Back to School, Again

After several days of full-blown denial, it seems I can no longer avoid the fact that Spring semester is upon us (mostly because classes actually started yesterday).

The holidays are over, it's finally freezing outside, and several hundred pounds of textbooks arrived at my door over the weekend.

Side note: The book pictured in the upper left of this photo (Food and the Nutrition Care Process - looks like a page turner!) arrived in a large box from Amazon. My thought process: "Surely there have to be two or three books in here. I'm glad Amazon is finally consolidating my orders to save on packaging materials!" [Opens package] "Oh no. It can't be. One 1,300 page book?!" [The End].

For those of you who are interested, I thought I'd share a little bit about what this semester is going to look like for me! Refresher of last semester here, in case you're super interested. My program is a little unique because I'm taking the DPD requirements and the Masters requirements simultaneously, and as you can see, it's a recipe for a riotous good time.

[In all seriousness, nutrition is awesome, I love my classes, professors and fellow students, and I am genuinely excited about the release of the new 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines. I just put up this front of "woe is me, classes are starting and my books are heavy" to maintain my street cred.]

So here is the down-low on my 17 credit Spring 2016 Semester:

5 classes at Winthrop University:

- Nutrition and Metabolism (probably the class I'm most nervous about)

- Medical Terminology (a 1 credit online course)

- Principles of Clinical Nutrition 

- Seminar in Food and Nutrition (essentially a journal club - our first topic = the new Dietary Guidelines!)

- Global Service Learning (including a 9 day service trip to Rocha, Nicaragua - it's not even on a map, don't bother checking - that I'll be sure to give you more details on in the coming weeks!)

1 class at Northern Virginia Community College (MY LAST ONE):

- Human Anatomy & Physiology II 

As you can see, it's likely to be *quite* the semester. But I have a new planner, so essentially I'm unstoppable.

Anyone else starting classes this week? Excited? Nervous? Feeling intelligent?

WIAW #1: Back to School Edition

Hello there friends!

Yesterday was my first day of classes at Winthrop! It was definitely a bit of a shock getting to campus in the morning and seeing it filled to the brim with undergrads. Campus was so quiet and peaceful during the summer!

Because most of my life revolves around food, I thought I'd share my first day of my 18th year of school (do we count Kindergarten?) via a "What I Ate Wednesday" post. Let's get to it!

First day of school! CHEESE!

7:00am: Alarm is off and buzzing! I head to my apartment's sad, sad gym for a quick 3 mile run on the dreadmill. I signed up for a half-marathon in November (more to come on this, promise!) and this was day 2 of training!

8:45am: After a drive to campus with the company of NPR, I scarfed down my coffee and this amazing Paleo Banana Bread courtesy of Peanut Butter Runner. [Note: I just noticed that I used 3/4 cup coconut flour and NOT the 1/4 cup the recipe calls for because I misread the recipe. But I also used 3 bananas instead of 2 because I had 3 very brown ones. I also substituted olive oil for the coconut oil because I forgot to buy coconut oil. By some miracle it still worked really well and hey, we all make mistakes!].

I topped 2 slices of the miracle baked good with Cocoa Coconut Almond Butter from Barney Butter. It was unreal. I've never baked with almond or coconut flour before and was a little nervous but it turned out great (despite my errors)! Definitely not the most attractive loaf of banana bread ever but it is dense and moist (I hate this word but it is so apt here I had to use it) and the higher (healthy!) fat content of the flours kept me full much longer than a normal bread.

Not an attractive photo. Morning photography = not my strong suit.

11am: My first class (Food Composition) goes from 9:30-10:45am. After some walking around campus I spent some time in the library and had this snack in ninja mode. No food allowed in the library! I found it at Trader Joe's and the ingredients are Apples and Coconut. The End. 

1pm: LUNCH TIME! I posted up at a table outside of the Student Union and ate my whole grain, turkey, pepper jack, avocado, spinach sandwich + a side of raspberries + La Croix.

I putzed around campus for a bit before my 3:30-4:20 class - Intro to Dietetics!

4:45pm: Snack time in the car on my drive back to Charlotte! I hate eating in the car, but desperate times...

7pm: Dinner time! I had leftovers of this awesome salad and topped it with grilled chicken. Along with some "celebratory" wine courtesy of Torsten. Creepy label, no?

This plate x 1.25 to polish off the remaining salad!

Last but certainly not least... First day of school Froyo!

The sign at the froyo place cracked me up... GETCHA SOME!

And there you have it! This was a pretty normal/healthy day of eating for me. And yes, a healthy day of eating includes wine and frozen yogurt! Everything in moderation.

What was the best thing you ate yesterday?!

Back to School!

I can hardly believe it, but apparently summer is almost over and kids all across the country are going back to school.... including me.

After 4 years of doing the whole "job" thing, I'm headed back to school full-time on Monday. Woah.

I thought some of you might be interested in seeing a little bit of what my fall semester will look like!

Some of you might care less! If the whole RD, classes, schedules, and nutrition talk isn't your thing, I present you with this Snickerdoodle Strawberry Shortcake I made last week for my mom's birthday. Go make it.

 

For those of you who weren't 100% distracted by the summertime dessert goodness pictured above, let me tell you a little about what my first semester towards my MS in Nutrition/RD at Winthrop is going to look like!

 

Before moving to Charlotte, I took an Intro to Nutrition course and Developmental Psych at Northern Virginia Community College. I also had a couple of courses that carried over from my undergraduate degree (Stats, General Chemistry, etc.). The program I'm in at Winthrop allows me to take undergraduate and graduate courses simultaneously over the span of two years (including summers). This is perfect for me, as I have a lot of science courses to catch up on.

 

This summer, I took Nutrition through the Lifespan at Winthrop as my first "official" grad school class. It was Monday-Thursday from 8-10am. With a 30 minute commute. I became an early morning person real fast. Despite the crack-of-dawn wake-up call, I really enjoyed the class, learned a ton, made [one] friend and felt like I was finally getting started on this whole nutrition thing.

 

This Fall, I'll be taking five classes.

 

Classes at Winthrop:

 

Community Nutrition

Inro to Dietetics (1 credit course)

Food Composition + lab

Research Methods

 

Class online through Northern Virginia Community College:

Anatomy and Physiology I

 

Anatomy and Physiology has, to put it mildly, been the bane of my existence for the last few months (and the class hasn't even started!). Apparently it is the hottest class on the market and not a single community college or tech college within a 40 mile radius had any availability in their A+P I class for the summer or Fall classes months in advance. Because A+P is a pre-rec for many other courses, I had to take it ASAP. So as weird and convoluted as it seems, I'll be taking it online through the same community college I attended back in DC.

 

In the midst of registration angst, I cheered myself up with school supplies and flowers.

 

 

Once classes start I'll be sure to share a "day in the life" post, too! Until then, I'm off to figure out what to wear on my first day of school (kidding, kind of) and plow through some beach reads before textbooks takeover.

 

Any other RDs out there starting classes soon? What are you taking?!