PT Olympics

PT Olympics have been a tradition at Marquette since the 50's when the program was established.  The classes compete in a Tug of War, Scavenger Hunt, Trivia, and multiple sporting events like volleyball, basketball, bag toss, and soccer.   As you can see, my class, the DPT-5's are pretty much annihilating everyone at Tug of War - even the DPT-1's and 2's teaming up could not defeat us!
I think it is pretty cool that Marquette PT has traditions of student-planned events that have lasted this long.  Others include Senior Farewell were we get up and poke fun at our professors, Pinning Ceremony in year 6, and initiation of the 5's into our ATB "fraternity"  Alpha Thera Banda.  It's getting to be time for all these events to happen and we have professors who graduated from the program 10-20 years ago who go all reminisce-y when they hear us talk about it.

I may or may not have an automatic in at both the Orthopedic Residency programs at the University of Utah and at the University of Southern California because of one of my professors knowing people at both places.   Now I just have to make sure I do REALLY good in his class so he writes me stellar letters of recommendation.
I get used to it, being here all the time, but every now and then we are reminded what a big motherfucking deal some of our professors are in the PT world and we all take a step back and laugh.   They are all like, "Oh yeah, I'm quoting so-and-so here in lecture because he is is world-known for his work in this.  We get together ever couple of years and talk biomechanics of gait."   Just like it's no big thing.

This semester is great.  Orthopedics, Kinesiology, Physiology of Activity, Patient Management: Documentation and Reimbursement, and Evidence Based Practice.   The first three I'm SUPER interested in, and the last two are taught by awesome professors.
Still hanging out in the PT clinic four hours a week giving free injury evals as a volunteer position.  I'm hoping that after I take my Boards and become a Certified Athletic Trainer they'll have to pay me to do it, but either way it's nice to keep my foot in the door.  I'm trying to bridge the gap between the Athletic Training Program and Physical Therapy programs here - after football season with my high school last year that was it for AT.  I miss it a lot and I'm trying to find a way to get back into the athletic training room and work with the athletes here again.  I just need to find a way to get in at a time where I'm not taking away from the experiences of the undergraduate ATs who are actually assigned to the teams.

I haven't slept through the night since I got back in August 4 weeks ago.  I'm hoping that clearing up some things in my personal life will help with that, cause I'm ready to be done being exhausted all the time.

I just don't have anything to say anymore.

PT Bar Crawl

So what happens when you get approximately 150 Physical Therapy Graduate Students together and provide booze? Students that are all stressed out beyond belief and are being told daily to STOP FREAKOUT OUT and that all the meetings we are setting up with our professors are starting to prevent them from doing work?

Mass chaos mostly.

The nerdy kind.

Where no one can dance and we make anatomically correct references about said bad dancing and comment on how we all should have put on gait belts before we left.

On the way from bar #1 to bar #2. Everything is going well at this point and we are still trying to take nice pictures. During this time, there were jello shots on the bus and we started chanting "I. I believe. I believe that we. I believe that we will drink. I believe that we will drink! I believe that we will drink!" Cause that we what people cheer at the basketball games. Except it's "win" and not "drink." Close enough.

Actually. That's a lie, there's wine on my shirt. So this happened much later in the night but apparently Mandy and I are good at pretending to be sober.

Ah whatever. Let's just continue.

Then they pulled out the boxed wine, and Mandy (from the first picture) and I got REAL EXCITED, cause we are classy-type ladies. Except drinking from a bag on a moving bus when someone else is controlling how much wine pours into your mouth is hard.

And you end up covered in wine. Sticky, but you smell good all night.

Also there was a bottle of strawberry vodka being passed around. I don't remember what I was saying to Lisa at that moment in time, probably something about how awesome it was that both she and I were getting drunk as a skunk on the bus and not actually spending money.

Or we can pretend I'm impersonating a T-Rex.

The line to get into the 3rd bar was taking forever so this fine group of people and I went over to Applebee's. Mostly because we wanted to use the bathroom there instead of waiting in line at Rusty's Old, and thus had to pretend we wanted drinks. Except then Long Island Iced Teas were only $1.99 and Margaritas were only $2.99 (and I love me a margarita) so we ended up staying at Applebee's for a good half hour.

It was at Rusty's Old that I half climbed/half got pulled into the bar through a window. This may or may not have been the point in the night were I ended up with the giant mystery bruise on my shin.

It's ok though. Cause I'm in COLLEGE.

Lisa kept trying to be all *cute* and *take nice pictures* and we were all "NO! WE HAVE NO NICE THINGS HERE!!"

The camera belongs to the bleached-blond girl in front, so I really have no idea who took this picture.

The moral of the story is that I actually go out and do things this year. I don't hate Milwaukee anymore and I really truly love my class and love what I do.