If you choose to come to our campus in Lombard, Illinois, you are almost guaranteed to end up with a snow day. So far, this trimester was a lot more like a snow week, as full and partial days of classes were canceled due to the frigid temperatures. That’s Chicago area weather for you, 70 degrees of temperature change in less than seven days.

With our first set of midterms coming up this week I can’t say that I could complain about having the extra time at home to be able to look things over. Some of our professors were even awesome enough to record lectures. My children couldn’t get enough of the novelty of having me home with them for all of that time in the middle of a term, and they were excited to have time off of school as well. We got to spend some time outside before the temperature dropped.

Studying is very different this term–more so than all of the others. All of my DC classes are from the 7th-Trimester schedule divided up to make room for the clinic shifts that I have for the Oriental Medicine program. The 7th Trimester is the last one before entering the DC clinic, so we spend our time putting together the pieces and applying them through simulated patient exercises and labs. Gone are the days of memorizing a ton of facts.

While I see that I have learned so much, it still feels like I know nothing, with some days leaving me spending most of my time reviewing material and deciding how that knowledge can be put to work in the clinic setting. This is the time where we develop a system for how we will interview and treat our future patients; the picture of the final product is starting to become more clear now.