When I was originally looking at naturopathic medicine programs, I was shocked to learn that some schools don’t do dissections in a gross anatomy lab, yet over the last year, I have come to really appreciate my time there. Arguably, I am appreciating it a little more lately as my time in there is almost complete. I have four weeks left of dissecting, and I can honestly say I am going to really miss it.

A few years ago, I made a new year’s resolution to not let my fears stop me from doing anything. Literally, on New Year’s Day, I took my niece and nephew to a children’s museum in Baltimore. That day they had some reptiles for the kids to touch. One of the reptiles was a snake. I am terrified of snakes, and don’t even like to look at them in pictures! But, I knew I had made this resolution, and I was determined to TOUCH the snake! I did it! I’m thankful for that opportunity because it ended up setting the pace for my entire year. Anytime I was afraid, I would remind myself that I touched a freaking snake, no amount of fear could keep me from doing anything!

I don’t know what it is, but I swear the midterms that happen during weeks 5 & 6 often feel significantly worse than even finals week. I think it has to do with every class having an ‘early assessment grade’ by week 6, so everything falls around the same time. Whereas for finals week, practical exams are typically a separate week from the written exams, which makes things feel a little more spread out.

Typically, the cold weather doesn’t bother me too much. However, it has gotten VERY cold here! We have a good amount of snow, which I think is really pretty. With biase, I admit that the only reason I find the snow nice is because I don’t have to worry about commuting in it. Have I mentioned how awesome it is to live on campus? I know, I know, I have mentioned it in most of my blog posts...

Winter break was wonderful, and greatly needed!  After final exams were over, I did something new. Instead of rushing home to Maryland, I relaxed for a couple days in Illinois.  I caught up on my sleep, which I’m sad to admit had been greatly lacking the weeks leading up to exams. I went on a hike with a couple classmates and our puppies; and we just hung out thinking about the year we just had. We survived the first year! 

Surprising my family for Thanksgiving was amazing! My parents were SUPER surprised, as were my nieces and nephew. I didn’t realize how much I needed some family time until I was there and able to enjoy it for a couple days. While I did get a lot of studying done while I was home, I was able to relax and visit quite a bit as well. I bought my nieces and nephew a couple games to play (that are a little noisy, so I knew their parents would never purchase them). I bought Hungry Hippo and Operation. We had a blast playing the two games!

Thanksgiving was this week, so I thought I would make a traditional post about some of the things I am thankful for. Consider yourself warned, some of this will be super cliché. 

School is hard. Each trimester is 15 weeks, and unfortunately, life outside of school doesn’t actually stop, even if it sometimes feels like it does while we are fully focused on school for 15 weeks at a time. 

These last couple of weeks have been super fun, super stressful, but all around awesome! A couple weeks ago, we had Naturopathic Medicine Week. Our school competed hard, under the leadership of our chapter president Janice, who organized what seemed like a thousand events to help our school earn points in the national competition where we competed against the other schools.

I have so much to blog about! It has been a crazy couple weeks of midterms (with what seems like no end in sight). But, in between some of the craziness, there have been some exciting events taking place on campus!