Start of Uni = End of Sleep

Wow over a month since I last posted..don't think I've ever gone that long without posting! So here's a post to finally get things going again!

Uni has been hell in terms of the amount of sleep I'm getting, and it's not because I'm doing so much study, but because of the 8am starts I have almost everyday! I get to sleep just slightly after midnight, and not only find it so hard to get up in the morning but I've been falling asleep in class more often this semester than last, and I always end up having a little nap in the library!

This semester my timetable is arranged so that I tend to have a lecture early in the morning, followed by a large gap and then a lab or workshop in the afternoon that finishes at about 5pm. I'm up at Grafton for all my classes now which to me isn't such a great thing, as most of my friends are over in the city campus! Sometimes I try to wander back to the city and hope that I stumble across some of my friends!

So far the first few weeks of the semester have been non-eventful. In the first two days of uni all third year pharmacy, medicine and nursing students had to attend this Quality and Safety Assurance Seminar, or something like that at the Rendezvous Hotel in the city. We were put in mixed groups and assigned a table. I was in group 32, and just happened to be sitting at a table which was behind a pillar! This meant that the speaker on the stage always ended up standing right behind the pillar, so all I'd be able to see was an empty stage!

I was reunited with this nursing student who was in my Maori Health Week group last year, and so we sorta hung out together for most of the two-day seminar, which involved listening to speakers, as well as working on a group case. Our one happened to be based in the hospital. I can't really be too specific because we have to be confidential about it, but all I'll say is it involved an overdose. I was so clueless, as I had no idea what registrars, consultants and charge nurses were! We don't really learn that sorta stuff in pharmacy.

We were getting marked on our participation, so I did my best to act as if I was contributing whenever our supervisor came along (she had to look after two groups).

To be honest, it was quite hard staying awake during the talks! I kept falling asleep! There was one time when I was starting to doze off, and one of the girls hit the table quite loud and I suddenly jumped. I don't know if she hit the table just to wake me up or what!

During morning tea on the second day, I thought I'd try make myself a cup of tea to see if it'd help me stay awake. The result? FAIL...I thought I'd try again with a different type of tea at afternoon tea later that day, but when I went to fill my cup with hot water, I didn't realise the giant tank had coffee in it! I ended up just making myself some coffee, and surprisingly it worked! I stayed awake for the rest of the afternoon! Fortunately our group didn't have to present on stage.

I originally thought that seminar was bad...well it feels like a holiday compared to the actual semester now that it's in full swing with classes, assignments, labs and reports! I've just done an all-nighter trying to complete a lab report that was due today, and have a presentation on anaemia tomorrow, so I will continue this post tomorrow!