I got back from Las Vegas on a Friday, and Saturday went in to school for part of the first year class' makeup from the previous week's snow days. They also had class all day Friday to make up the class time. Preceptors were needed to help with the EKG Challenge, where the students competed in teams to see who could correctly identify EKG rhythms the fastest using this website:
Six second ECG Simulator. When my class did this challenge two years ago, I was one of the faster people, but there was one even faster on my team so I didn't participate in the final challenge between the top performers on each team. It was fun to watch as a spectator/ proctor this year instead of being focused on participating.
That night I joined my friend Lauren (from Graduate Christian Fellowship) at Winter Jam, a Christian music festival/ concert. For $10 we got to see 10 bands, a visual/ performance artist, a speaker, and Nik Wallenda, a daredevil tightrope walker. It was held in the Georgia Dome, and Nik Wallenda walked a wire set across the width of the building, with no harness or net. I'd guess he was at least 60 feet above the floor.
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| winter jam concert at the georgia dome |
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| nik wallenda tightrope walking across the dome |
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| lauren and me |
On Monday I got caught up with work answering admissions emails and then spent four hours in lab with the first year class. I had been watching the weather forecast and suspected we were going to have another "Snowpocalyse." After climbing at Emory's wall, I checked my email and found out that Emory was indeed going to close the next day as a preemptive strike on the weather. Unfortunately, that turned out to be a rain day instead of a snow day - the university and the city could have easily functioned as they normally do in a downpour. Since there was no ice on the roads, I got together with my climbing friend Anika and her roommate Julie and went to watch the Disney movie Frozen. It was very good, fun to watch.
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there's going to be a new muppet movie (trailer); oscar nominated short
"get a horse!" precedes the movie; main show |
Wednesday a couple inches of ice pellets fell, making a legitimate snow day. The University remained closed Thursday to allow the roads to melt and dry out, so it was essentially a repeat of the time lost two weeks earlier. I stuck around my house, bored. I baked cookies, wrote a couple of blog posts, cleaned my house, did laundry, prepped a short presentation for the first year General Medical Conditions class, and still managed to go stir crazy! I went for a walk around the block, but it just wasn't enough. When Friday rolled around, I had my presentation to give followed by another lab for the first years to make up for time lost due to snow days. The lab lasted till nearly 6 pm - they had several extra hours of class that day in lieu of coming in on Saturday to make up the time. That night, I went climbing at Wall Crawlers with their cheap Friday night student rate - it was SO good to get out and do something active!
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| walking through the puddles |
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| frozen pink dogwood buds |
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| anika, marius, david, tiffany, and me at wall crawlers |
The next week was busy, with work, a seminar/ open house for the Emory Physical Therapy Neurologic and Orthopedic Residency programs, a lunch meeting for the Dominican Republic team where we spoke ZERO Spanish while we attempted to iron out a lot of details, my one consistent 2-hour class, community group for Passion City Church, a 3.5 hour research meeting to make up time lost from the snow days, my first climbing wall shift of the year because snow days cancelled two of them and I missed one while in Las Vegas, Graduate Christian Fellowship, and serving lunch at the Emory International Coffee Hour (a weekly gathering for international students). In addition to all of those activities, I helped out with 15 hours of labs with the first year class, including their first simulation labs, where the students perform evaluations and treatments on mannequins. Friday evening I covered my friend's shift at the Emory climbing wall and afterward headed to Wall Crawlers - it's a great way to finish the week!
That Sunday was my classmate Lara's baby shower. Most of the guests were from our class, we had a good time celebrating the rapidly approaching birth of her baby girl, due any time now.
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| elizabeth, angela, lara, me, and tyler |
The last week before heading to the Dominican Republic was even busier, including dinner with my friends Laura and Debbie from Veritas church which I attended 2011-2012, sharing with the first years about clinicals and how to succeed in their upcoming first clinical, our final Dominican Republic planning meeting, a trip to
Embraced Atlanta with my classmate Angela to pick up donated medical equipment to bring to the DR, work, coordination with my classmate Christine on getting all our ducks in a row to take the PT board exam for California, a shift and a half at the Emory climbing wall, my regular Tuesday class, and another 3.5 hour research meeting. Thursday, February 27 was "Shine a Light on Slavery Day" from the
End It Movement - I joined thousands of people across the world with a red "X" on my hand to spark questions. The goal was to promote awareness of the prevalence (or even existence) of human trafficking and slavery today. I ended up fielding questions at work in the PT office as well as in lab with the first year class. As a preceptor, I put in around 20 hours of scheduled time that week plus an additional 2 hours helping a student practice for her practical. 8 of those hours were on Friday during their first OSCE practical exams - where they go into a small room with an actor/ patient and there are two cameras recording the interaction. That day was interrupted with two meetings to set up access to the admissions email so I could answer emails the following week from the DR since my supervisor was going to also be out of the country, but without internet access. I ended Friday by heading to Wall Crawlers again.
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| enditmovement.com |
Saturday was the last chance to get all my things packed - including an extra bag for medical supplies Angela and I had picked up at Embraced Atlanta. I went over and compared space available in my CR-V versus my classmate Lindsay's newer CR-V and decided the larger storage capacity of my older vehicle would be ideal to get four of us to the airport the next morning. I made a last minute trip to Target to pick up a few items, and then attempted to get some sleep!
