Welcome To Year Two.

Hello dear readers! I am back from a long blogging hiatus. You see, I had an extremely busy Summer and blogging fell by the way side. In fact, most of my naturopathic practices fell by the way side during this hectic time (doh!). Rest assured that I am since back on track with my daily naturopathic techniques (things like guzzling herbal tea, contrast showers, dry skin brushing, taking an herbal tincture, and many more things I slacked on for over a month). And I am happy to report that I am getting back on track with blogging too.

Today was my first day of YEAR TWO of my four-year naturopathic doctor (ND) degree. How exciting! As this is an exciting time for me, I'd love to share my day-to-day findings and musing with you once again. I'd be honored if you came along for the ride (and based on my classes today, this year is going to be one heck of a ride!). However, some things will be changing here at Navigating Naturopathy. Unfortunately due to some life changes, I've decided against posting daily. I will definitely post on the blog at LEAST once a week, but I don't want to force daily blogging on top of my already busy life. So, I'll try to post more often than once a week, but if you don't hear from me more than that, you now know why. The second change to the blog is that I may post shorter posts from time-to-time, also depending on my busyness. If you see a blog post that is a mere sentence long, don't be alarmed! But rest assured that there will still be some long winded posts in addition to the short snippets.

And with that, I hope you'll continue to follow my journey of becoming a naturopathic doctor at the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine (CCNM)!

As mentioned, today was the first day of classes. This year is going to be classroom intensive (just like last year), with almost 40 hours a week spent in the lecture theatre of the school. My classes today were Clinical Medicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine 2, and Botanical Medicine 2. The TCM lecture was a review class, but it reconfirmed my love of TCM and how they approach health and wellness (and just like I said last year, I wish I could talk more about TCM philosophies on the blog, but I just find the topic to be difficult to explain in a blog setting, sorry!). The Bot Med lecture was interactive, such that the class was held outside, exploring the campus for medicinal herbs (fun and refreshing). Oh, and to the gardeners reading my blog: please don't hate weeds, because 90% of them are either edible or have wonderful medicinal properties that you don't even know about! Lastly, Clinical Medicine seems like it is going to be the most difficult class of the year (like Anatomy was last year). In this course we learn how to DIAGNOSE, DIAGNOSE, and how to do some more DIAGNOSING. The exam for this class is going to feature me in a clinic room with a patient. I'm going to have to assess them physically and verbally (through a series of questions), then I'm going to have to provide a differential diagnoses on the spot. Scary stuff! More on this class and the challenging exam as the course progresses...

Anywho, that's the brief recap of the day. I hope you are all as excited as I am about learning more of the fascinating world of naturopathic medicine.