AndyPeckham.com

This last weekend I skipped 2 classes on Friday and packed up to drive up to Three Hills.  I didn’t end up leaving until almost 6 pm (I’m not what you would call a quick packer).  I drove all the way up to Calgary, arriving at about 2 am on Saturday.  I drove around until I found a Tim Horton’s that was open all night, and slept in the back of my car in the parking lot.  It was really bright, and noisy, with cars going by and planes flying overhead, and I was still wired from the coffee and energy drink I had drank, so I tossed and turned most of the night.  I got out of my car at 8 am and then drove over to the airport to pick up Andrew.  He is being deployed to Iraq in a few weeks, and he wanted to see friends before he left.  He, Tim, Nathan, Elliot, Jeremiah, and I were the Blue Team Guys in Explore 04-05.  We became a close group of friends, and we hadn’t all been back together since Explore.  It was so fun seeing everyone again.  Only a few had heard we would be coming, so we surprised a lot of our friends.  We got to see quite a few other good friends from that same year of Explore, including Dennis, Mandy, Hannah, Jeremy, Aynsley, Emily, and Ashleigh.  We ate meals together, had a bonfire, and basically just stayed up late talking and enjoying each other’s company.  Andrew was staying until Wed morning, but I left Monday morning because I couldn’t skip my chemistry and biology labs on Tue.  My time there was short but sweet.  I wished I could have just stayed there.  There were other friends at Prairie that I didn’t get to see that I would have liked to.  I missed 5 classes on Monday, which put me a little behind, and I had my first exam in 3 of my classes this week.  I had to study a whole lot to catch up, but I did well in them.

Brief Update:

I’m quite enjoying my classes at MSU that I’m taking.  I’m majoring in Cell Biology and Neuroscience.  My degree from Prairie isn’t recognized because Prairie isn’t provincially accredited in Alberta.  It is nationally accredited in the US because it is part of ABHE, but apparently colleges look to see if other colleges are regionally accredited.  I’m hoping to take the MCAT in two years and apply to med schools, and finish my degree in the third year while I’m waiting for med schools to process my application.  I’m taking the 1^st and 3^rd of a sequence of biology classes at the same time because they are only offered one semester and I’m trying to finish in three years, so my one biology class is really challenging not having taken the prereqs yet.  I spend hours every day studying for that class.  My chemistry class is easy because I took AP chem in high school.  My infectious diseases microbiology class is quite interesting and pretty easy.  Statistics is mostly easy so far.  I have to really work hard to keep up in all my classes, but thankfully I actually improved a lot last year in not procrastinating!

This summer I worked construction part time and worked at Camp Bighorn as well during the first half, and then I went to Snoqualmie Pass to take a month-long Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician course.  That class was awesome, and I got to meet a lot of cool people.  We had quite a diverse group of people who came from all over the States and even Hawaii, Israel, and Hong Kong.  It was a very intense course, because we were doing the EMT-Basic certification, Wilderness EMT certification, and US Coast Guard Medical Person in Charge Certification all at once.  We got to do clinicals at the ER at the hospital at UW.  We did some rock climbing at Exit 38 while I was there and explored the river at the pass (Snoqualmie?) and did some hiking.  Then I got to spend a few days with Brian and Beth in Spanaway, WA before flying back.  My car had broken down on me, and it took longer to find a used transmission and get it put in than I was hoping.  My friend Aaron at camp was gracious enough to loan me his car for a week and a half so I could move down to Belgrade (7 mi from Bozeman) and start classes.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 21st, 2007 at 10:27 pm and is filed under Update. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.