First Week Stress

Well I survived my first partial week of graduate school. Between the exhaustion and worries, I somehow survived. It was also very overwhelming, so much information, so many new thing, and so many new people.

Orientation
Tuesday was a long day of orientation. It was the first day that I saw everyone in my program (which includes a guy) and when I first learned the names of way too many faculty members. There are about 17 faculty members, this is over 5 times how many faculty we had at NMU. We were told how to live as a grad student and how to live globally and the such. We then went on a scavenger hunt around our main building and the building in which the clinic was located. I'm so glad my team had students who had attended western, or we would have been completely lost. We then had a very long session about what we needed to know and what was on our resource cd that we had received that summer. I personally think there was too much on the cd, and many of my classmates agree. Good thing it is my job to prepare the cd for the incoming students next year...I'll mention why at a later time. We then met with our advisors for lunch. It was fun, and I have a great advisor with a cool last name of Glista. We were then done and I was so glad to get out of there and I was so exhausted afterwards. TOO MUCH INFORMATION!!!!

First Day of Class
Well I arrived extra early to the building to find parking (I'll always have parking) and to finish reading for my first class. Well our first class had to move rooms, but luckily that new room is where we will be the rest of the semester. That class will be interesting. The next two classes go together and are rather interesting as well. We played BAFA BAFA in the one class today. Sadly my Wednesday classes go until 5:40....which is exhausting. The best part of the day was the free Papa Johns pizza at lunch time!!!

Clinic
Well Thursday and Friday I spent an hour each at the clinic building being educated. It was one looooong hour. I think it was slightly pointless, but I did get my clinic schedule. One client, working in the Aphasia clinic, and my diagnostic team. I will be in the clinic from 10 am until 7pm every Tuesday and Thursday. Those will be very long days. But it will be worth it. I also get to do some of my GA hours in the clinic as my professor I'm the assisstant for, is the head of the Aphasia Clinic.

Ice Cream Social
After clinic orientation on Friday, we had an ice cream social with the professors and second years. It was actually a lot of fun. The second years gave us tips, we met out 'buddies' and we talked with the professors. My buddy is D, who went to NMU and graduated the year before me. It is interesting to have a northern student as my buddy, and I feel lucky as we had similar experiences in our undergrad.

Graduate Assistantship
I am working as an assistant to Professor G. I get to do some copies, some grading, some help, some research, some data inputting, and some cd making. Its going to keep me busy. 10 hours a week.


Sorry this post is so long. I've just been so busy and so stressed that I haven't wrote. I have more to write about this weekend, but I will save that for a later post.