year I’ll be in Delaware, and if I can group the other three into a single block, I’ll be elsewhere, but not sure where yet. That will impact any apartment leases I book.
  • Will you come home weekends? – In most cases not. This is for several reasons. For one, since I won’t really be working, not coming home every weekend will save money. For another, I expect to be studying most weekends and wouldn’t have time for travel. That said, I expect often if I do travel home, it’ll be via train so I can sleep or study while in motion.
  • How hard is the program? – That’s a great question. One analogy I’ve been using and is told is accurate is it’s like drinking from a firehose. Another is that I’ll be sprinting a series of marathons. Imagine packing three semesters into one year for starters. The first semester is 18 credits. The second 25, and I believe the third also over 20. Basically I can count on a test every week. I’ll be learning in one year what many medical students spread out over a couple of years.
  • Are you nervous? – I’d be lying if I said I weren’t. There are moments where I completely doubt myself. But, as a member of my Council of Moore reassured me the other day when I asked for a confidence boost, that’s exactly the right attitude. It’ll keep me from becoming complacent. Mostly I think I’m nervous about the amount of rote memorization I’ll need to achieve. This is something that older brains in general aren’t necessarily as good at as younger ones. Most of my classmates will be half my age or even younger, so they’ve got me beat there. On the other hand, just because of my experiences in general, including working in the ED, I am fairly confident that understanding systems, pathophysiology, and physiology in general are strong. I’ve always been good at the “big picture.” I even noticed this, to brag a bit, in the ED when sometimes an attending would be quizzing a medical student or even a resident about a case and while I might not know some of the details, I was often able to understand the overall picture better than the student or resident.

    I also worry that my student habits from my BS will resurface. But that said, I proved my study habits in my prereq classes worked and I’ll of course be using them again. I’ve also built a good support system for myself.

    So yes, there will be moments where I doubt myself and even moments where I might not do as well as I’d like, but overall, I think I’ll do fine.

    But ask me in two years.
  • Are you excited? – Overall yes. But ask me in a week. Right now I’m just stressing about all the final prep.
  • Isn’t this costing a lot? – Honestly, yes. One reason I had hoped to get into a local program (there’s really only two that are considered local) was to save money and be home more. But alas, that’s not what happened. And honestly, I’ll be trading two years of income for two years of spending. And even when I graduate, I’ll probably be making less than if I had simply stuck in IT or even teched in the ED for those two years. But, ultimately I’m pretty confident I wouldn’t be as happy or as fulfilled.

    Years ago in either Dear Abby or Ann Landers, I recall someone writing in who was I believe like 46 asking if she should spend four years going to college or if it was a waste of time. The response was, that either way in four years, she’d be 50, so she should do what she thought would fulfill her the most. That’s my attitude. In two more years I’ll be 59. So I might as well be 59 with a masters in something I believe I have a passion for than 59 without that masters.

    Now, that said, if anyone wants to give me money, let’s talk 🙂
  • I like PAs, can you be my PA after you graduate? – I’ve already had one person ask this. I pointed out my goal is to work in the local trauma center. Do you still want to see me at work? 🙂
  • Will you keep blogging? – Definitely. I’m actually surprised and appreciate how many people (i.e. more than one person) actually appreciates to hear about my PA journey. It’s also my way of venting and keeping sane. Thanks for reading.

Reflections on Being an ED Tech – Some of What I’ve Learned

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As PA school quickly approaches I’ve been reflecting a lot on my job as an ED Tech over the last 2.5 years. I’ll probably end up blogging a few times on this topic.

My first official day working in the ED (as opposed to the orientation I underwent the week previous) was on October 18th, 2022. Most of the PA schools I applied to required a minimum of 1000 hours of patient care experience. Obviously more was better. I hit that in under 6 months.

I’m now at over 5,500 hours I believe. I honestly stopped counting awhile ago. In the past 2.5 years I’ve worked a LOT of extra shifts. And for the most part, I’ve loved it. Yeah, there are the shifts where I’ve been given an assignment I wasn’t keen on, or the shifts that I went home from emotionally drained. But overall it’s all been worth it.

