Okay. I know this is a few weeks late. I’m alright with that. There have been some things I needed to discuss with a bunch of different people, and I wasn’t quite ready to do the resolutions anyway.

So, first, I’d like to discuss my New Year’s Resolutions from 2009 to see how I did.

First off, school. I don’t think I tried harder last year. I did well, though my 4.00 GPA faltered slightly to 3.9197 or something. I don’t feel like looking up the exact number right now, but it’s above 3.9. I’m actually quite amazed by this, considering the amount of effort I put into a few of my classes. I don’t feel I deserved the grades I got, but I guess the final grade is not mine to give. Grad school… Yeah. That’s kind of a messy situation right now, so I’ll leave that for a later post. Suffice it to say for now, that I positioned myself fairly well for entry into a PhD program.

Next… health! I think I’m doing generally okay here, though in recent weeks this has faltered a little bit. I was down to 235 pounds at one point, but now I’m sitting more closely around 240-245, which is slightly lower than I was at the time of my last update in June. I wouldn’t say that I’ve been eating healthier, though I have generally been eating a bit less than at certain points in the past. I also haven’t been cooking nearly as much as I’d like to. A big problem here is having such a small kitchen and never feeling like cleaning. I also haven’t really been exercising as much as I was earlier in the year. It’s difficult to take walks in the winter, not really because of the cold directly, but rather the ice on the sidewalks. It makes for some very slippery times. The few times I did take walks, I ended up slipping quite a few times. Health related, in October, I had my gall bladder removed. That was “fun.” I don’t think I’m completely back to normal with it, as I still have some minor, temporary issues related to it, but I’m fine most of the time. I’ll spare the details. And no. I have not completely quit smoking yet. That’s definitely getting moved to the top of the list for this year.

Other personal stuff. I’ve read more on and off. It seems I read more for school than for fun, but that’s to be expected I guess. I want to actually read novels and such. Not just comic books, but actually sitting down to read novels and other regular books, rather than sitting around doing nothing. I did read a few last year, and I enjoyed it very much. Cleaning has generally been a success, though that comes and goes. Having fun. Yes and no. I don’t know. It’s complicated. I definitely have made some really good friends at school, and I enjoy hanging out with them. That said, I was under a lot of stress trying to figure out my future last year, and that hindered that fun quite a bit. Blogging has not increased. I’d say it decreased, as I’ve blogged once since last January. Another thing to keep on the list.

So, I suppose I should get into the list.

1. Education related – Finish off the year strongly and obtain my degree in Chemistry. Work harder at it. That’s really it for that this year. Might have more to include in a later post.
2. Health – This is probably where the bulk of my items will be this year. I suppose that’s true for a lot of people.
   1. Get to my target weight of 225 pounds. Maybe lose a little more than that even. We’ll see when I get there. This shouldn’t be too difficult, but it’s going to require help from the next few items.
   2. Eat healthier. Cut out the greasy fast food. I’d love to be able to eat nice healthy meals, made with natural and organic ingredients. I don’t think that’s very realistic during the early part of the year. Later on though, it should be quite possible.
   3. Cook more! Rather than eating “healthy” from Subway or just cutting back on portions from other fast food restaurants, actually making my own meals would be ideal. It’s difficult cooking for one to balance the cooking process with leftovers and not eating too much, but I need o learn to show some restraint in this regard. I think that’s going to be a big emphasis. When coupled with the obligatory post about blogging more, I’m hoping to actually work on maybe posting some recipes I use or things I know about cooking and chemistry. I think I can have a lot of fun with that, and it’s something I’d like to try out.
   4. Exercise more. Not just the cardio, though that’s certainly important. I want to work on some things to actually build a little bit of muscle to actually get into good shape. I don’t have any thoughts that I’ll become a superstar athlete, but I would like to improve on this quite a bit.
   5. And yes, quit smoking. This is probably the most important on here at this point, but my natural progression for making the list is to put them in the order I think that I’ll best succeed. I suppose that’s not entirely true, because the weight loss will come from a result of the other items happening, but this one is particularly reserved for last in this list. I need to get down to closer to my target weight before I can do this completely. I don’t smoke a lot now, but it’s enough that cutting it out completely right now would not help the weight situation. I know because I’ve tried in the past and gained weight each time I quit for awhile. I need to get to a reasonable weight level before I’m ready to try or I won’t be confident in being able to keep the weight off. I’m guessing that this will be occurring in the second half of the year. I’ll still work on cutting back even more so it’s easier to stop when I’m ready to.
3. Other – Things that don’t fit into the other two categories but that I feel are important things for me.
   1. Blog more! I really want to, and while it’s going to be a struggle to remember to early on, it’s something I do want to get going. As mentioned, I’d like to do some stuff with cooking. I’d like to just generally update people more on my life. I know people actually do care, and for those that don’t talk to me very regularly, this would be a good way to get updates and even communicate back. I also may want to start sharing some photos I take or photography times that I know about but fail miserably to actually utilize. (The first of which would be to go outside, or wherever you plan to take pictures, with a camera, take the lens cover off, and start pressing the shutter button. This has been eluding me more than I’d like. Lol. But it’s cold! And I don’t have free time. Or wait…. Maybe I’m just lazy or not ambitious enough to actually go out and do this.)
   2. Read more. Comic books are fun. I like them. So are novels. I also am very interested in a bunch of topics that I’d like to learn more about. I’d like to set a goal here, but at this point it wouldn’t take much to read more, so I won’t even give any sort of rate.
   3. Keep apartment clean. Yeah, it’s improved, but I want to improve this more. Especially later in the year.
   4. Photography! Yeah. I’ve gotten into this in the past few months. I haven’t done much yet. I’ve taken a lot of random photos playing with settings on the camera (Canon EOS Rebel T1i with a few lenses). I’ve taken a total of a few thousand and a few different football games. I think I’d like to get out and take some pictures of nature and wildlife. Again. It’s cold. There isn’t too much wandering around during this time of year. Some deer and small mammals. No birds and very few insects. That’s what I want. Later in the year, I hope to be able to do a lot of this.
   5. Have fun. This probably the trickiest one on the list. I think that if I do everything else on the list, I would be happy, and I’d be having fun. I don’t know how true that actually would be, but hopefully we’ll see. I’d like to hang out with friends more. Go places. See things. Leave the country for a vacation. Photography. I don’t know. So many ways to improve in the having fun category. I just need to pick a couple of them and go with it.

