h8 street

I am soooooo in lurv w/ my lab.

A new edition has joined the cast. I was amused at how women do their care fastidiously right before their picture is taken for a simple ID badge.

My postdoc Billy HOliday is like a taller, smarter, funnier version of Clare.

My other postdoc Daewoo is just a giant teddy bear.

I'll probably rave more about them later.

SO excited about writing my secondaries!

ALS

In retrospect, keeping textbooks as a memento of my past education and forgotten knowledge is a waste of space. I never even look through them anymore. I should have sold them when their value was still high.

Finishing secondaries at a steady pace. Well, at SOME pace for now. Finishing Baylor's since their deadline is closest. Finished 4 schools so far. 12 more to go...

Tick tock tick tock.

I'm missing only ONE piece for a win in the McDonald's Monopoly game. Although I feel sick from eating McD's for the past few days. I still don't get how Morgan Spurlock or whats-his-face threw up his food after only the first day. Wimp. Although I'm hitting my personal limit very soon. Hopefully I win before it all comes hurling out.

Is anything more painful than having three sores on the inside of your upper lip? Well, for me right now, no. It sucks. My lips look like they're having an allergic reaction from a bee sting. Or bad shellfish.

mad man

THANKS Jalto, for translating that for everyone.

Whenever they do that Monopoly game at McDonalds, I just can't resist. They even accidentally gave me a free double cheeseburger!

That is, until I counted the numbers for my typical meal.

Calories: 2340
Protein: 84 g
Fat: 126 g
Carbs: 222 g
Sodium: 3990 mg

This doesn't even include the 2 eggs, 2 sausage, 2 bacon I had for breakfast and the chicken noodle casserole, cauliflower, and carrots I had for lunch.

I feel fat.

thymocyte

I was never one to listen to anybody else tell me how to live my life.

And it certainly isn't beginning anytime soon.

Why does every single person try to tell me what I SHOULD become? Most of the people in my lab see me as a graduate student. Everyone outside of lab never thought that I would consider research as part of my career.

People should know that I don't care how they see me. What's more important is where I see myself headed, and once I go down a certain path, I'm certainly not the type to quit. I may not start a lot of things, but the things I do begin, I see to completion.

Hmm, this was a waste of an entry. I should have been writing my secondaries instead.

lyme

What I need to do in the meantime:

Finish secondaries (in order of due date, or in order of preference?)

Read up on stem cell, development, neuroscience, and chromatin biology (ugh.)

Hone critical reading/nunchuck skillz

Pursue activities outside of lab (i.e., spend less time in lab, and even less time at apartment.)

Start online chatting community revolving around peer-review of scientific articles (kinda wish I retained all my programming knowledge from classes...)

That's a good start, no?

Emotionally drained, and it's only going to get worse with every secondary that involves my autobiography...

winter melon

I feel like such a failure. Relatively speaking.

I'm getting tired of staying late at lab.

The med school application process is starting to annoy me. Well, not the process, more likely the system itself. Fight the power!

Does a faulty system itself contribute to faulty healthcare???

korvkiosks

Janey's going krazy on me. I'm going to call her Krazy Janey from now on, lump her together with Krazy Katie.

Got a free flu shot today, which is now starting to hurt my shoulder. It's also not making me feel so great- I'm actually getting a feverish wave all over.

Fine. MAYBE I should have started 3 secondaries a while ago. AGH bogged down with 10 schools sending me requests for secondaries all at once! Under Pressure!

Life is pleasant at the moment. Debating whether or not I should apply to more schools and bear the burden of having to write more.

Some of the prompts are about as cheesy as the prompts on the MCAT. Adversity, challenges, leadership, teamwork. All I'm hearing/reading is BLAH BLAH BLAH.

telegraph hill

So I'm talking to my labmate Mant about dreams, and her father, a psychologist (psychiatrist?), had one interpretation.

The people I dream about are only a fraction of me. The aspect that I perceive from them in my dream is in actuality only a part of my personality, reflective of some significant event in my life at that time.

Hmm, so what does this mean? With Drab it's usually awkward discomfort (presently his hair is terribly cut), and with Janey and Nants it's fighting and crying. With Danimals, it's "me" yelling at myself for making mistakes. Somehow... I don't believe this analysis.

It would go against everything I stand for if I agree to attend a medical school just because of one person. I think I just need to stop communicating with any/all of my med school friends.

Why do I sense that nobody's life around me is meaningful/rewarding in any sense? Is it because none of us are at the appropriate stage in order to exact change in our community, or is it just the specific professions we've chosen to pursue?

Lab activities are slowing down, which means many things for me. Free time to read my current set of purchased novels, and/or free time to work on secondary applications. Most likely I'll be doing the former, but I would like to have time for extracurricular activities that don't necessarily boost my resume, akin to what Kaiser is doing at the moment (attending concerts, taking drawing classes, exercising). Clare was probably alluding to this sort of thing in the car when he was driving me back to my apartment, but he was saying things in a nagging voice, so my brain shut him out.

My inference, after hanging out with Poorneel and Clare, is that everybody around me, not just my friends, has bad memory. This can be a good or bad thing. If you're one of those types of people who can retell a story several times but generate the same punch at the end, it's great for conversation or small talk at parties. The bad thing you might be getting early onset Alzheimer's or dementia. OH WELL!

fireflies

Dinner w/ Clare and Poorneel last night. The parts of the dinner that I liked most: Poorneel's duck, and the yogurt in my dessert. Wasn't too satisfied with the combinations that they threw together- it's something they could improve upon.

What am I afraid of?

I wonder if I have clinical depressions. I do have weird interests- I don't like the sun, prefer dark/stormy/cloudy/foggy weather, and I more often than not want to stay inside and just watch TV or read. Either that, or I just hate the outside world. Both are a possibility!

In social situations, I tend to hold back more with new people I meet. Self-defense mechanism? Maybe that's why I don't do so well in large settings, a result of me being very picky (as I am with food) with which people to befriend, and me not opening up. Still, I think with the set I have, I've made excellent choices.

Clare was asking me in the car last night about how my family was doing, and I was just going off about how my grandfather's doing better, regaining his weight. Then I get a phone call from my mom, telling me that he was rushed to the hospital. As much as I'm comfortable sharing my personal life with people, I really don't like being the person to bring down the atmosphere. Also, it's unnecessary to burden people with details about other people's families.

The advice I've been getting from everyone about med school (interviews) is to be more assertive, more certain. Hmm, probe on this in the next issue.

Duck: A-. Lamb: B. Salmon: B-. Cardamom yogurt/Mascarpone & Panna Cotta: B+. Everything else: C+.

Currently eating: pickled veggies (cucumber, daikon, carrots).