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Categories Education, Thankful Thursday

Thankful Thursday: Three Days

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Today, I’m thankful…

That I have just three more days before my RD exam

For those of you unfamiliar with the process of becoming a Registered Dietitian, I’ll give you a quick summary. First, a RD-hopeful must complete a qualified Didactic Program in Dietetics (DPD). I completed mine in December of 2007 with a bachelor’s degree in Dietetics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). Second, a RD-hopeful must complete a qualified internship including at least 900 hours of supervised practice. I completed my internship at UNL just this last July. The final step in becoming a Registered Dietitian, then, is passing the Registration Examination for Dietitians (or RD exam). This is our version of med school’s “boards”.

The RD exam is a computer-based test that will test my knowledge in five critical domains of dietetics:

  1. Food and Nutrition Science
  2. Nutrition Care Process
  3. Counseling, Communication, Education, and Research
  4. Foodservice Management
  5. General Management

The potential scope of this exam is perhaps best illustrated by the list of references the board recommends potential RD’s review prior to sitting for their exam. The list is twenty-two books long. I own just five of those titles, but that alone is over 3000 pages of information. The texts I own that are analogous to the other suggested references are just as long. So imagine a test that could cover up to 13,000 pages worth of information. Of course, the test won’t be that long. I’ll have a minimum of 125 questions and the test will take somewhere around four hours. But still, I have no way of knowing what information might show up on my exam. Which means I need to review it all (Hah!)

Needless to say, this is slightly stressful.

So today I’m thankful that in three days the stress will be over. The results are scored immediately, so I will know Sunday evening whether I’m an RD.

And, presuming that I pass, I’ll be ready to accrue some CME (Continuing Medical Education) at FNCE (Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo–the American Dietetic Association’s National Meeting) next weekend.

Categories Education, Simple Sunday

Simple Sunday: Skipping

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Simple Sunday icon

~Thankful for (almost) guilt-free skipping today. With one week to go before my RD Exam (and 60 lab reports to grade), I knew I needed to get down to business. So I skipped the Sunday school prayer hour, choosing instead to spend some time in the Word at home. And I skipped the Precinct meeting of the Republican party (Mom and Dad will have to catch me up later.) And I skipped Life Chain (Probably the second time I’ve missed it since it began.) And I’m currently skipping a movie night at church.

I don’t feel bad at all. I spent some hard-core time with my MNT text–and am feeling much more prepared for my exam.

I’d never even thought of skipping. I don’t skip things. Especially not church things. Or political things. I go. to. everything.

But yesterday, my Dad told me that I had “permission” to not attend the precinct meeting–and it suddenly hit me. I don’t HAVE to attend everything. Not right now, when I’ve got too much on my plate already. I don’t have to attend things just because they show up in the church bulletin or in my mailbox.

Thankful for the realization–and thankful for all the work I managed to get done on my quiet day while everyone else was attending the stuff I skipped.

Visit Davene at Life on Sylvan Drive for more Simple Sunday posts.

Categories Books, Reflections

Then and Now

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Several years ago, I picked up an etiquette book from the 1920s at a garage sale. I’ve rifled through it every now and then, but haven’t really read it–at least, not until just recently.

What I’ve found has been most entertaining.

Some things stay the same, other things change.

In a chapter on dinner parties, the author suggests the following as an acceptable way of taking leave:

“Good-night, Mrs. Carr. I must thank you for a perfectly delightful evening.”

To which the hostess may reply:

“We were glad to have you, I’m sure, Mrs. Roberts.”

Perfectly polite in the ’20s. Ridiculously snarky in the next millennium.

Just read the sarcasm: “I must thank your for a perfectly delightful evening.” “We were glad to have you, I’m sure.”

Ah, the differences between then and now.

Categories Reflections

Time for a little whine

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I know I’m just complaining and I know I ought not. But seriously. Something is wrong with my life. I just wish I knew what.

I’m beyond tired. I’m exhausted.