At some point I might talk about the specific skills I’ve learned. But the most valuable thing I gained was “my voice.” Anyone who knows me, knows that in general I don’t have a problem sharing my thoughts (as this sometimes self-indulgent blog is proof of). But the difference in my confidence between that first shift and now is stark.

On my first shift, heck my first hundred or more shifts, I often followed the lead of others. There were multiple reasons for this, but basically it came down to two: they had the credentials and they had the experience. Related to this, they didn’t know me so they couldn’t necessarily trust me.

I’m proud to say, that has changed. I still don’t have the credentials, but I now have the experience, and they know me and trust me. One example is the language I’ll use at times. One night a nurse went into one of the trauma bays to grab a bag of saline. Now there are signs that tell folks not to do this, but I’ll be honest, it happens. Two years ago I might not have said anything or if I did, it would have been phrased, “Oh, you took something out of the trauma bay? I’ll make sure to restock it.” This time I said, “Oh you took something out of my trauma bay? I’ll have to make sure to restock it.” Yes, it went from “the trauma bay” to “my trauma bay.” I realized the more I worked on the trauma side of the department that I was taking ownership of things like the trauma bays. I take pride in making sure they’re ready for a trauma. This pride means that a few weeks ago, when in the middle of the trauma a nurse reached for an item and it wasn’t available, my stomach dropped. I felt like I had failed them, even though honestly this was I think the third trauma in a row in that bay and I had had no time to stock. No one blamed me or even looked askance at me. But I still felt like I had failed. So yes, when I’m working in that zone, the bays became “mine” in the sense I took pride in making sure they were setup.

Another example is my interaction with the providers and nurses. When I first started, I would always wait for their cue on what to do outside of the most basic expected skills. Now, I’m far more likely to make a suggestion or be expected to contribute. A few months ago with a patient with several severe bleeding wounds, I was the one that suggested to one of the providers to use a clotting agent we keep in the trauma bay. He wasn’t aware we had it, let alone how well it would work in this case. Fortunately between taking a Stop the Bleed class and being responsible for stocking the trauma bays, I knew it was there. Recently, one of the nurses asked me to show her and a couple of others how to set up a particular piece of equipment based on the manufacturer’s instructions. I’ve earned the trust and confidence of my coworkers. This is an amazing feeling.

I want to add one key note to this. I’ve said before and I’ll say again, one thing I really appreciate about where I work is that it’s a teaching hospital. I basically sat in on a graduate level lecture on pain meds given by one of the attendings to a med student one night (it was a slow night so I had time to stand around and listen.) The attendings, especially a few in particular I work with, encourage questions. This has been invaluable. “Hey why did you do X? Would Y have worked?” I’ve learned a lot this way.

So it turns out, not only was being an ED Tech the right thing for me, I’ve learned a lot and absolutely loved it. Who knows, maybe I’ll write a book someday about it. In the meantime, just one more shift before I head off to PA school.

And as always, my views and thoughts do not reflect those of my employer Albany Med Health System.

2024 A Year in Review

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As I try to do every year, I look back at goals I set at the start of the year and see how well I did. As usual, this it’s a mixed bag.

How did I do?

