Third Quarter Update

I wanted to post a quick update on the quarter. I'm leaving tomorrow for a conference, so this should be a very short post.

First, I can already tell that this quarter is going to be the most challenging yet. Statistics, my favorite class from last quarter, used steroids over the break and is now much larger, harder and faster - sort of like Barry Bonds... Between reading the chapters multiple times and my incredible stats teacher, I should be okay. But, it isn't the cakewalk that it was last quarter. On a positive statistics note, though, I think that the content will be much more useful for real-world human science research questions.

I haven't come to any hard conclusions about my measurement theory class. The first lecture seemed clear enough, and I was sort of confused by the TA's strong insistence that we would want to come to her special study groups. Then I read the five assigned chapters, and realized that I had no idea how complicated the theories behind measuring bio-psycho-social concepts are. My mistake! I'm hoping to re-read the five chapters prior to the exam (or maybe every week, I'll just read the whole text again in the hope that something clicks), because one read-through didn't give me much but a serious headache. Why didn't I change my major from nursing to a bench-science, again? Oh yeah, I like people. Well most people, I'm not feeling particularly warm and fuzzy towards the authors of the measurement theory text.

My other theory class is a trip. Both stats and measurement theory will be hard, but with thorough reading and lots of hard work, they are do-able. The adult nursing theory course is a course for the thinking nurse. Those are the ones that require me to stretch...

Finally, my advanced nursing seminar, "Violence and Health," is amazing. Right now, it is the whole reason that I'm in school. There are only two of us from my cohort, everyone else is much farther along in the program, so it is a little intimidating at times, but it is so interesting! I absolutely live for this class!

Tomorrow I leave for a conference in my favorite city (besides this one) in the whole world! (And while I haven't seen every city in the whole world, I do think that I've viewed a representative sample and can make that statement with a statistically calculable amount of confidence....hahaha!) Maybe I'll post a picture from the city and let you guys guess where it was, what do you think?

I'll close with a picture from a walk that my husband and I took a couple of weeks ago: