Laser Cannon Deth Sentence

5 weeks out - all hands to battlestations!

Title explained: 1) I am currently working on a confocal microscope. 2) It has lasers. And hence probably laser cannons... 3) Trying to stay on top of all my s**t feels like a deth sentence right now. 4) Dethklok rules!

Here's what's going on in my life:

1) MCAT in 5 weeks=4 hours a night, plus all weekend study sessions. Gotten through all the Physics material, still have to finish Bio and Orgo, but not so worried about those two. Starting next weekend, my plan is to complete at least 1 full length AAMC test per week, plus whatever Kaplan has me doing...

2) Personal statement. Needs be be pretty well drafted in the next week so that my premed committee people can write a letter detailing my feats of strength/monsters defeated/cancers cured/D&D rank attained/notes-per-minute capability on guitar. When I'm not studying I'm working on this.

3) Work, where last week I killed a frog...it was sad. It involved a guillotine and my bare hands and a pithing needle. I'm not a soft man. I'm a hard, hard man. Hardened even. But this was just...gross. I've killed apprx. 150 mice in my last lab, no problem, but this was just...icky.

4) Goddamn it I need sleep. Cutting it to a strict 6 hours a night. And trying to work out(???)

5) Listening to new Devildriver, Orpheus, and In the Presence of Enemies. Awesome all.


To anybody out there going through all this knee-deep s**t to get to med school, I salute you, and feel your pain. You feel my pain. We all feel much, much pain.

Countdown to Extinction (aka MCAT)

So I am no fan of the MCAT. I don't literally think it will cause extinction but...you never know...

I added a countdown clock to this blog to light a fire under my ass. I am not really having self-motivation issues (my motivation is that I don't want to go thru this butt-hurting process again!), but Frauline Himmler (aka my smarty-pants accepted-in-to-49-med-schools partner in crime) says that I'm not studying enough. I admit, lately I've fallen to as little as 2 hours a day, but I am still on track with my Kaplan.



But yeah, I need to pick it up a little, get back to the 4+ hours a day mark. To that end, I am going back to night studying. Boo. 6 weeks to go. Gonna kill it.

Relentless Reckless Forever

Yes, this sums up my attitude pretty well.

Relentless, reckless, forever is:

a) The name of the forthcoming highly anticipated new Children of Bodom album

b) A great great name for a band

c) My approach to stealing med school

d) All of the above.



If you answered d, you are smart. If you answered anything but d, you are dumb.

Yes, at times, I wish that my approach to this whole thing had been more methodical, more well thought out. Had I worked harder in college, gotten better grades, I'd be in med school today. But, as I have stated previously, I don't regret the path I have taken to this point. I merely wonder sometimes how things would have been different if instead of growing my hair out, getting wicked-good at guitar, and getting wasted after every gig, I had grown my...knowledge hair out..., gotten wicked-good at orgo, and gotten down to some wholesome studying every saturday night...

But yeah, no regrets, just moving forward from this point.

I have begun thinking about my list of schools to apply to. It's a pretty important consideration, since you have to apply to schools that, above all, are a good fit. Oh yeah, and you have to have the numbers. Speaking of which, I took a practice full-length Kaplan MCAT yesterday and scored 31, which I guess is a good starting point. Anyways, Relentless Reckless Forever comes out in a few days - so buy that. Also, Beast by Devildriver comes out tomorrow (!!!) so buy that!

Metal/Medicine musings complete. End log.

Lightningbolt-shooter-thingy

I was up at 5am today studying. That sucked.

A short compendium of things that suck marginally less than waking up at 5am to study Physics and Gen Chem:

1) A forceful kick in the between-the-legs area.

2) A staple in the forehead.

3) Eating a sawdust-and-coffeegrinds pancake... which is what I had for breakfast.





A short compendium of things that suck marginally more than waking up at 5am to study Physics and Gen Chem:

1) Two forceful kicks in the between-the-legs area.