  • Well, my primary goal was to get into PA School. Last year I had gotten waitlisted at one and declined at all the others. Close, but not close enough. This year started off rough. I was able to submit what I think was a much better application. I had a few more courses to add to my transcript. This helped bring up my GPA (though not above the magical 3.0 that most schools require for a cumulative GPA). But my last 41 credits were all 4.0 and if I include my last 60 (some schools have look back windows of 30-60 credits), it’s nearly a 3.7. Not too bad if I may say so myself. I submitted fairly early in the application cycle.
    In addition, I think I had a stronger essay for my application as well as better letters of recommendation.
    And then the first rejections rolled in. One was particularly disappointing since it was one of my top choices and they claimed to not have a minimum GPA. After exchanging some emails, I learned that while they claim not to, in fact in the last 5 years, they haven’t accepted anyone with a cumulative GPA under 3.2. That definitely felt like a bait and switch to me.
    However, the very next day I received the email that would change my life. In fact, I had to read it more than once since I was in shock. Even when I got the emails explaining how to put in my down-payment I have to admit I didn’t believe it! That said, for now I’m keeping the name somewhat under wraps as I’m still waiting to hear from two other great schools. But the key point is, regardless of what happens with them, I’m going to PA School in 2025!
  • Another goal I had was to keep working in the Emergency Department and keep my Red Badge status so I could be the lead tech in Traumas.
    • Not only did I succeed with this (as of last night over 2450 hours, including PTO) but I added to my resume the role of being the Tech who taught the Red Badge class to new techs. I’ll be handing that role over in a few months (and am already taking steps to make that happen) but it’s been a great job.
    • I also moved to night shifts for most of my shifts in the ED. Honestly, I love the crew and atmosphere, but it’s done shit for my circadian rhythm and for planning day events.
    • One benefit of another year in the ED is I got to become familiar with a lot more procedures and help out with a lot more than I did in the previous year. These are skills and experiences that will aid me well when I start taking classes.
    • More than once I got to listen in as an attending gave an in-depth “lecture” to a resident or med student. Also very valuable!
  • I definitely cut back on my IT consulting. My largest client and I mutually agreed to part ways as of April 1st. This was refreshing in many ways, even if the drop in income was noticeable. Ironically enough, they approached me just before Thanksgiving asking if I was available part-time starting in January. I’ve agreed to pick up some more time with them. This will most likely result in me cutting back some hours in the ED, but as I don’t need to built my resume there, I think it’s financially it’s a wise choice.
  • Work on me and be a better person – I was intentionally a big vague here, but I think I managed this a bit. I definitely tried to relax more and snap less. I’ll continue to work on that.
  • Hiking – I absolutely failed at this. I think I did one hike this year.
  • Biking – I also absolutely failed at this. Honestly, I’m not sure if it’s a result of age, perhaps some long Covid impact lung capacity (though I’ve never tested positive for Covid) or what, but I just found it harder to do the longer rides I preferred doing, especially at the speed I wanted. I also think the fact I was working nights and sleeping days didn’t help.
  • Caving – Ironically, despite having the NCRC weeklong in NY this year, I didn’t get into caves much this year. The best part was taking a local reporter into a local cave during our mock rescue.
  • See friends – Again, with my schedule, I didn’t do as much of this as I wished. And tonight, when normally we’d have a lot of folks over, I’m self-isolating because of a cold (not Covid thankfully).
  • Travel – this is one that Randi and I did manage to do! We flew out to Seattle and stayed with close friends for a night before boarding the Empire Builder for Whitefish Montana. There we disembarked and spent 3 solid days exploring Glacier National Park. Let’s just say 3 days is not nearly enough. When done we took the Empire Builder from Whitefish back to Chicago where we stayed a night at a hotel and then flew home. I’m already trying to figure out how to get back!
  • Septic system – Let’s not talk about this.
  • Several Projects around the House – well, just one, but it took finally biting the bullet and getting a table saw. But I think I’ll work on a few more before moving away for PA school.
  • Classes – I did take one more. If I had more time I might have taken more, or had I not gotten into a PA school I might have taken more to help with my transcript, but decided to focus the time on relaxing and working nights more.
  • Blogging – well I did blog, and as promised, not as much. So I guess I succeeded on that one.

So overall, us usual some hits, some misses, but the biggest hit is one I really was working for, so I’m content.

O-Chem 1-Chem 2-Chem

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Just a quick blog this week since I missed last week. My previous blog post was about O-Chem and that’s still on my mind. I finally received my test grade back and well, let’s say I was a bit disappointed. Though turns out two of the questions were marked wrongly because the Scantron missed my correct answers (I need better pencils!) So that helped. And I got 4 out of 5 points on the bonus (I lost a point because, despite knowing better I put an extra electron pair on the Carbon (it was a “bookkeeping” exercise I meant to erase) and as such gave the Carbon the equivalent of 5 bonds. As our Professor pointed out, any good O-Chemist would cringe at the thought of that!

