A tale of two manuals

I'll be taking a CPR course on Saturday. I have to renew my CPR certification every year, for school. When I started the RT Program, I had to take a CPR and First Aid course. The Manual for the First Aid and CPR course, that I took at the beginning of this year, is 186 pages. The manual for the CPR course, I'm taking on Saturday, is 16 pages.

Prior to picking up the CPR course manual, I was going to read through the CPR material in the First Aid and CPR course manual. I am so glad that I picked up the CPR course manual. Figuring out what to read in a 16 page manual (uh, everything) is a lot simpler than trying to figure out what to read in a 186 page manual.

Top 21 Respiratory Therapy blogs of 2008

Rick Frea over at the Respiratory Therapy Cave posted a Top 21 Respiratory Therapy blogs of 2008 list a couple days ago. Check it out.

The next time you visit, don't study so much

"The next time you visit, don't study so much. You should only spend 30 minutes a day studying or just spend one day a week studying."

Advice from my 10 year old nephew, after I spent a week with my sister and her family. Sigh.

Tim Hortons

Trauma Junkie over at Surviving RT School asked me the following question: "I've never heard of Tim Hortons. Is that like Starbucks?"

No, Tim Hortons is not like Starbucks. Don't talk shit like that if you're ever up here in Canada. You're gonna get hurt real bad, if you say something like that up here, unless of course you're in a Starbucks. If you're in a Starbucks the sniveling weasels who frequent such a place, will think that you are "bad ass". You will become a legend. They will speak of you often, always in a whisper, when they think it's safe. They will wonder if you're still alive and what ever happened to your body.


The difference between Tim Hortons and Starbucks (in no particular order):

1. Line ups. There always seems to be a line up at Tim Hortons. Do you regularly see 20-30 people standing in line at Starbucks? In Canada, people go to Starbucks when the line up is too long at Tim Hortons. When they do this, they feel ashamed and hope that none of their friends see them. They also feel dirty. They feel dirty because they are.
2. No stupid questions. If you go to a Tim Hortons and say "large-double-double" at the counter, they give you your coffee just the way you like it. They put in the cream. They put in the sugar. They stir it up real good. They give you your coffee. They don't ask you any stupid questions. What's the deal with Starbucks and their stupid names for coffee cup sizes anyway?
3. They actually make your coffee for you. Starbucks pours black coffee into a cup and makes you go to some stupid little counter, where some stupid idiot's always in your way, so that you can put the milk and sugar in yourself.
4. The rules. There are rules when you're waiting in line at Tim Hortons. If you break the rules, you're going to get hurt by the other people in the line. There will be no witnesses and the security camera is defective. The ambulance will find you in a Starbucks parking lot, at the other end of the city.
5. The people. People who go to Tim Hortons aren't sniveling weasels. They don't ask for a half-caf-triple-mocca-frappa-whatever, unless they're a regular and making fun of Starbucks.
6. Pretentions. The pretentious people who work at Starbucks think that they're something special. I guess that's where people with advanced degrees in Philosophy end up working. If you work at Tim Hortons, your job is to make coffee, lots of it and to keep the line moving. If you're a Tim Hortons employee and start to think that you're something special, you get shipped off to the Tim Hortons in Kandahar. People in the line up at the Kandahar Tim Hortons have automatic weapons. If you get uppity at the Tim Hortons in Kandahar, there will be no witnesses, the security camera is defective and you were an enemy combatant.
7. Cardboard insulator thingys. Tim Hortons doesn't have those stupid little cardboard insulator thingys, that you put a coffee cup into, to protect your hands from the hot coffee cup. Those things are for sniveling weasels. You can find them at Starbucks.
8. Ice Cap. Tim Hortons has a cold coffee drink that doesn't taste like shit. Everyone calls it an Ice Cap. I think that it was once called an Iced Capasomethingorother but I'm not sure.
9. Starbucks sucks.
10. Tim Hortons doesn't suck.

A soldier in front of the Kandahar Tim Hortons, holding a box of donuts, three ice caps and a large-double-double:

The magic number: 800

When I'm studying a lot and not sleeping as much as I should, I'm drinking about 4 extra large cups of Tim Hortons coffee. Today I was wondering how much caffeine is in 4 extra large cups of coffee. The answer: 800 mg (http://www.timhortons.com/pdf/caffeine-canada-en.pdf).

That's cool. The next time someone tells me that I'm drinking too much coffee, I can tell them that 4 cups of Tim Hortons coffee is only 800 mg of caffeine. 800 mg is just fine. I only start acting funny when I take in about 1200 mg (6 extra large cups of Timmy's). For some reason my tummy hurts too.

