Keeping up

I'm really not sure how students (or anyone, for that matter) kept up with their schedules before smartphones. I'm sure I could carry a calendar around and consult it every five minutes to see where I'm supposed to be next, but I have a hard enough time showing up in the right place at the right time when my phone sends me alerts. I feel like my schedule is so very tight right now. I'm not complaining, I love that I'm actively working towards my goals almost every minute of the day. But sometimes I feel really conflicted when a friend wants to have lunch, but I have a 12 pm class. I worry that at the end of this entire trip, I won't have any friends left and my family won't remember who I am. I guess I need to pull out my calendar and schedule some open time. HAHA!
Next week is fall break. What I imagine I will do during that week is sleep in, play video games, and knit. What will probably happen is I will be catching up on reading for classes and trying to tame the laundry monster. But it's OK, it's still a break, and I won't be burning up the road trying to make it to class on time. AND I won't have to pray for a parking place, either.
I've been working on Friday afternoons shadowing a local pediatrician for the last few months. She has taken on a couple of medical students and a medical assistant who needs hours to graduate, so I will have a few weeks off from that. I really love working in pediatrics -- kids are fun, and it's mostly a nice variety of cases that come in. The doctor that I work with is really nice, and she takes every opportunity to teach me. I still have to find a D.O. to shadow for my med school application, but I've gotten very comfortable here. I could definitely see a future in pediatrics.
Have I said long and loud enough how much I love my organic chemistry professor? I lost sleep over this class before it started, and now it's the one I look forward to the most. We had a lab mid-term yesterday, and guess who made a 100 on it? Yep, me. :) I have to do honors contracts for the honors program, which means that I sign up for an extra project in one of my regular classes to make it an honors level class. I approached Dr. Rugutt about doing a contract for organic chemistry, and he gave me a project! I just have to wait for the honors approval in order to proceed. We will be doing a project called Green Synthesis of a Novel Anti-Breast Cancer Chalcone. Chalcones are produced by citrus fruits, and they have anti-cancer properties. So I will be performing a lab sythesis and writing a paper on the results. I also have to present at Tower Day in the spring and submit my report to the undergraduate journal at CSU. So before I even finish my undergrad degree, I'll be published. :) Isn't that cool? It's totally win-win.
So things are moving along. The biggest lesson I've learned since I started this journey is to never avoid something unpleasant that is a part of getting you to your goal. I decided years ago that I did not want to be a doctor because I didn't want to deal with chemistry. I was afraid of a little science class! I'm sure there are much bigger obstacles, but chemistry was the big giant standing in my way, and I cowered for too many years. The other lesson I learned that is not quite as big is never take chemistry 2 in the summer, you're just setting yourself up for disaster.
I have to say even though my schedule is a tight fit, and there are some other things I don't quite have a handle on, I am as happy as I have ever been. I am working my behind off with studying and other school activities, but I feel like I am moving towards what I was put on this earth for, and it makes it all worth it.