But what really helped, and I appreciated, was that given how quickly the test came upon us (literally the 4th day of class, after a holiday weekend) she allowed us to submit corrections. But not simply “Oh, it should have been C” but “It should have been C, and here’s where in the notes you explained that.” If you were able to provide the correction and why, you got back half the points you lost. I think this was actually pretty fair and it also helped me because it did force me to go back and focus on my mistakes and learn what I had missed. This elevated my grade enough that I ended up being quite happy with it.

That said, she’s not doing that with the future tests, including the one I took this morning. This test was a bit different, it was on basically two weeks of material (naming, chirality, and Sn1/Sn2 reactions for those who care). I’ve got to say, in some ways I was more nervous about this one than the previous one. And honestly, 2/3rds of the material was in my mind pretty straightforward. (Small aside: yes, chemical names can get long and unwieldy, but once you “crack the code” you can draw the exact molecule pretty easily, at least for what we’re doing. Don’t ask me the chemical name for something like Tamoxifin (though honestly, it might be doable now that I’ve looked at it 🙂

But the nucleophile stuff, I still don’t 100% grasp. I mostly get the idea, but keeping the details straight is tricky. And that’s most likely where I lost points. Of course I won’t know until the end of class tomorrow!

And now we’re on to the next two chapters and another test next Tuesday. Then three chapters, a final chapter test and a final exam (the last 2 are in the same week!)

This is literally the 4th week of a 6 week class (and I’ve finished 1 of 3 days this week) so I’m officially more than 1/2-way through!

Yeah, we’re moving fast, I feel the knowledge oozing out of my brain as I try to cram it all in.

So, we’ll see how I do. I’d write more, but I have reading and practice problems to work on before tomorrow’s class and lab.

O-Chem O-My

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I did something last week I hadn’t done in a while. I skipped blogging on Tuesday. I almost did so again this week, but have about 90 minutes left in my timezone to get one in. So… here goes.

As part of my ongoing quest to prepare to apply to PA School, I am again taking a class. This time it’s O-Chem. I’ll let you in on a little secret. I’ve dreaded this ever since I first started looking at the prereqs I have to fulfill before I can apply to the program I want.

I’ve had a… special relationship with chemistry. In high school, I waited until my Senior year to take it. This wasn’t by design. It wasn’t a requirement to graduate and I simply figured I’d skip it. That is until I started to apply to colleges, including RPI and most wanted 2 semesters of high school chemistry. Combine that with a change in the rules at my high school for senior English (basically had to take 2 electives of English, even if you were taking AP English, which I was), meant my senior year I was taking not one, but TWO more courses than I had planned. I often worked on 5 hours of sleep 6 nights a week (my private prep school had classes on Saturday). So, when something had to give, it was chemistry homework. This frustrated my teacher because it was 10% of the grade and she would remind the class that doing the homework helped a lot with the quizzes and exams. Well I was already doing very well on those, so homework was dropped. It was a trade-off.

Then college chemistry at RPI came along. Somehow I was good at it. Or rather, I was good at helping others prepare for the tests and could easily explain topics, but honestly, did poorly in the class. Oh well, it wasn’t computer science. I’d survive. And at least I didn’t have to take O-Chem! I heard horror stories.

And how here I am, 30 years taking O-Chem. But like my history with chemistry, this has a twist. Because of scheduling I’m taking the 6 week version of the class, basically class for close to 2.5 hours in the morning and then lab for 2.5 hours in the afternoon, 3 times a week.

So, last Tuesday I was prepping for class and stressing about it.

And here I am a week later, with 1 exam under my belt (we move fast) and 3 labs (first day was just safety briefing and orientation) and I’m still feeling overwhelmed and honestly, almost having fun.

