ORIENTATION WEEK

So the first week, yes this was an entire week long, was all orientation. It started on Saturday at 8 AM at Moody Gardens here on the island, and Ryan got to come with me! I'm still not sure he was all too pleased with that. It was orientation for the School of Health Professions, School of Nursing, and School of medicine. So all those entering students with their parents or significant others-quite a crowd! It's always comforting to walk into a room of like 800 people and know that you don't know a single person besides the one you came with. Can we say intimidating?! I have to admit that by the end of the day, I had found another familiar face. It was someone that went to Concordia with me back in 2007. I think we were both relieved to see eachother if for nothing else, because it was a familiar face! So we listened to a bunch of people from different areas of expertise, then the students went to a community fair while the parents/spouses went to a little meeting of their own with some of the faculty. The community fair was pretty interesting-different organizations from the school, local restaurants, and other "local" businesses like banks, churches, etc. The best part was that everyone was giving away free stuff! Goodness knows that regardless of how useless it probably is, if it's free, I need it. I'm such a sucker. So after that, the parents/spouses got to leave, and the students had lunch and listened to more speakers. After that, they had a pretty useful session where the incoming students got to have some peer-to-peer time with the students in the class ahead of us from our particular program-no faculty, no family, etc. Just newbie student to experienced student so we could ask just about anything we wanted to and get an honest answer. Good idea, UTMB, good idea. Anyways, the rest of the day was ice-breaker activities with students from other programs...they made it decently fun, but I haven't seen any of those people since, so I'm not really sure why we didn't do that activity with people from our own program. I know they'd love me to say that I have "synergy" and am always interacting with people from other programs, but I'm still getting to know all the new peeps in my OWN program! It's kinda overload to be trying to meet everyone here on campus... Anyways, then spouses were allowed back and we had dinner and casino night. I came home exhausted and with more paperwork then I knew what to do with...and a little overwhelmed to say the least. We had Sunday off-I guess to absorb and readjust...it's either that or to go home and have a panic attack...still not sure which one. Monday was a little better because we were on campus and I was with the School of Health Professions, so I could finally start to see some familiar faces. More speakers, ID photos, etc. Tuesday and Wednesday were more speakers and some sessions specifically for PA's. Those days, I also managed to come to the realization that I was about the only one who had not received any of my financial aid. Oh ya, and I needed to get all of my equipment and books-about $1500 worth-by Thursday. That was a big HOLY CRAP moment! Needless to say, I spent a few hours in the financial aid office having panic attacks, but they really helped me out and we got it situated. One of the highlights of this week was a little party at the school called Plazapalooza. Everyone gets to come-all classes from all the schools, and many of the married students brought their spouses, too. They had dinner, a mechanical bull, rock climbing wall, games...it was pretty fun! It was also nice to get to socialize with some people outside of the classroom/lecture setting. The best part-I survived the "first week" and managed to get all my supplies in line. Ya hoo! I call that mission accomplished. That WAS the hard part, right? HAHAHA