Class Time (Welcome Back)

Jeez, I totally forgot that I had a blog here and have failed to post in a long time.  I am sorry to all those people who have been following but mostly to myself for not following through on this endeavor that I told myself would.  Life’s just difficult this year.  I can’t say I have as much work as I did last semester.  On the other hand, I think it’s the lack of work that’s brought me to this downward spiral of laziness.

So a quick update on what’s been happening with my life. I’m in my Junior year right now and have been taking mostly psychology upper level classes.  I really enjoy my Theory & Methods of Clinical Psychology class (not just because it’s easy and requires almost no work on my part…).  Positive psychology has been a blast too and I’ve been learning a lot about how we can better learn to thrive in this world of stress and how we can make ourselves happier.  It’s getting quite busy as now we need to do a final project on an intervention that we have to implement on campus for a week. I’m doing quite well in my Genetics Class and really enjoy learning about the modern technology and advances that are happening in the explosive field of Genetics.  It really is amazing what we have been learning about the Human Genome and the Origin of Life itself.  I think I am generally doing better this semester than I have done in the past.  It is possible that this may be my strongest semester yet, but no guarantees until Finals roll around… Gotta keep up the strong grades I guess.

Flag football season started a couple weeks ago and it’s always the best time of my week.  We are currently 2-2 and going into playoffs next week.  We have a solid team but can’t really work together as a team.  Also, we gotta work on catching our passes….  Recently I’ve been training people to help me with my Intramural Sports job and it’s been getting a lot less stressful.  It’s nice to have some people to share the load so I can spend more time bumming around doing nothing!

The Med School Days are looming closer and I’ve been trying to get into Application mode.  I have met with several advisors to talk about my application, course selections, and graduating early (I’ll be graduating in three years).  I recently bought the MSAR (due to 20% discount) and have been looking through the schools there.  It’s been freaking me out though since all of the schools seem so difficult to attend.  I don’t know how anyone could get into med school,  I think it’s time to reevaluate my goals and try to be more realistic in the things that I am striving for.  I have also been lazy in my clinical volunteering but I really need to get back onto it.  Maybe writing my goals in this blog will help me actually achieve them (let’s go positive psychology!!).  I am also looking for something to do for the year that I have off but don’t really have any idea yet.  I want to either work in a psychology lab with human participants or do something in the non-profit community.  Bottom line is I want to be working with humans.  Maybe ideas will pop out suddenly if I write them down on this blog.

Okay I know this was the most unorganized blog post yet since I have basically skipped four months of my life without writing something.  I’ll try to promise both myself and the scant readers that I will post something at least biweekly so something as jumbled up as this doesn’t appear again.

Good luck everyone with school and life?  Pull through, we’re all in this together.

Back to School

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here.  I have been out of the country for the past couple of weeks and have had limited access to internet for that time so I have not been able to post as much as I wanted to here.

Things are going to get crazy real soon.  I just got back to campus a couple of days ago and am still fighting jetlag during this time trying to stay awake during my classes.  Lucky me that I don’t have any class on Tuesday so I’m a happy man today.  I might as well go visit a couple of schools though just to get back into the swing of things.  This year, I will be mainly focusing on classes in psychology but I will also be taking genetics.  I am excited and apprehensive at the same time.  On one hand, the topic is extremely interesting and is at the frontiers of research, however, I’ve heard that the grading is a bitch…  For a student that needs to pick up his GPA a bit, I think I need to work harder and study more.  I say that now, but hey, who knows what will happen as the school year goes on.  Too many things to worry about and soon I won’t be doing shit but sitting on my couch, playing soccer, or talking to my girlfriend.

MCAT scores come back in a week…I don’t know how I feel about that.  I’ll post more as I find out more information and figure out more things to talk about….  Right now I’m just enjoying the fact that I don’t have homework yet and I don’t have classes today.  And seeing my SO again has definitely made my day.

Here’s to a new year.

Relaxation

I don’t know what to do right now – –  Like literally,  after studying for the MCAT for so long, once it is over, I don’t even really know what to do with my time…I know that sounds sad as shit but it’s so true.  I have so much free time for the next month that I don’t know what to do with it.  I have been working out and catching up on some games (Devil May Cry, Darksiders 2, Kingdoms of Amalur, some good shit btw, I highly recommend them all).  I guess it’s nice to have a month where you can not think about pre med and just be a normal kid for a while haha.

Although like all the other pesky premeds, I am the same way.  I have started thinking about what I should do during the next school year.  I will still be involved in research about three days a week so that takes up a large chunk of the time.  I am trying to decide whether or not I should continue with volunteering.  I am also trying to fit in some shadowing but I don’t know if I have time.  Maybe I should just stick with doing it during the breaks…But then again I don’t know if it’s going to be enough.  I guess I will just try to contact some physicians and set some things up first, then I can always go from there.

I’ve been spending time with my little sister recently and it’s been great.  She is one and a half and I don’t usually live with her so it’s nice to have some bonding time.  She’s just about to enter her terrible twos so she is fun to play with without being the terror that kids can be.  Love it so much.  The one thing I’m missing this summer is time with my girlfriend.  It’s been too long away from her and I didn’t think I could miss someone that much… Oh well distance breeds love doesn’t it?  I just hope it’s worth it.

Premeds have love lives too right? xD

Rebirth

Hey All,

I come to you a free man.  Free from the shackles of MCAT hell and all its bullshit.  I feel so relieved, but at the same time, I feel kind of empty.  It’s like I’ve lost purpose in life…Without MCAT what am I supposed to do with my summer?? I’ll answer that myself.  I’m going to fucking drink my sorrows away, catch up with old friends back home, and  just sit at home like a fat fuck watching tv, binge eating, and then exercising.  It’s nice to be free.  To think I just spent almost an entire summer on that monster makes me kind of agitated.  And now what?  I thought I was supposed to feel relieved or exhilarated that it was over, but honestly I just feel tired.  I feel like the road is even longer than before.  This is only a step towards the path of medicine. But hey, a step is a step right?  And at least I can enjoy the last couple weeks of freedom before school starts again.  I guess I just don’t feel the sense of achievement or relief that I thought I would feel after taking the MCAT.

Now let’s talk about the real test itself.  Usually, I’m a pretty calm test taker.  Before the MCAT, there hasn’t been a test that has really made me nervous before.  I go into it ready and at least semi-competent.  Being a psychology major (like that has anything to do with it right?), I have mastered the art of self-appraisal.  I calm myself before the test and give myself little encouragement along the way.  When I find a tricky question and I solve it, I always laugh a little (okay maybe that’s creepy to people who are watching).  I take a small break after every couple questions just to keep my mind fresh.  I am usually good with the nerves even if I bomb the test.

Not the MCAT.

The first sign that I was losing it was during the day before where I was unable to sit down for the whole day.  I kept on jumping around everywhere and was not able to do anything for the whole day except for twiddle my thumbs and bob in my seat.  I got a hold of myself and managed to get a goods night sleep.  The next day as we got to the test station, I have never seen a test be so official… They took fingerprints of all the test-takers and metal detectors were used to prevent cheating (I don’t know how this works…)  This obviously did not help my nerves.  It was like going into FBI inspection or something.  Seriously wtf; metal detectors?

So I sat down.  Did my pre-test routine of taking three breaths, closing my eyes for a bit and telling myself “you can do this.  you got this.  You’ve studied kind of hard.”  Another deep breath.  Press next. Bam.  The MCAT smacks me in the face.  The first passage I had in PS was a shocker.  I had no idea what it was talking about and that immediately shocked me into tachycardia (getting a head start on medicine ;)).  That changed my whole outlook on the test.  I was nervous throughout the whole thing and my heart was pumping through my chest.  And this continued throughout the whole test…

I walked out of the exam room and was dazzled.  That was the hardest test I have ever taken in my life.  I was so unsure about so many of the questions and it felt harder than any of the practice tests I have ever taken.. I guess I can only hope for the best now and hope that I can get a satisfactory score for myself…  I just really don’t want to think about it I guess.

Moral of the story?  I need to study harder and the MCAT makes me nervous unlike any other academic trial I have had ever.

10 More Days

Doom day is approaching.  And I really don’t want to think about it.  But I really have to.  With all the studying I’ve been doing, I’m kinda getting burned out; but then you realize the gravity of the situation all over again.  Holy shit, this is the biggest exam that I will have ever taken in my life.  However, I came to blog not to freak out, but to find an outlet where I could relax and get away from the studying for once.

Let’s talk exercise.  Exercise is a good thing.  Exercise makes you strong.  Exercise keeps you healthy.  Exercise makes you look better.  And most importantly, gets you better at sex.  Who doesn’t want that right?  So seeing all of the benefits of this miracle drug,  I have resumed working out in the summer.  With the crazy schedules of college gone, I can focus and set a better routine for myself.

It’s always hard to follow through.  We get lazy.  We have other things to do.  We put it off for a day, for a week, and then months turn into years.  It’s hard to make it an integral part of our daily lives, but I think once it is, it helps all facets of our lives.

Okay enough of the pep talk.  I’m not here to make people exercise.  I’m just writing to make myself accountable so I can try and keep my exercise up through med school and beyond.  Right now, my girlfriend and I are in different cities so it’s hard to connect the way you would like to… (You know what I mean right?) But, we’re creative.  We try new things to spice it up, and I know that once we’re back together, it’s gonna be a blast. But anyways, we’re keeping each other accountable and so we have both started doing p90x.  More so that I have been doing it and she just works those abs of hers.  But its okay, some is better than none right?

p90x is a beast.  Pulls up are a beast, and all the different variations on pushups destroy me.  Those sphinx pushups are the bane of my existence.  Right now I’m on a recovery week which is basically just a lot of cardio, core work, and stretching.  It’s a nice break before the intensity revs up next week.

Oh God please save me from the MCAT.

2.5 Weeks to Action

Hi All,

Well mostly myself and for those couple of people who might be reading this blog that is rarely updated.  I have been busy for the past couple of weeks studying for the MCAT as you know I will be taking it in the first week of August.  That being said, I only have around two weeks left to study and I don’t really know where I stand as of now.  I took another practice test on Sunday and managed to stabilize my score at a 36.  BUT, the section scores were what shocked me.  Instead of a nice and even 12-12-12, I had a 14-9-13.  Seriously? What the flipping fuck is a 9?  I mean I had no idea what happened and this has made me realized that I, just like every other pre med student, am having trouble with the verbal reasoning section of the MCAT.  Maybe this is an outlier but nonetheless, I know where I need to focus my studies on now.  I am almost done with content review and so should just be starting to take a shit load of practice tests for all the sections in the hopes that this may raise my verbal score miraculously.  I know I should be happy with my score, but you always want to aim just a little bit higher I believe.  Give yourself some space in case you choke on the real thing and get a couple of points lower.

I’ve been trying to devise a strategy to attack the verbal section and I think I have figured out a couple things that may help me and others if taking it.  I find that the most important thing to reading the passage is grasping the main idea of the article and how the author feels about the topic that he is talking about.  When I really realize what the author is talking about, some of the questions answer themselves without even having to refer to the answers.  Another strategy I found to help myself out is basically trying to eliminate as many answer choices as possible.  In many of the questions, there is one answer that is completely contradictory to anything said in the passage, doesn’t relate at all to what was described, or is just plain wrong.  Once I started realizing some of these answers, it made it easier for me to eliminate the answers to one or two choices.  It is easy to bring in background knowledge into the passages but this is not needed and I argue detrimental at the same time.  More practice for me I guess.

I think I’ve realized lately that I haven’t been studying hard enough with my time dedicated to talking to my girlfriend, working, and playing video games.  Previously, I don’t think it has hit me how important this test is to my future.  It will largely determine the school I go to, which will largely determine residency positions and then where I eventually settle down and find a job.  I don’t think it hit me before but now it has.  I mean holy shit.  This is intense.  This could be the most important test of my life.   And so after a little encouragement from my awesome father, I think I’m ready to really buckle down for these last two weeks and do what I need to do.  I hope writing this down somewhere will keep me accountable.  But I want to do a verbal practice section everyday for the next 15 days and at the same time continually look back on material that may be a little difficult for me in the other sections.  And in the end, I guess you can only hope for the best right?

But one thing’s certain, I need to do my best on the one thing I can control – the effort.

Another week of Blah.

After a 4 day weekend, I’m about ready to get back to work.  You know how people always complain about having to work five days a week but then when you have too long of a break you start getting bored and just want to go back to work?  Damn the human paradox.  It’s really true – we always want what we can’t have.  Even when we realize we can’t change it.  That’s the real sad part.

Anyways…the weekend was good.  I would say it was a break well deserved but I haven’t done shit for the past two months anyways besides sparsely studying for the MCAT and taking class (where happy to see I managed an A!).  Eh, it’s just been an extended vacation this whole time. Well I guess I better enjoy it before med school and the real world hits where there are no breaks anymore.

Just took an MCAT practice test today and man does that giant burn you out.  I guess I’m pretty happy with my score knowing that I have been consistent for the past three AAMC practice tests (35, 36, 36).  Since I haven’t done all of the content review yet I feel like there is still room for improvement, but I won’t get my hopes up.  The thing about the MCAT is that there are always those one or two passages that just kill you.  It talks about these obscure topics that you’ve never heard about in your prep book or in your class and you’re just like what the fuck is he talking about.  Then you guess the answers and that one passage costs you two or three points on that section.  Maybe it’s because I haven’t learned everything.  Maybe it’s because I’m unlucky.  Who knows.  The thing is, you just never know if you get a passage that is completely obscure which fucks up your score.

Like many premeds, the Verbal section is the bane of my existence. I can’t seem to get higher than an 11 on that section.  No wonder people never get a 15 on it.  The thing is, the answer stems are just so mysterious and sometimes you really just don’t know the answer.  Other times you’re so sure of the answer and then you manage to get all of them wrong.  I mean come on.  What is up with that?  Another problem with the section is that there is no content really to review so it’s impossible to study for.  Do you do more practice?  Buy more prep books?  Is there a magic formula?  Maybe there’s some diet plan that will increase verbal scores.  I think I’ll stick with the practicing more.

I’ve got one month left before I take it on August 10th.  Hopefully it’s only an upwards trend from here.  If i can hit above 12 on all those sections, then I think i’ll be content with my score.  It’s time to really buckle down.  Stop playing games, stop watching TV, stop reading, stop going outside, stop sleeping, stop eating.

Okay well maybe that’s a little too extreme.

Summer

At sometime in the far-off past, that word actually meant something.  It was the end of the school year. It became blisteringly hot. It was the time to relax; the time to get away from academia and be a real kid where we could jump, run around, and just be dumb fools.

Now, it’s still fucking hot but I’m stuck inside either studying my ass off, working as an intern pushing papers, or in a research lab pipetting God knows what.  Well I guess that’s the real life isn’t it?  When we were kids, we didn’t know what we were doing.  We didn’t have to worry about making money, pleasing your girlfriend, finding a job.  All that shit.  Man, at times I still don’t care.  I just want to sit my fucking bony ass on the couch and play Call of Duty all day or go outside and run around like a dumbass.

But we can’t do that anymore.

Things get serious when you’re in college.  Summer is no longer a break. Summer is the time to get real life experiences outside the classroom.  Summer is stressful.  What should I do if I want to be productive, do something meaningful, AND try to relax?  What?

For me, I’m going to be graduating in three years to save my parents some money so I was taking summer classes for the month of June while trying to shadow a physician and volunteer. Now I’m back home working as an intern (thank God I get paid) and trying to study for the MCAT  (Let’s leave the ranting about the MCAT to another day).

Maybe it’s just the life of a pre med.  Maybe it’s everybody.  If you guys (and girls) out there would like to share what you do during summer time (assuming that you’re in school), please don’t hesitate to let me know.  I’d love to hear it.

Happy 4th of July.  Here’s a beautiful performance.

http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RrJMDsToB0

Introduction

For the most part, I’ll be talking to myself in these first couple posts. Let’s hope that will someday change.  For now, I’ll just be spilling my thoughts to myself and those who chance upon this blog.

Who am I?  I’m a college junior studying psychology in the United States. I hope to one day go to medical school and become a physician.  I love working with people and understanding their intentions.  I’d fancy myself a mind reader but 2 times out of 3, I don’t know what the fuck you’re thinking.

I like sports.  I like video games.  I’m just your average pre-med kid.  To all those who will be reading this blog (me, myself, and I), I will be posting about anything and everything.  Thoughts, attitudes, aspirations, worries, you’ll find it here.

I will be relaying my life as a pre-med and hopefully one day, as a doctor.  Happy July my friends.