Portland Day 25 - Overcast

Today at school we started practicing taking vital signs on each other and a few routine lab tests. Tomorrow we'll be checked off on them. The vital signs include blood pressure, pulse, respiration rate, and temperature (oral & tympanic). The labs include blood sugar check, hemoglobin check, urine dipstick, and rapid strep. I would love to practice on you all. It's fun to start doing some of the clinical aspect instead of just sitting in lecture all day. And the best part was I got to use my stethoscope for the first time!

I also braved the basketball court at 24 Hr. Fitness this evening as the sole female among 15 males. I decided I don't like playing with guys.....they think they're all that. I'm not an all-star, but neither are they.....

Portland Day 20 - Some Sun

Key word is some....

I've decided that I'm going to go to Institute, no matter who or how many people show up. There may have been some social pressure to go in Utah, but there's definitely not any here. Regardless, I need to make it a priority. The only catch is it's 2 hrs. long, straight. No breaks.

Afterwards my friends Erin and Aubrey and I checked out the dudes playing basketball at the church. Bahaha, I mean we checked out basketball, which only dudes were playing. We'll start playing with them next week. I played every week with peeps in my Provo ward and will start playing here now. Except there was about 20 guys who showed up to play...... I'll just have to be on the winning team is all. Simple as that.

Portland Day 19 - Cloudy

Tough day...... 3 hours of class. This morning we took our class pictures that will soon be on the school website as the class of 2013, as well as our individual photos that our preceptors will eventually see once we start rotations. Who would have thought we'd have a whole morning off during our first month of PA school? Love it.

Oh, and I totally chickened out on playing basketball. There were just too many guys and not a single girl. Maybe next time.....

Portland Day 18 - Cloudy

I met a dude at the gym tonight. He invited me to play basketball with the bros tomorrow. I'm feeling a little rusty, but I think I'll go check it out and show 'em what I got.....

Thanksgiving

Early in the morning of Turkey Day my family woke up at the crack of dawn in the pouring rain to run in a 5K out yonder in Pima....also known as the Turkey Trot. My Dad got a little spunk in him or something and just signed the whole family up one day....without consulting us of course! No, I'm glad he did. I enjoyed it. And I made it sound worse than it was. It wasn't really that early, just meant that I couldn't sleep in till 9:00 am....dang it! haha. And the rain didn't start really coming down until right after we finished the race and boy did it come down! I was drenched. I did stick around though for the raffle and won a gift certificate to a local Mexican restaurant. My only comment on the actually race is....boy, am I out of shape! hehe

Here's the family in an action shot....

Then we had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner later in the afternoon with the family. Deeeelicious! My mom really went all out.


I really enjoyed the Thanksgiving break. It's the most productive and the most exciting trip home I've had. I think I enjoyed it so much because 1) I was in Spain last year so I didn't get to celebrate Thanksgiving at all and 2) we did a TON of stuff! I packed so much into the week I can't even believe it!

It was fun to see former students and their excitement. "Hey Miss Anderson! I miss you!" That was shouted to me while I was running the 5K. hahaha. So I just shouted back! "I miss you too Logan!" Thatcher was my favorite place to teach.....great students!

Out of shape??

YES!! This is probably the worst I've ever been out of shape. Being in Europe for 9 months with no gym didn't help much. When I got back to AZ, I was going to the gym and in pretty good shape, but that was only a couple weeks. Being here in UT teaching, I've been sooooo busy and just haven't found the time to exercise regularly. Although, my recent exercise has been longboarding everyday. I went on a hike with my roommate the other day....needless to say I was huffing and puffing very shortly. Haha! That didn't last too long though.

So....last night I went to the gym and JOINED!! Yea! So hopefully I will be going everyday or close to that anyway. My ward also plays basketball and sometimes volleyball so that will be a good variety anyway. So now I'm back in action!