2) A larger staple in the forehead.

3) Eating a sawdust...wait. Nope, thats it. There is no #3.


I have decided to move my study sessions from 10pm-2am to 5am-8am and then an hour or two in the evening. I am not a morning person, but the MCAT starts at 8am, in about 6 weeks, so I figured it makes sense to get my brain used to doing that stuff in the AM...ugh. Not a morning person.

On a related note, this is my second time taking the MCAT. The first time, I did not study verbal at all, studied bio pretty minimally (I was a bio major), and studied my ass off for phys and gen chem, did no full-length practice tests, and got a 32, which is pretty good considering. Also, my worst section of the MCAT was, you guessed it, physical sciences (a 9).

However, I have learned a thing or two since then. If you, gentle reader, happen to be approaching the MCAT, allow me to share with you a couple of things. First off, definitely definitely do full-length practices. I failed to finish 2 out of 3 sections on the actual MCAT cause my timing was way off. Second, do crosswords. I just happen to really love crosswords, and I think it really improves your critical thinking skills. It demands outside-the-box thinking. Great way to start your day: I do the NYT every morning. Speaking of which, quiz time:

Tesla is:

a) The name of the father of electricity.

b) The name of a talented but uncommonly ugly-in-their-faces early 90's metal band.

c) An answer in today's NYT x-word.

d) When combined with the word "coil", the name of an awesome thingy that...um...shoots...lighting bolts out of its...thingy. (I'm going to get wrecked by the physics section again...)

e) All of the above.



If you answered e, then you are smart. If you answered anything but e, you are dumb. Good day, gentle reader!

Valentimes (Like a Ritual)

It's St. Valentines Day. I'm so excited!! Oh wait, what? It's really all just about the girl? ...oh. And I just have to be nice to her? All day? hmmm.... (grumblegrumble feminine master-gender conspiracy grumblegrumble)

It's cool though. Life is good, getting out of work, going to go create a Valentines Day masterpiece so that I don't get harassed for a whole 'nother year! (Supposedly, last valentines I took her out to dinner, split the bill, didn't get her flowers or a card, bought a bar of chocolate, and ate it myself...allegedly...) This year, I'm gonna make good by - oops! Almost gave it away. You're not figuring it out THAT easy woman!

Happy Valentines Day!

(also, today's blog images are brought to you by the band HIM, whose logo looks like a pentagram AND a heart, so, that's pretty relevant. And speaking of love and pagan rituals, listen to "Like a Ritual" by Winger off of their seminal album "Pull". No, I don't care, Winger rules! Pull is a legit great album...)

Walk like an Egyptian

Sorry - lame post title haha.

Way to go Egypt! Today, the people threw Mubarak out of office - nice one! Nice to see that people working together can still make a difference.

On an an almost totally unrelated note, I love this band, called Ra. Not sure if they are still active, but check them out- great musicianship, good songwriting.

Oh wait, med volunteering can be fun? Huh...

So, part of getting in to med school is doing some volunteering in a hospital environment so that, you know, you actually get a sense for what the rest of your life is going to smell like. I've done a lot of volunteering in the past, and frankly, I mostly didn't enjoy it. As a volunteer, you are below rung zero on the power ladder. You are literally not even allowed to clean up the s**t or vomit of patients. You ARE allowed to help resupply the stock room of the guy who cleans up s**t and vomit, which is awesome.

If you don't take steps to improve your experience, that is literally what pre-med volunteering was like for me. Standing around, trying to look busy, trying to maybe see a nurse or doctor in action once in a while, filling up water pitchers, etc etc.

So when I decided to start volunteering at my local hospital again, I was somewhat dreading it, just because of the boredom really. And then I got a bright idea: why don't I do something so that it's not boring!

What I did when I got there was stick my nose in everything - every room, every process that was going on (at the risk of angering the almighty HIPAA), and I introduced myself to every patient on the floor. And guess what - it rocked! While most people dont really want to talk because, you know, they are recovering from major surgery and are basically kind of pissed/tired etc, some people DO want to talk, and they have cool stories.

