Break was great but bittersweet. It was nice to have two weeks off from the intense pressure of school, but coming back has hit me hard. I didn't do enough work over break, and the last couple of days before classes began I didn't get much sleep each night, so I've felt like I've been run over by a train in terms of work and returning to school mode. It's a tough position to be in: on one hand, I had to move, I was on the road a lot, I didn't have internet access most of the time, and I also had to fufill family obligations for the holidays and stuff, so I had some good reasons not to get work done. On the other hand, I did go out for New Years, and I did spend an evening with my best friend and her new baby, had lunch with my coach, and did go out to see a movie another night, so maybe I could have cut something back? I don't know. It was good to have a little social time, but man, I am so far behind and this is not a great feeling. I've actually been a little grump because of it.

Today was good though. We had our first clinical seminar today, which goes like this: they give the class a chief complaint a week head of time and secretly pick one student to be a pt so they can develop a script, and then when the time comes, they pick one student at random to do a history, diagnose, and treat the student/patient in front of the entire class on the spot. The chief complaint was cough, and of course I was picked first to go up and be the PA!! In the grand scheme of things it went well, it wasn't a smooth process and I made some mistakes, but considering this was our first clinical seminar, and I've never had to dx and treat a pt, let alone present a pt, I did ok. I'm actually really glad I was picked the PA because this is how I learn the best. I love being in high pressure situations, and I actually felt like I was critically thinking as opposed to memorizing and regurgitating. It was a great mood picker-upper :)