So I guess that’s it for now. It is getting quite late, but I’ve messed up my sleep schedule, as I tend to do on weekends. I suppose I could add that to the health portion of the list as well, but where’s the fun in that?

I have a big update that I’ll be working on posting in the near future, perhaps, but I’m not ready to share that information with everyone yet. So if you’re one of the people that knows about it, please… Shhh!

So, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted on this blog. I haven’t really had much to say I guess. It was a busy semester that required a lot of focus, so I didn’t really feel like putting much effort into blog posts. I have also been using Twitter a lot more, though perhaps not as much as I’d like.

And so, before I get into the main purpose of this post, I suppose I should give a brief update of how things went this semester. During the spring semester, I managed to keep my perfect 4.0 going at Lakeland with Calc II, Biochem II, Intensive Organic Chemistry, General Physics II, and Immunology. I then lost that during my May term art class. Art is so very much not my thing. The class was fun. It was a class on ceramics. It was nice to get hands dirty playing with clay. I’d offer pictures of my work, but I didn’t take any. An AB doesn’t hurt the GPA too much, but the idea of a General Ed requirement removing the possibility of a 4.0 bothers me a little. Oh well. I’ll get over that I guess.

Now, for a brief update on New Year’s resolutions:

• School Related
  • Try harder in school (Probably a little odd coming from a currently 4.0 student, but I really don’t put as much effort into school as I’d like. In order to prepare for medical school, I feel this is quite essential.) - I’ve just explained the grades. I think I’ve put a lot more effort into school this semester than I had previous semesters. Still probably not as much as I wanted to, but getting better.
  • Prepare for and perform well on MCAT - Fail. Kinda. I’m no longer planning to take the MCAT. Instead, it will be the GRE, as I’m planning to go to grad school for chemistry. After long deliberation, I’ve decided that this is probably a better choice for me.
  • Get accepted to a medical school - Again, planning for grad school instead.
• Health Related
  • Exercise more - Success so far! Been walking, running, and biking a lot. I would like to do some more in other regards, like sit-ups, push-ups, and other things to help get in better shape, but this is going pretty well as a whole.
  • Eat in a more healthy manner - Ditto. Been cooking and eating in a lot more, rather than fast food. Feeling so much better about this.
  • Lose weight to a healthy level - Down from about 295 pounds at the beginning of the semester to just under 250 pounds now. I’d like to lose more at this point, but I am feeling significantly better about things. Next hurdle is getting out of the obese BMI range, but that’s only a few pounds away.
  • Quit smoking completely and permanently - Getting there. I’ve cut back a lot and tend to go days at a time without it. It’s becoming more of a casual and stress relief thing, rather than an addiction. I still want to and need to stop completely, so I’ll still be working on that.
• Personal Related
  • Read more - Yep! I’ve read a few books for fun, as well as several comic books (!). I don’t know why I’d never been into comic books much, but thanks to an awesome friend, I’ve realized the beauty if this awesome medium.
  • Blog more - (Epic?) fail. I don’t count Twitter as blogging. Yeah, it is micro-blogging or whatever they want to call it, but it’s not the same as actually providing in-depth updates as to what’s going on.
  • Have more fun - Mostly. More on this another day.
  • Keep my apartment clean - Doing much better in this regard as well. Not perfectly, but it’s quite manageable most of the time.