My schedule goes something like this: 1-2 hours of paying work in the morning 2.5 hours of class, a break, 1-2.5 hours of lab (it varies), home, work, dinner, some more work possibly, then transcribing notes, looking up questions, and trying to get through the book. Then 1-2 hours of preparing for lab the next day. (This last part is new since I didn’t actually get my lab notebook until Friday, so I will still have to go back and do lab notes for 2 previous labs).

And then of course this past weekend, studying for my first exam. This had two additional complications. The first, I was in a remote area without great bandwidth and a flakey computer, which complicated things. The second was that, without a practice test, it was hard to know what exactly to focus on.

I was hoping to get my test grade back tonight, but will have to wait until tomorrow morning in class. I’m fairly confident I passed. But honestly, I have no idea how well I did. There were definitely a few questions I wasn’t prepared for. But, the professor has been good on making sure we focus on the why and how, rather than remote memorization, so I hope I reasoned them out correctly. If not, at least it’s good practice for the next exam (which fortunately is in two weeks.)

I’m not sure this is the hardest class I’ve taken, but it’s definitely up there and it’s even harder because of the condensed schedule. But I almost remind myself I’m just over 1/6th done!

So… we’ll see.

This Week In School

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From the first day of classes I’ve worried about a week like this. I think I’ve mentioned I’m only taking three of the prereqs I need to apply to PA school. That’s not a horribly heavy load, but this week everything came to a head at once.

  • Monday – Anatomy & Physiology I Exam
  • Tuesday – Bio I Exam
  • Wednesday – Bio Prelab due and Bio Lab Quiz
  • Saturday – General Psych Exam Due
  • Sunday – General Psych Paper Due

Literally the only thing that’s NOT happening this week is my A&P lab quiz on bones and their facets and attachments points and more. I suppose I should be grateful for small favors.

And to make things worse, none of my study group for A&P was available this weekend.

Now fortunately, the General Psych paper can be submitted for review early, so I knocked that out Saturday morning and got feedback by Sunday night. So I’ll upload that shortly. And the General Psych test is online and available starting tomorrow night, so I can put off studying for that a bit and take it at my convenience.

And finally, the Bio Prelab is almost literally cut and paste and can be submitted on-line. So that’s been knocked out.

But the A&P I and Bio I exams: those made me nervous. Fortunately they’re mostly multiple choice, with the Bio exam having some essay questions.

I’ve always been a decent test taker, but I have to admit, multiple choice does make things easier. In fact, one of the topics we covered in General Psych last week is memory and how recognition is “easier” than recall. i.e. it’s a bit easier to see 4 possible answers to a question and recognize the right one than to be simply asked the question and have to recall the information and write it down.

That said, for me, one thing I often like to do when taking a multiple choice test is see if I can think of the right answer before I actually see the choices, i.e. make use of recall to reinforce my recognition. This gives me more confidence when I eventually choose my final answer.

And if you add to this the fact that there are actually skills one can learn when taking multiple choice tests, such as recognizing distractors, knowing certain answers are simply wrong and sometimes being able to think through to the right answer.

This came into play on question on yesterday’s test. I went back and checked all my answers before handing in the Scantron (yes, they still use them!) and had marked a few for “definitely look at” and one I wasn’t 100% sure on. But I was able to rule out two answers of the 4 and was down to two answers. I had initially checked one of them, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized the other was the right one.

So, one test down, another in an hour and then on to the rest. Wish me luck.

Time Management

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One of the side effects, happy I tend to think, of taking my prereqs for PA school is that it’s forced me to better about my time management.

I’ve often said that one of the advantages of consulting is I can set my own hours. And there’s truth to that. But there’s a flip side. Sometimes it can be hard to get started on projects or to even get motivated. With projects sometimes I feel guilty if I’m setting aside time for them and not hustling for more work. Or, motivation is low because well, sometimes it’s tough to get motivated when the highlight of your day is “Can you add this user to the database?”

