Today I held a human brain.

Let me back up a bit. This letter is long overdue but, as I am told, better late than never. I have now been in Philadelphia for six weeks and have only recently started to feel like I could call this home (at least for the next two years). To be quite honest, the last six weeks have been extremely difficult. Each week has held its own challenges, some of which I have met head on and some of which I have, unfortunately, shied away from.

The first week I was here was filled with moving in, unpacking, and trying to get settled. After the chaos of the actual move I went on a much needed vacation to Chautauqua, NY with my family for about five days and it was a great time of relaxation before school started.

My second week in Philly consisted of orientation and more unpacking. We were able to meet each other, meet all of the professors, get student I.D. cards, and spend an unexpected $700 on “equipment” that they forgot to tell us about (oops!).

My third week was the start of classes. At that point, however, we only started Advanced Anatomy. The program has us take four weeks of intense Anatomy to get a large amount of the work out of the way before all the other classes start. So, for the last four weeks we have had Anatomy each day with lecture in the morning and dissection lab in the afternoon. My first day of dissection had me a little bit nervous. I had dissected cats and stuff in undergrad but nothing like this. We were briefed on what to expect and what was expected of us with a particular reminder to back away from the tables and take a seat if we felt dizzy. All 45 of us marched in together and opened our boxes for the big reveal. For the next 30 minutes I stood silently holding on to the edge of the table as I swayed back and forth, sweat dripping from my forehead, trying not to pass out. I pushed through it and persevered and haven’t had a problem since.

The end of week four brought our first round of Anatomy exams. For two weeks straight it felt like all we had done was go to class and lab and then come home at night and studied until bedtime. I went into the exam feeling pretty good and came out of it wanting to cry. It was the hardest exam I had ever taken (including the GRE’s) and I did poorly on it. We had been warned that we probably wouldn’t do well on the first exam but not to worry because everyone always did better after that. But I have never had trouble doing well on exams as long as I studied for them…until now. I was extremely discouraged to say the least and had a really hard time getting back in gear to continue with classes and getting ready for the next exam (just 11 days later). That night a good number of us from the class went to a Phillies game and it was great to get away from school and spend some time just having fun.

Week five brought the end of the honeymoon period with my roommates. All the initial politeness wore off and, after many frustrating conversations, I actually came to an impasse with one of my roomies about overnight male guests and the use of our bathroom (you have to go through my bedroom to get to the bathroom). Fortunately she didn’t foresee encountering the situation very often. I also got an unexpected visit from James who was in Philly on business and it was great to see a Raleigh friend even if only for a short dinner. For the rest of the week I continued studying in preparation for the next exam and looked forward to a visit from my parents that weekend.
And finally week six…this week. My parents left Sunday afternoon after a very much needed and much too short visit and I went back to studying. We had our second round of exams on Tuesday and I am happy to report that they went MUCH better. We still don’t have our grades but everything was much smoother and I feel a lot better this time. This week also marks the end of our month of Anatomy and all of our other classes will begin this coming Monday morning. We will still have Anatomy, but only once a week.

We had opened the skull on Monday afternoon but today we removed the brain and I held it in my hands. It was a bit surreal.

And now to answer a few questions:

How are those roomies?
My roommates are both really nice. For the most part we get along really well though there is a clear difference in lifestyle. The two of them, both not being Christians, get along really well and go out together a lot which can, at times, leave me feeling a little “estranged” but such is life.
Are there any other Christians in the program?
In fact there are. Not very many though. There are three of us for sure. One girl, Sharon, lives at home with her parents about 20 minuets away. The other girl, Elissa, lives in my apartment complex and is newly married (one week before orientation). Elissa actually grew up and went to college about 45 minutes north of where I grew up in Pittsburgh. Other than that there is one other girl who goes to church with us and is a believer but definitely doesn’t “walk the walk”.
Are you making many friends?
This has probably been the hardest part about being here. It has been admittedly difficult feeling like I fit in. Most of the people in the program who aren’t married spend most of their free time going to bars and getting drunk, something that doesn’t really interest me. I have been able to spend some time with Elissa and Sharon this week which has been really great and a refreshing change from feeling like such an outsider with my roommates. It continues to be a daily struggle.
How about the apartment?
Our apartment is unbelievably huge. It’s actually bigger than my parents’ new house. It took a while to get used to living in an “old city apartment” but now that I’m unpacked and everything is set up it’s slowly growing on me.

I can’t think of much more. This letter has been a long time coming but this is really the first time I have felt like I had enough time to stop and breathe long enough to write something that made any sense.
I miss you all terribly and your emails and phone calls have been invaluable to me. Please continue to write and call as often as possible.

Love much,
Stephanie

p.s. I have a new imac account and am trying to set up a “webpage” but I’m pretty technologically stupid. I’ll let you know if and when I get it up.