And so, I’ve decided to update the resolutions to reflect changes:

• School Related
  • Try harder in school (Probably a little odd coming from a currently 4.0 3.979 GPA student, but I really don’t put as much effort into school as I’d like. In order to prepare for medical graduate school, I feel this is quite essential.)
  • Prepare for and perform well on MCAT GRE

  • Get accepted to a medical school Prepare applications for graduate school

• Health Related
  • Exercise more
  • Eat in a more healthy manner
  • Lose weight to a healthy level
  • Quit smoking completely and permanently
• Personal Related
  • Read more
  • Blog more
  • Have more fun
  • Keep my apartment clean

Now, I suppose, a real quick update on summer plans is in order. I’m basically doing summer research again at school. It’s a very different project from what I did last summer in tardigrade DNA sequencing. This summer I’m working to perform some computational modeling of small peptide portions of the amyloid beta found in Alzheimer’s patients. A lot of the work requires a good understanding of quantum mechanics, which is what I’m working to understand right now. Self-learning quantum is proving to be complicated, but I think I’ll be able to handle it. Once I have that down, I’m hoping to pick up on this project I with which I helped a friend during Biochemistry I. I had a lot of fun working on that project, and I hope that I can have some success in doing so throughout the remainder of summer. Computational chemistry/biochemistry is a very interesting area of research to me, and it’s potentially something I will be pursuing if I get accepted into a grad school.

Also this summer, I’m taking another general ed class that is proving to be more work than I desired, but it will be nice to get it out of the way prior to this coming school year.

There’s probably more that I want to say right now, but I’m not exactly sure how, and it doesn’t seem like something that fits in the rest of this post, so I’ll save it for a little later (i.e. six months from now, lol…). Anyway. Just wanted to let people know that I’m doing mostly well and having fun in my own unique sort of way. LOL

Well, school’s cancelled for tomorrow. While this would normally be occurring because of ice or snow, this one is due to some extremely cold temperatures coming into the area. We’re talking actual temperatures of -15º – -20º F, with winds of 15 – 30 mph, giving a windchill possibly exceeding -40º F.

That’s cold.

Now to the more important matter. School. Generally speaking, Thursday’s are probably one of the better days to be cancelled, as I only have organic chemistry lab. However, it would be our first day of lab, including decisions on projects and safety training. I’m not entirely sure how this will affect the semester schedule, but I’d guess it will push some of that off until next week, making for a busy week next week.

This also assumes that school won’t be cancelled Friday, as the low temperatures and wind are supposed to continue into early Friday. I don’t want to make it seem like I’m hoping it will be — I’m really not. Some people are going to school to learn things. Having missed days like this puts the rest of the semester on a crunch, leading to less material being covered.

Sometimes I wish I were somewhere warm without needing to worry about snow, cold, poor road conditions, etc. Then I think about the other problems these warmer areas have. Oh well.

After one day of classes, I can tell this is going to be a tough semester. Immunology is a tough read, even with some knowledge of some of the material. Organic Chemistry will be a lot of work. Lab reports, presentations, poster sessions.

I’m going to need to work hard to do well.

It was part of my plan. Just not sure I figured it’d be as bad as it currently seems it will be… I guess we’ll see…

So, after a first semester that was a fair amount of work and actual concern about not getting straight A’s, I’m into my third semester at Lakeland. Up for me this semester are five classes, totalling 19 credits (a 1 credit overload).

• General Physics II
• Immunology
• Intensive Organic Chemistry
• Biochemistry II
• Calculus II

This should be a challenging semester for me, which is one of the reasons I’m adding Immunology. The other reason is that it’s only offered every other year, and I kinda want to take it. Anyway… that’s it for now…