Blogging from class

Hello, faithful reader. I come to you today from room 1102 in the Education 2 North building at the Anschutz Medical Campus. We (well, some of us) are presently listening to a presentation about the Colorado Board of Pharmacy and licensure requirements. This is important for us to know, yes, but that doesn't make it interesting. All week has been like that. Monday: Introduction to the library, learning styles, and a personality inventory. (Free breakfast and lunch, though!) Tuesday: professionalism, pharmacy care, finding your strengths, and teamwork (the "corporate retreat" day), as well as intro to campus services. Wednesday: curriculum-related, extracurriculars fair, and a really good nap (not really). Thursday: clickers, ethics, career pathways, and medical terminology. Friday (today): Half day! I think I'ma take a nap later. Probably not, but it'd be nice.

This week begins the semester-long, non-stop sleep deprivation experiment. That's not 100% true; I get to sleep in on Saturdays and can probably go to bed early on the days I don't work, but I don't have a day off from both work and school until Thanksgiving. I'll let you sit on that for a second. Thanksgiving is 97 days from today, and my last day off was last Thursday (the 13th). So that's 105 days without a break. And I work the day after Thanksgiving, so the break is one day. I feel a little like Superman. I hope I get a prize at the end (other than the Pharm.D.).

So Tuesday is the first class that counts. This week is a course, and I have to pass it to continue into the Pharm.D. program, but it's not really pharmacy-related. 8 a.m. on Tuesday is the first lecture of Pharmacy Law. That should be fun after working all night. If I had to pick one potential problem for this semester it's that combination of working 6-2 Monday night and going to Law Tuesday morning. So if you're awake late Monday night or early Tuesday morning, think of me. And give me a call maybe. I won't be sleeping.

The pharmacy career paths exercise was sort of interesting. It asks you 48 questions like "How important is vacation and time off?" on a scale of 1 to 10, then tells you which areas of pharmacy are the best fit for you. Mine came back pretty high for compounding and clinical pharmacy, which interest me. Compounding is preparation of custom doses, medications with short half-lives, and special dosing methods like lollipops and creams. Doesn't that sound fun? Clinical pharmacy is a specialty field where you generally deal with patients in a hospital and with a specific disease, type of disease, or patient population (such as pediatrics or geriatrics). If I had to pick today, I would specialize in psychiatric pharmaceuticals or in addictions.

I'm not giving up just yet, but it looks like the Cardinals are going to run away with the NL Central and the Giants and Rockies will be the only players in the Wild Card race. If true, it means no playoffs for my precious Cubs. That's OK; they'd have lost in the first round anyway. The Cubs need to work on developing for the future right now; I think this season pointed out how thin they are beyond their top talents. I haven't looked at the free agent crop, but they do have money to spend, so that's one way to get better in a hurry. Time now to focus my fan energy on those lovable Colorado Rockies. A four-game series with the Giants begins tonight, and the Rox find themselves just three and a half games back in their division. A good homestand could put them in place not only for the Wild Card but for the outright division win, something they've never done in their fifteen seasons spent as also-rans (and one as National League champions).

I'm like 98% certain that the logo I used for my picture here is not a copyright infringement. I don't want to step on anybody's intellectual property toes here, so if any of my pictures belong to you and you don't want me using them, just let me know. I'll take them down immediately.

That's all on my end. Thanks for reading, and come back soon.