4th term

the dreaded 4th term.
if you are affiliated with SGU at all you'll hear about it.

we are currently right in the thick of it.
no breaks, no end in sight.
everyone else is packing up and getting excited about summer break
not us.

why is 4th term so bad you ask?

well here it is from the wife's perspective...
4th term sucks so terribly because it started immediately following term 3, which started in January... and term 4 lasts until the end of June.
6 consecutive months of intense studying.

term 4 sucks because of the courses.
Pathology, Microbiology, and CPD.
Path (as all the kids call it) is 13 credit hours. 13.
and you have this crazy "path group" that you spend a lot of time with and depend on and there are 13 members. it's hard to pick a 13 member group that will all get along and pull their weight. (so far so good for Lee, except for the one guy who dropped out of school...)
and while you're busy spending all your time trying to keep up with Path, there is this class called Micro, which no one really talks about but it is super super hard and you may have to decide to take a lower grade in Micro just so you can keep up with Path and not get a bad grade in a 13 hr credit course.  that could really hurt the old gpa.
and there is CPD, I don't know what it stands for some type of clinical skills course... and you learn lots of cool real doctor stuff and your wife will want you to test her every day for new illnesses but you will never have time to.

speaking of time. there is none. you won't have a life outside of school at all and if you do you'll  possibly decellerate and have to do this all over again, so it's not worth it. skip life and pass 4th term.

make your wife get a life though.
tell her to go volunteer and go exploring. She'll be happier and feel more useful and not be sitting at home complaining about the husband that is never home. because he won't be.

it won't be unusual for him to be gone before you wake up and come home after you're in bed.
if you want to see him you'll go to campus to take him dinner.
you'll stock up on cup of soup and fill his locker with them so when he gets hungry he can just microwave one.
he might lose weight and be stressed out and have dark purple circles under his eyes.
he will forget things you tell him because his head is so full of information.
give him a break.

you will probably either fight way way less or way way more.
less if he's never home and you don't have the chance
more if he likes to study at home and he's always telling you to be quiet

get used to talking more on skype and facebook than you do in real life.

remind yourselves often that this will all be worth it in the end!
and take full advantage of those precious 30 minutes you do get together each day
and try to get him to talk about something other than school.