But now, I have approximately 12 hours of the week I absolutely have to block out. I can’t make excuses to myself of “oh, I can do that later” or “Oh, I should be trying to drum up more work” etc. I have to be in a room or lab, focusing on a particular topic.

But more so, on top of that, I have to block out time pretty much every night and so far one day of the weekend, to go over notes, study the past week, prepare for the next and work on study aids. So this has forced me to get better about time management. Fortunately I’m not in the stage where it’s highly stressful. If anything I’m feeling a bit better. I feel like I’m accomplishing more. So, a side effect of my school work is I actually feel a little more charged because I feel like I’m using my time more effectively.

And part of that, is making sure I get this blog out in time to take care of the rest of my day.

Week 1 Update

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Because last Monday was Martin Luther King Jr Day, my classes didn’t start until Tuesday. So technically I finished my first week yesterday and I’m starting my second week today.

And wow, I have to say, so far, I’m loving it. But there’s more to it than just that.

I’ve had a few friends close in age say, “Wow, I could never do what you’re doing!” Or, “Wow, I’m done with school. How are you doing it?”

For all of them, I understand. For one, everyone is different. Some didn’t have a great experience in school. Some are too busy. Some just don’t have the interest. I get it. But for me, wow, it’s been a great and heady experience and parts of me wish I had done this years ago. Of course I have to temper that with “it’s your first week Greg, give it a few more weeks.”

It is definitely a strange experience being the oldest students in the class. The only reason I say oldest student and not oldest person is because the four professors I have area all close in age to me or older. I’m only taking three classes, but my Bio I lab professor is not the same as the Bio I lecturer, hence having 4 total.

Bio I – so far, all review for me. Basic chemistry and some basic definitions. The professor has made a good point that we all have to start someplace and I agree.

Bio I Lab – basic safety and use of the micropipette and spectrophotometer. Good stuff. But not the most exciting. I do hope it gets better.

Psychology 100 – Strangely the class I felt oldest in for a minute when he was talking about the theory of playing classical music in utero and if the idea it might have an impact on fetal and baby intelligence. It was just a brief comment, but I had to remind myself, I was alive when this was all the rage back in 1998, including the governor of Georgia wanting to send CDs with classical music to all pregnant mothers. Meanwhile, the other students in the class, if they had heard of it, it was either as history, or because they heard the music itself!

Anatomy & Physiology 1 – The professor was out due to Covid for our first two classes and lab unfortunately, so we did stuff via Zoom. I can already tell I think this is the class I’m going to have the most fun in. It’s also probably going to include some of the most amount of rote memorization. So flash card time! I’ve already warned Randi on longer road trips I may have her ask me questions while we’re driving.

Besides enjoying the classes, I think I’m prepared to be a better student than I was 30 plus years ago. There’s a number reasons. For one, I’ve simply just accumulated a lot of general knowledge over that time between a lot of reading and then the learning and teaching I’ve done for NCRC and other programs. So for example, I’m already ahead on some of the terminology in A&P.

But it’s more than that. I’m simply a bit more focused, though that will be something I’ll have to keep an eye in, including keeping the balance with consulting in place.

But also, the technology obviously is different, and this has honestly helped me. Being able to communicate with the instructors via email (and Zoom) works well for my style. And the other thing I’m taking advantage of is my Rocketbook and OneNote to better take notes and organize things.

I have yet to really meet any of my classmates or learn their names and this being a community college and all of us are on different tracks, I suspect I won’t get too close to any of them. If/when I get into PA School though I suspect that part will change, in part because we’ll all be focused on the same thing and because having study partners will be an absolute requirement.

So, it’s only been week one, but I’m really enjoying it and looking forward to the rest of the semester.