I met a cowboy. A real-ass bad-ass cowboy from hell! He owns a ranch, rides and breeds horses, the whole 9 yards. We talked for a lot of the time I was there, and it was fun. I'm going to drop in on him today just to say hi.

I also learned that I HAVE to learn Spanish, stat. I couldn't communicate with half of the patients, which was awkward, but I tried, and ultimately, it was really rewarding. I highly recommend putting yourself out of your comfort zone.

[preachy post for the year ends]

Ride of the midnight rider at night

So on another sleep-related post, I'm actually not going to get any sleep on Friday as planned, due to the fact that there is a Kaplan make-up class on Sat at 9am. It was going to be Monday at 6pm, but then I remembered that Monday is Valentine's day, and that if I were to cancel, my life would be canceled by my gf.

Not really, she's a sweetheart, hehe..(ohgodpleasedonthurtmebaby!). Also, she has had 11 med school interviews this season. That's one-one 11. I know, right? Whatever, I too shall have 11 med school interviews this summer. My cunning plan is to trade my body for interviews - has that been done before? Hmm... perhaps not so cunning as I initially thought...must regroup and come up with a cunninger plan...more on that later.

Anyways, since I can't seem to put together 6 hours in a row for sleep (I know I know all you MD's, you'd kill for 6 hours of sleep. Frankly, I have higher standards), I think I just need to accept it and get in to a rhythm. Starting every night at 10pm, I shall become the midnight rider, charging through the wee hours, my textbooks reflecting the moonlight, my pens a-whirling, my highlighters a-highlightin', my determination striking fear in the eyes of all who behold me...which is no one since it's frikkin the middle of the night.

p.s. I've decided that having a new metal-related image on every post is setting the bar too high. I'm a low-setter (cause I got it like that), so this post simply includes a bad-ass semi-metal post-related image. From this guy, who is pretty sick: http://chrisrawlins.deviantart.com/art/The-Headless-Horseman-68110704

...and party e-ver-y day!

I. Need. Sleep...

I've been studying till 2am every weeknight and Sundays. It's not that i hate sleep, its just that there really aren't enough hours in the day. But I figure I can deprive myself as long as a) I get some sleep on Friday night, and b) there is an end in sight. After April 9, I shall pass out like a 120lb Asian girl on St. Patty's day (it's ok, my girlfriend is asian... :)




This is an ode to sleep:

How I miss thee, time of rest
I think you are the frikkin best
I close my eyes and think of you
And all the sweet-ass things you do
You make me...less sleepy, every time
And...um...(yawn)...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Trapped Under Ice

That's right - state of emergency declared in my home state of New Mexico! It's so cold that we are running out of natural gas, so the university and all the schools have shut down to save energy. Crazy. I've had most of the week off, so I've been catching up on MCAT stuff.

On a side note, you may have noticed, gentle reader, a theme emerging in this blog (besides the pursuit of med school): heavy metal!! I like to tie in whatever is going on in my life to my love for metal. For this particular post, all I could come up with is that Albuquerque is "Trapped Under Ice", one of the more obscure tracks on Metallica's seminal "Ride The Lightning", which is an album that everybody should listen to. Your boyfriend should listen to it, your girlfriend, your mom, your dog, and your grandma should listen to it. Twice.

What I have actually been listening to lately is Devildriver! If you like metal, you will like this band. Great MCAT studying music. See, tying it all together... gimme a break. Its late.

AC/DC

...is the name of the chapter that I am starting in my Kaplan MCAT Physics book. So yeah, woot to that...








Also, we just had 2 snow days in a row (I work at a university). What did I do? You guessed it... c-c-cocaine!!!



It was either that or I sat inside all day studying, can't remember which... 11pm on a Wednesday, and only 2 chapters to go... Goodbye gentle reader.