Science Joke Saturday – “Rude”

Countdown to Graduation

My last final exam of college is on April 29th. That’s in one week and three days. I can’t decide if college has felt more like 10 minutes or 10 years long, but it’s incredible and weird and exciting and horrifying all at the same time that I’m finally at the end. Graduation is on May 11th, and Dr. Atul Gawande is our commencement speaker (cue the fangirling over here), so I cannot wait to hear what he’ll have to say! Once graduation’s over, however, I have no idea yet what I’m doing with my life; on the bright side, it’ll be one of my last few summers off, and I can’t wait for it to be here! I’m moving back in with my parents until I figure out if/where I’m going to grad school, so I definitely will need to find a job around there to start saving some money for the upcoming year. They live about 30 minutes away from my school, so I think I also might be able to continue working for pay in my same research lab (which would be AWESOME).

Good things from this week: I’m spending Easter weekend at home with my family and my dog. I have entirely too many papers to write for next week, but for now I am choosing to not worry about it. UTTER BLISS.

Bad things from this week: currently ignoring adulthood duties such as opening my own credit card and looking at student loan options. The real world is so persistent, though. *sigh*

I GET TO WEAR THIS IN THREE WEEKS!!!

Science Joke Saturday – “Snakes on Planes”

“I’m Gettin’ PAPER”

(Title to be read in Busta Rhymes’s voice)

I’ve been a research assistant for the past year or so in one of the chemistry department’s labs at my school. I had the option to be paid hourly for my contributions, but I chose class credit instead. Kinda sad when three credit hours of A per semester seem more valuable than an actual paycheck. OH WELL.

But, I digress. My boss, who’s an MD/PhD student at the med school here, told me this week that I should start writing because we’re going to submit a paper on our work in the next few months! I’ve never been published before. I was hoping we’d get far enough in our research to publish, but with graduation and summer and potential relocation all coming up around the corner, I wasn’t sure if I would still be here to make any sort of contribution to the effort. Fortunately, that seems not to be a concern.

In an effort to get straight to work, I started an extensive literature search, found a long list of viable citations, opened a new word document, and typed “Introduction” at the top of the screen. The excitement of potentially having my name printed in a scientific journal was immediately put on hold once I realized I had no idea what to write first. My cursor is still blinking on an extremely blank word document. I may or may not be typing this partially to feel like I’m making some sort of progress on it. How does one even start to put these things into words? The past 15 months of my life somehow have to go into concise, organized, cohesive paragraphs with pretty figures and graphs interwoven between. Not sure how this is going to happen yet, but my cursor is going to keep blinking until something inspired ends up on that page, damnit.

How I feel when I’m in the lab

Side note: if you’re reading my blog and you’re a fellow premed, and you take one thing from this post, let it be this: RESEARCH EXPERIENCE TEACHES YOU SO MUCH MORE THAN ANY LECTURE EVER COULD. If you come across any opportunity at all to do research while you’re in college (or even after college, it really doesn’t matter when), absolutely take advantage of it. It’s one thing to study processes on paper in a classroom, but to have to put them into action and force yourself to understand the concepts causing the things happening right in front of you is an entirely different ballgame. Additionally, research requires a degree of creativity that simply isn’t necessary in a lecture hall; pretty much everything you try in the lab is going to fail in some way or another, with varying degrees of severity, and you have to create a way to avoid that particular failure the next time around. I realize I’m going off on a bit of a tangent, so I’m just going to cut it off right here. In conclusion: do research!

Science Joke Saturday – “Stomach Always Loses”

The Irony

…of course, not 30 minutes after I wrote my post last week about learning to be patient, I received that one last decision, and it seems med school is not in the cards for next year. Not that I am entirely surprised by this, given that this application cycle is very near its end, but there had been a tinge of hope inside me, holding out for that 11th hour acceptance. Such is life.

On the bright side, even though I felt the disappointment of not yet achieving this goal of mine, that final rejection came with the release of a large weight from my shoulders. It may not have been the answer I wanted to hear, but it was an answer! I could finally say, with certainty, that I had applied to medical school and survived the process. If I could do it this time, I know I can do it again. There’s something strangely refreshing about that.

Anyway, thus begins my journey to enact Post-Grad Plan B! I am applying to eight or nine Master’s programs (mainly in biomedical science or physiology) for the upcoming fall, all of which last one or two years. Admissions stats (e.g., GPA/MCAT/GRE scores) are significantly lower than those required to get into med school, so hopefully I will be met with slightly more success in this arena (fingers crossed, prayers flying, y’all).

In the event that I am accepted somewhere, regardless of the length of the program, I will be re-applying for the entering class of 2016 for med school. Since my GPA was the primary hang-up for adcoms this cycle, I figured I’ll just go earn myself a new-and-improved GPA and try again!

Side note: I also will apply much earlier to AMCAS than I did this time. June 1st, 2015 has my name ALL OVER it.

