A Two Chocolate Bars Kind of Day Monday September 18, 2006

At 9am I attended a Departmental Introduction. This involved all students in undergrad and postgrad studies. Dr. Lee Chatfield, head of the department of forensic science, said that UCLAN has the largest program in the world. That’s pretty cool. There are 3 undergraduate majors within the forensic science program and the school enrolled over 300 students for this year. At this lecture we just received general info, but most of it was for undergraduates. After this first hour, we then had an introduction just for the master’s students. It was scary. They pretty much said that if we just graduated that we were worse off than those who had worked because of what was expected of us. To make things even more “calming”, we split off in to just DNA profiling (all 5 of us) and that is where I really became terrified. What did I get myself into? Is it to late to go home? I am so worried about what they expect from me and if I will be giving enough time and effort to my studies. I know it will be hard, but I am not sure to what extent it is supposed to take over my life? We are not in class much, but I know that much is expected out of class. We got our timetable (schedule) today, although we do not enroll until tomorrow. Monday I am in class from 11-4 with no breaks. No class on Tuesday. Wednesday I have class from 9-11. Thursday I have class from 9-1 and then 2-5; not a fun day either. On Friday I have class from 11-1 and then 2-4. I do not think the university even has classes that start at 8? One of the course leaders apologized for having classes at 9; I guess this is incase you get plastered at the pub the night before??? No worries for me. Still very very terrified, just incase you were wondering.

This schedule does work out well for holding a part-time job. Tomorrow I am going to work on my resume and apply for a clerical position at a company that is not too far away from where I live. Hopefully it is not taken and they will want to hire me.

After my intimidating lectures, I went home had a small chocolate bar, worried about the semester, fell asleep, awoke and was still worried, ate another chocolate bar, and then worried a little more. I feel like I am so far behind and classes do not start until October 2nd. Next week though, we have a “lab boot camp”. This is a three day long event that will probably be miserable. Next Wednesday we just go from 1-3, which is manageable. Then on Thursday and Friday we go from 9-5. I hope we are really not going this long, because it will just be torture.

On a positive note I went to FHE at a members home tonight (Jordan, Claire, and their daughter Lela) and they had me over for dinner. Then we had a lesson on making our prayers more vocal, followed by dessert. It was great and I was really glad to get a free meal and get to know some people from my ward better.

Well I must go now because I was told that I need to know most things in genetics (haven’t really mastered that subject yet) and probably should finish reading one of my textbooks, before classes start, so that I might have a clue what they are saying the first day of class. AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!