I’m impatient. I want to be done with my RD exam, done with my grading, done with this infernal Master’s degree. I want to be on to a job search, a house search, a family.

I feel like I’m piddling around, wasting time. I don’t have any time to do anything I want to do–and I don’t seem to be getting any closer to being able to do what I want to do.

I’m just here. Tired. Overworked. Frustrated. Impatient.

God, are You listening?

Help!

Categories Thankful Thursday

Thankful Thursday: Negative Edition

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Today I’m thankful…

  • for NOT oversleeping this morning, despite staying up way too late last night
  • for NOT waking up with the same horrible headache I had yesterday
  • for NOT running out of gas, despite letting my gas tank get MUCH lower than normal
  • for NOT being late to class, despite leaving myself little extra time
  • for NOT get drenched on my walk to class

And I’m thankful for a few positives, too. Today, I’m also thankful…

  • for a call from a potential roommate (and she has an “A” name, how perfect!)
  • for the opportunity to be in journal club (I had SO much fun today!)
  • for getting some SERIOUS studying in for the RD exam (reviewed all the macronutrient and vitamin digestion, absorption, and metabolism pathways)
  • for uploading some more blog posts to WordPress (now I’ve got all the blog posts uploaded back to February 2009)
Categories Reflections

Short of humility

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Every so often, I’m tempted to get a big head. Like when yet another woman from my department remarks on what a great teacher I am. Like when the guy in front of me in biochemistry thinks I’m a Ph.D. student. Like when another classmate in biochem thinks I’m a professor (really?)

Then I try to take a more objective look at things. So I’m a good teacher. Maybe I am. But it’s not by any personal merit. I love teaching, I love the material, I love imparting knowledge. It makes me come alive. But this is what teaching does to me, not what I do to it.

And why would people think I’m so much smarter than I am? No idea. But it’s just an illusion. I look put together. I sound like I know what I’m talking about. I ask questions to clarify what the professor said to make sure that I’m understanding the information correctly. Not that I’m actually that smart. A Ph.D? Even a Ph.D. student?

Not that I haven’t thought about it. But, truth is, I’m a (2nd year) Master’s student who’s currently overwhelmed by school and hasn’t even written her thesis proposal.

In the euphoria of teaching, I consider the further education to be just a tiny hurdle to overcome. But when I come off the buzz, even just finishing my master’s seems insurmountable.

The thousand dreams compete with one another for first place, and I think in a moment of stillness: maybe I’ll just drop out of school and get married and spend the next ten years barefoot and pregnant.

Problem is, I want to do that and STILL have the master’s degree, and get to teach, and run a church-based community center, and have a ginormous library, and write the great American novel, and bike across the state of Nebraska, and be a world traveler, and be a lactation consultant, and be a doula, and be a player in the political scene, and, and, and…

I’m caught in the difficult middle between a fierce pride that wants to do everything well and a false modesty that states that I do nothing so well as I’d like.

C.S. Lewis suggested that a truly humble man would be quite unprepossessing, not at all interested in what others thought of him, far more interested in others themselves. I am definitely not that humble man. I care way too much about where I fall on my own and others’ charts. I’m proud to have topped theirs, humiliated that I have fallen so short of my own. Neither is anywhere near humility.

Categories Technology

Version 9

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I have discovered php and it is AMAZING!

Too bad this web design stuff doesn’t really tie into my profession that much, ’cause I’m really building my arsenal.

I’m proficient in HTML and CSS, can do a smattering of xHTML and Javascript, and am in the process of learning PHP.

A classmate asked me on Thursday why I kept calling myself a nerd (apart from the obvious: annually celebrating Bilbo and Frodo’s birthday.)

I threw out a few things (copious reading, blog keeping, etc.)–but here’s another piece of proof: I just spent over two hours searching through the script for my new PHP driven web-design to find the bug that was messing up my formatting.

I found the bug–finally!–so now Version 9 is rolling out.

Of course, like with the many versions before, the roll-out may be slow. I only have so many hours in the day to work on things (and I shouldn’t GENERALLY be up at 2:45 am still working on web design!)

But the amazing power of PHP is that it should be a snap to adjust to version 10 if and when it comes out. (I wouldn’t hold my breath for that one!)

So, having shared the latest evidence of my nerdiness (and some really cute pics of me as a baby), I will bid you goodnight!

Categories Thankful Thursday

Thankful Thursday

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Today I’m thankful:

  • for Liz for agreeing to grade this second round of papers (so I can hopefully study for my RD exam)
  • for Dr. Miner for letting me turn in my biochemistry paper a little late
  • for Dr. Lewis and all my classmates for all their kind words when I came in to class yesterday an hour late and decidedly sick (as in: sniffling, raspy, and not very talkative–but I didn’t have a fever, so I wasn’t sure that I should just skip)
  • for Dr. Jones for telling me to go home when she heard me. Not having to attend her lecture meant I could get my biochem paper finished this evening.

I’m also thankful:

  • that I got to celebrate Frodo and Bilbo’s birthday yesterday with Joanna
  • that my roommate and I BOTH went grocery shopping yesterday, so I had a good excuse to make myself some poached eggs in milk over toast (now that I ate two eggs and a couple cups of milk, we have two dozen eggs and two gallons of milk in our fridge)
  • that my room is still tolerably clean despite my recent tendency to emotional breakdowns
  • that I found a nice cheap hand mixer at the used store today

And then there are the not-so-quantifiable things I’m thankful for:

  • That God is sovereign over my schedule, the RD exam, my thesis proposal (which I’m going to have to write someday here)
  • That God is faithful to provide whatever I need (money, a new roommate, more time, wisdom, the list seems to go on and on)
  • That God is merciful when I blow it one more time
Categories Reflections

My car is an audio-terrorist

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My car has a convenient automatic-lock-feature, with a not-so-convenient side feature. Say I’m getting out of my car in the Walmart parking lot and want to make sure my doors are all locked. So I open my door, get out, lean over, and push the automatic lock button on the inside of the door. Then I shut the door.

And my car honks its horn.

It drives me nuts. It’s absolutely pointless. And horn-honking is by far the most inappropriately used noise on earth. A horn is intended for one purpose and one purpose only: to get someone’s attention in order to avoid a collision. Despite the common usage of horns, they are not supposed to be used to convey your frustration with another driver, to get the attention of the person beside you so that you can wave at one another, or to leer at a walking female. And they DEFINITELY should not be used to say “Hey, I just locked my doors.”

The term “audio-terrorist” (so far as I know) was coined by my father years ago in reference to the unhappy habit several of us children possess: the habit of making noise that is absolutely bereft of meaning. “Audio-terrorism” is making noise for the sake of making noise. The term encompasses beatboxing, singing at the table, randomly clapping one’s hands or tapping one’s fingernails, and a whole host of other noises. An “audio-terrorist” is one who participates in audio-terrorism.

As a recovering audio-terrorist, I never really understood how frustrating and truly terror-inducing audio-terrorism can be. At least, not until I bought a car that happens to be an audio-terrorist.

Now, I live in fear of accidentally unleashing my car’s terrorism act on the world. I go to great lengths to avoid audio-terrorism. I do the auto-lock BEFORE opening the door. That way I know all the doors are locked. Then I have only to unlock my own door, get out, and re-lock my door. Or I circle my car, unlocking each door despite the presence of the auto-lock button.

The worst thing, though, is when I supervise a new driver and forget to warn them not to hit the auto lock button. The horn goes off and I feel as though I’ve unwittingly started a Madrasa of audio-terrorism training. I’m afraid that they’ll get the impression that it’s “cool” to honk for no reason. I’m afraid I’ve accidentally pushed these children towards this practice I have come to abhor: audio-terrorism.