Flu Maps

I've been thinking that I should get a Flu shot. I usually get one but haven't gotten around to it yet. I used to get them at work. Now I'm unemployed. They had a couple of days at school when they were giving them out. The line was too long on the first day and I mixed up the date for the second day. There's a clinic fairly close by that's been giving them out in the evenings but I've been too busy watching TV, playing video games, "studying" and trying to avoid my Christmas shopping.

Has the Flu season started yet? Are there lots of dirty Flu infected people in my part of Canada? Is there a map someplace that shows how and were the Flu is spreading? Yes there is.

Canadian Flu Map

American Flu Map (The map's at the bottom of the page)

Getting a head start

I just picked up the textbook for a History course, that I'll be taking next semester. I started reading the text yesterday and, to my surprise, it's a relaxing and enjoyable read. I can probably finish reading the book in a few days and enjoy doing it. I'm hoping that reading the textbook in advance will make next semester a bit less painful.

Study tip rant

This is my study tip rant.

1. Getting enough sleep is a part of studying. If you're tired, you have a hard time learning and an even harder time remembering. If you're tired when you're writing a test, you're going to make some stupid mistakes.
2. Don't study in front of the TV, even if it is turned off. That thing is just too much of a temptation.
3. Not studying is an important part of studying. You have to take breaks. If you find yourself reading something, and then not remembering what you just read, it's time for a break.
4. Good lighting. Bright lights in your study area make a world of difference, especially in the Winter.
5. Ignore the complainers. They're complaining because they aren't doing very well and looking for an excuse. The complainers use phrases like: "It's the professor's fault", "How can they expect us to...", "We shouldn't have to learn this because...", "It's not fair.", "It's not my fault.", "In the real world...".
6. Ignore the people who claim that they don't study much. They're getting crap marks, lying or are a lot smarter than you. If you need to do a lot of studying then do a lot of studying.
7. Don't "study for a test". Learn the material that you will be tested on instead. Understand the "what, why and how come" associated with the material that you're learning. If something doesn't make any sense, figure it out. If you memorize things that you don't really understand, you're probably doomed.
8. Don't waste time studying things that you don't have to. If you already understand something stop studying it and learn something that you need to know. There's loads of stuff that you're supposed to learn. Learn those things well and ignore the rest. If you only have to read a few pages in a chapter of a text book, don't read the whole chapter.
9. Don't study to pass. If you have a bad day, get sick or run into some other problems you could fail one or more courses. If you're only "just passing" you most likely don't understand what your supposed to be learning.
10. Avoid "pretend studying" at all costs. A lot of my classmates go to the library sit together at a big table, open their books, and then don't study. They just sit around and chat about this and that and then pretend that they've been studying for hours in the library.

Shiny new books

I bought the textbooks I'll need for second semeter. They're shiny.

Done

I wrote my last exam today. First semester is over.

These are my notebooks for first semester:

29.825% and 28.3

29.825%, that's what I need on my final Applied Science exam in order to pass the course. That's my last exam for this semester. Strange. I find it hard to study, if I'm not motivated by fear and anxiety...

I'm almost done with first semester and it feels REALLY GOOD.

I hate 28.3. 28.3 is a number that I thought I could never forget. When I wrote my lab station exam, a couple of weeks ago, I forgot about 28.3. If I ever forget 28.3 again, I'm going to go on a rampage. I'll get $28.30 worth of pennies and throw them at the front door of a police station, one at a time, until someone stops me! If you ever hear about some crazy Canadian guy who got arrested for throwing pennies at a police station, you know will know why...

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One more exam to write this semester

My Infection Control exam, on Friday, didn't go as well as I would have liked. There were lots of questions related to the cleaning up of biohazards, which I didn't seem to know much about. Some of the questions didn't even make sense to me. I'm not in any danger of failing Infection Control, so I honestly don't care about my mark on the exam.

My last exam, for the semester, is on Monday. I'm actually studying for that one now.

I went to the college bookstore on Friday and almost bought all of the textbooks for next semester. I decided to wait. I know I would have been flipping through those books, instead of studying for my last exam, this weekend.

Just two more exams

I only have to write two more final exams for this semester. The previously written exams, all seem to have gone well. I have an exam at noon today, which I'm studying for now, and an exam on Monday. Faculty will release all of our marks on Monday, after all of our exams have been written.

I'm really looking forward to the Holidays...

The Tower of Power

I have to write two Anatomy and Physiology final exams tomorrow. Sleeping tonight does not seem like a viable option. It's time for the "Tower of Power".

Stressful 10 minutes

I did a scenario based lab competency exam today. I can't believe how stressful that was. It was only 10 minutes, and it was easy, but the importance of passing that exam was stressing me out.

If you fail a lab competency exam you cannot continue in the program. If you fail, you get one chance to do it again. If you fail a second time, you're finished. You only get 2 "second chances" in the program.

Thing that aren't as funny as they sound

I added a couple more to the list:

Vitreous Humor
Aqueos Humor
Humerus
Fundus
Humoral Immunity