In the meantime, an update on the Lego Saturn V I received for Christmas:

Lego Saturn V - S-IC stage sitting on a dining room table.
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The Dream

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The dream is always the same. … and I… find myself in a room full of kids taking their college boards. I’m over three hours late; I’ve got two minutes to take the whole test. I’ve… just made a terrible mistake. I’ll never get to college. My life is ruined. – Risky Business

Today is the day. For the first time in over 30 years I’ll be sitting down in a college classroom and taking a class. I distinctly recall taking my final exam for college. It was in Microbiology. I wasn’t overly concerned. I need to get something like a 40% on it to pass the class (and since it was counting as transfer credit, my actual letter grade didn’t matter as far as RPI was concerned.). It was multiple choice. Once I was confident I had gotten well over 40% I put down the pen and walked out. (For the record I ended up well over 80% on the exam.)

But I have to remind myself, that technically while that was the end of my undergrad career, I have taken classes since then. I took a class on SQL Server a few years later, I studied for and got my MCSE a few years after that, and starting in 2002, I started my career with the NCRC where I have since become an instructor.

But, this is different. For one, it’s 12 weeks of classes. There will be a lab. There will be homework. It’ll be harder in its own way than the other training.

Like many, for years after I graduated, I’d have a dream, usually around May, where it was exam time and I realized there was a class I had never attended and now had to take an exam in it. I’d always wake up a bit upset. One year though finally the dream changed. This time the setup was the same, but when I went to take the final exam, I aced it. Don’t ask me how. But I literally stopped having these exam dreams after that.

So I figure it’s appropriate that I had a dream about starting school last night. In my dream though, I was over in Schenectady (about 15 miles from the community college I’ll be taking classes at) trying to get folks to tell me what time it was, since I had to be at class at 2:00 PM. None would give me a straight answer at first until I got upset. Finally one person told me it was 1:45 PM. I was panicking because I knew there would be no way I’d make it to the Torrington CT Campus of UConn. It was then that I recalled that fortunately I didn’t have to drive that far.

All this is a setup to admit that yes, I am actually both excited and nervous. I’ve gone in a few short weeks from a feeling of ennui when it came to my career and life to one of stress and even a slight bit of panic. Of course it didn’t help that I had to get my vaccination status cleared, and then a bunch of other paperwork finished up late yesterday before it all became official.

I honestly have very little idea what my experiences over the next several years will be like. But I’m looking forward to them.

And more in the future.

Wow…

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As I posted in my 2022 Year in Preview on Saturday among other goals, I had decided to work towards a career change. On Facebook and elsewhere I asked folks to read it and by extension, for support.

Wow, I got it in spades. I’m humbled and thankful. Now if I could say I wasn’t nervous or even already feeling a bit overwhelmed.

I thought I’d provide a quick update.

One of the first steps I need to complete before I can even apply for PA school is to fulfill a bunch of prerequisites. This means taking a fairly full class load at the local community college. To do that, I needed to actually register for classes. I figured that would be the easy part, so I set off full of hope yesterday morning to do so. Their offices were closed last week, so yesterday was my first opportunity.

And I hit my first roadblock. I was told I needed to prove my vaccination status to the health office first. Well that’s a bit of a problem because for various reasons, I didn’t have access to my health records from when I was a kid, when I would have received the required vaccinations. After series of calls to various providers and the community college health office, I learned I could, if necessary get the shots from the health office. But, I needed to be registered for classes first. So effectively I couldn’t register until the health office said everything was OK, and the health office couldn’t say everything would be OK until I was registered for classes. Welcome to the classic Catch-22.

Eventually I was able to cut some red-tape and am registered and on the way to solving my vaccination status issues.

So, first hurdle cleared.

Then another one hit: I may have underestimated what prereqs I need and if that’s true, will have to 100% definitely push back one year for the whole process.

I’ll admit that gives me very mixed feelings. One one hand, it may mean a lot less pressure to get everything done this year. On the other, it definitely means another year before I can fully change careers.

So, yesterday was a roller coaster of emotions.

And it was just the first week. But I didn’t expect it all to be roses and flowers. But I’ve decided to t least share most of my ups and downs with my readers.

Oh and one upside: I finally got a Christmas present that I had wanted for two years: the Lego Saturn V. Thanks Ian. I’m going to take my time building it, spread out the enjoyment.