Re-Evaluation

If Ver is figuratively wrassling with weighty international affairs, I'm figuratively sitting on a hammock in the shade with a cool breeze blowing through the floppy banana palm leaves above me. Figuratively is, of course, the operative word, since I'm taking a couple of lab science requirements this semester and am thus prevented from engaging in any and all real life hammock sitting. I'm managing everything ok though. My biggest worry at present is how and when to tell my boss about my new revolutionary life plan. She's always been very supportive of my enrolling in classes and following my interests. She lets me come in late or leave work early so I can get to class and asks how things are going and what I'm learning about. Every year, when personnel orders us to do the yearly employee evaluation dance, she asks me what my plans are. I say I have none, apart from sitting at my desk and doing what I've been doing. Then she tells me what her plans are, namely that she's planning on retiring in a few years and she's happy I'm there and ready to take over her post. At that point, I'd say, "Me too!" and we're done.

Eval time will come around soon enough. I wanna come clean well before then, because it's a big change and I don't want to catch her off guard. I'm trying to get the timing right. But even so, I'm afraid she'll be mad and think I was being all sneaky, having these secret plans but all the while pretending nothing's going on. And I can't say it's not at all true, because, well, I've been making big plans and not really telling anyone. But that's mostly because this plan began so crazily and seems too crazy to still be going, that it's kind of hard to share with people who you want to actually take you seriously, like your boss for instance. I suppose there's no use getting all anxious about it. I'll have to say something eventually, and when it's done, it's done.

Sigh...Obstacles

So as Lu said, we seem to be non-traditional. Non conformists, hunters lurking in the bushes ready to pounce on our dream; unfortunately, there are many, many bushes in my way. I am a foreign student who came to the US to study for undergrad and my doctorate, but when I decided to opt out after my Masters, I decided "hey why not be a pharmacist?" So we started getting this pre-req ish together.
However I need to be gitting on home, before la Migra makes me go, so I will need to finish the pre-reqs on foreign shores. Therein lies the rub, Horatio!.
Apparently Science and Math courses differ from language to language and between borders, so foreign science courses don't count. (Being sarcastic if you couldn't tell). Anyway that creates, say it with me, an obstacle. To be fair, this is not all schools, just the ones I really, really wanted to go to.
So because I really, really want to dispense medicines legally, I search for other options. Lu suggested that I try offshore medicine schools that may have a post bac program and glory be I found one. SOOOO exciting!  But after this the deluge. 
Turns out the program is accredited in its local site but not in the US so again, say it with me, it doesn't count.
I fear the dream may be dead or at least in mild cardiac shock......
Anyway more on this later.

Music and Lyrics

While shuttling from class to work this morning, it occured to me that our little revolution should have its own stirring anthem. I spent my bus-train-bus trip banging out some sparkling new pharm-related lyrics to the tune of Randy Newman's Follow the Flag (video and lyrics).

Phollow the Phlag

music by Randy Newman

lyrics by PharmD.Q. Lu

You can PCAT prep all by yourself

or analogize with us

- whatever.

If you can believe the BLS path to wealth

you will take all the reqs, whatever!

They say, "It's just Pharm D, not MD D!

It's just a retail job with really fancy sheepskin."

I say, "It's not MD? No residency!

I can pay school debt before I die!"

On any late night lab, there could be some snow,

or hail, or sleet, or ice

- whatever.

But we will get to class. Could be a quiz...you never know!

We will take all the reqs, together!

We will take all the reqs, whatever!

There! Now who's inspired to to review redox reactions? Me! That's who! I hope you are too...

The Beginning

This is a blog about two non-traditional pre-pharmacy students and the long twisty path to the PharmD. It began, as much madness does I suppose, in the damp, sticky boredom of summer. Things were slow at the office. Ver was talking about how she was thinking of being a pharmacist. She said the hours were flexible and the pay increadible, so she could take a world cruise and visit every continent. I was mulling over ways to get to Antarctica, because it's really cold down there all the time. But alas you had to be a clever science person to do that and I hadn't even made it through freshman chemistry in college so that wasn't gonna happen. Unless...well, that was a long time ago. Maybe I was cleverer now? I browsed through the website of my local community college and saw they had all sorts of basic science classes. And wouldn't you know it, the school even had a pre-pharmacy curriculum. Perhaps Ver could be a rich globe-trotting pharmacist after all? And maybe I could be a clever science person who would never be sweaty again? We thought about it, and laughed. We laughed as we read through the requirements. We laughed through the online application. We laughed through enrollment. From pipe dream to new life plan in less than one work day. It started on the 8th of July 2010 and it will end, we hope, in May 2017.

This is a co-blogging project. I'll post some stuff and Ver will post some stuff. We'll try to share what we learn as we go along and probably do a lot of frustration venting too.