Science Joke Saturday – “Bacterial Resistance”

An Exercise in Patience…

…I think that’s the best way to summarize what the past 12 months have been for me.

This time last year, I had registered for the MCAT and was studying to take it during the summer. Then came the month-long wait for the score. Then, AMCAS came and went. Another month went by before secondaries began flowing in, and those were sent back out over the course of three-ish weeks with money tacked onto the ends of each. Interview invites, and interviews, and rejections have all come and gone across the span of 8 months. It’s now April again, and one last school has yet to send me their final decision.

As it turns out, the medical school application process is nearly unsurvivable without patience. And, were we to make a list of my virtues, patience would definitely NOT be on that list. I can say for a fact that I have never before been on an emotional roller coaster the likes of this one, and it’s taught me a lot.

As I have watched others succeed this cycle in gaining admission to a medical school, my heart has done a juggling act of fully, sincerely rejoicing for them while also longing (IMPATIENTLY being the key word) for a success of my own like that. One of my friends from the Orgo Dark Ages a couple years ago was accepted to med school this afternoon, so I was feeling that impatience pretty strongly while sitting around in the lab and refreshing myself on tissue culture protocols; that’s when I came across the following verses:

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!

Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.

 

– Psalm 37:7-8

How I read it: “I’m still working on you. Things will happen for you when I decide it’s the right time. Do not compare yourself to others who have been accepted before you [not the part about carrying out evil devices because all of you medfam people are super awesome, just FYI]. That worry, defeatism, and envy will be of no benefit to you, now or ever. I will provide for you, your goals, and your future. Trust me, wait for my timing, and HAVE PATIENCE.”

(If God were the kind of being to snap his fingers in a Z formation, I think this would be one of those times.)

22 Things About Me: Part 2

It took a bit of time to come up with this many things to say about myself that wouldn’t leave y’all actively falling asleep (hopefully I have avoided that!), so here’s the second half of my getting-to-know-me list.

1. My socks never match, because I’m too lazy to pair and fold them whenever I do laundry. They all go into the drawer together in one unceremonious, cottony blob. Strangely, this does not bother me.
2. I am a full time wearer of black-rimmed glasses, and they make me feel much more inherently intelligent than I actually am. They also allow me to blend in at hipster coffee shops with surprising ease. Bonus!
3. If it were socially acceptable, I would wear oversized thrift shop sweaters and leggings every day, in every venue. As it stands, it is not socially acceptable, so I am also capable of begrudgingly dressing in a slightly more professional manner.
4. I am NOT a morning person. Were I given supreme rule of the universe, I would create a mandate that no one is allowed to get up and do productive things until it is light outside. Until then, it’s just me and my coffee pot trying to make it in the world together.
5. I am not a group favorite for praying out loud, because I tend to get a little sassy in my prayers. Good or bad, I tell God what I think. I don’t think he expects us to have nothing but articulate, premeditated, poetic thoughts formed when talking to him, because that’s not how we express our thoughts in any other outlet in life. As such, my conversations with him are seen by some as a little too laid back and colloquial. So it goes.
6. I am horrified of heights, yet I have a conflicting desire to experience skydiving.
7. My hand-eye coordination in sports leaves much to be desired. When Small-Child Me was deciding what she wanted to be when she grew up, “Athlete” was examined empirically and swiftly removed from the list of contenders.
8. That being said, I am a huge sports enthusiast. On any given Sunday afternoon, you will find me in a sports bar with a pint and my Green Bay Packers jersey. I also have been known to lose my voice regularly during March Madness. Fandom is a beautiful disease.
9. I have a superstitious study snack; it was initially borne out of desperation and not keeping up with grocery shopping when I was studying for the MCAT this past summer. I raided my kitchen one night at 1:00 AM and came up with two things: 16-ounce cans of PBR and coconut pecan cookies. I ended up scoring far better than expected on the MCAT, so I now have this snack the night before every important test. The combination has been called gross and extremely weird, and I own it.
10. Grey’s Anatomy is my guilty pleasure TV show. I realize it’s nothing like actually being a doctor, seeing as their hospital would probably be shut down within 10 minutes from all the sex in supply closets, unprofessional conflicts of interest, and patient negligence (most likely due to having sex in said supply closets). Even still, I am shamelessly emotionally invested every Thursday night at 9:00 PM, wine bottle and all.
11. I’ve developed an exceptional talent for speed-walking with open, non-travel coffee mugs and not spilling anything. This began my sophomore year of college, when I would scramble out of bed at 7:47 AM for my 8:00 class, turning on the coffee maker while simultaneously stuffing my hair up into a bun and searching for my sweatpants. My travel mug would inevitably be dirty, and given the time constraints, I would be forced to either use a non-travel mug or brave class without caffeine. I think we all know which option I chose.

Science Joke Saturday – “Lab Coats”