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!

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

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, here goes!

• 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.)
  • Prepare for and perform well on MCAT
  • Get accepted to a medical 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

So there you have it. Several things I want to do this year. I’m hoping to accomplish all of them! Ambitious? Yes. Impossible? Not at all…

Anyway… I’ll try to get back to regular posting soon. Should be easy enough to do from now on…

I don’t think this is tremendously surprising news. Though immediately after the Packers’ season was over, I figured that Brett would be back for at least another season, I slowly began to get the feeling that he was calling it quits. His delaying the announcement led me to believe that he wasn’t sure, and that in turn led to the growing belief that he would, in fact, retire.

While I could spend time speculating on why he finally decided to hang it up, there are enough in the media and other blogs that are doing that already. I see no reason to carry on that conversation. The bottom line is that Brett Favre decided it was time for him to end his NFL career, and I have nothing but respect for his decision.

Instead, I’m just going to summarize a few key points and leave this post short and concise. Brett Favre has undoubtedly had one of the greatest careers in NFL history. While it’s easy to argue that he wasn’t the greatest player, or quarterback for that matter, in the history of the league, it’s also easy to make arguments that he was. I’m not going to try to go either way on that one, as I’m a Packers fan, and my biased opinion isn’t necessary.

Brett Favre ended his career following a great season, receiving the only vote for MVP that Tom Brady didn’t receive. He put up incredible numbers, especially for a player of his age, and led the Packers to the NFC Championship game for the fourth time in his career. Favre broke or added to many NFL records during the season, and he currently holds around nine different records (not all of them necessarily good), including:

• Most AP NFL MVP Awards (3)
• Most consecutive starts by a quarterback (253)
• Most wins by a starting quarterback (160)
• Most career passing touchdowns (442)
• Most career passing yards (61,655)
• Most career pass completions (5,377)
• Most career pass attempts (8,758)
• Most career interceptions thrown (288)
• Most career games with at least three touchdowns (63)

While some of those records will eventually be broken, whether by Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, or someone else, there is no disputing that Brett Favre is at least near the top of the list of all-time greatest NFL quarterbacks.

For the Packers, Favre’s retirement means several things. First and foremost, the greatest player in their history is no longer going to represent them on the field. Fans and the team will miss the leadership, poise, and love of the game that Brett has shown throughout his entire career. The Packers are switching the reins of their offense to Aaron Rodgers, who, though I think will do fine, has tremendously large shoes to fill. Since he has shown to not have the same level of durability that Favre showed throughout his career, the Packers need to have an adequate replacement lined up to carry the load, if needed. I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up taking a quarterback fairly high in the draft to fill this need. The bottom line is that Packers fans, and probably the team as a whole, cannot know what to expect from this next season. Favre has played the last 16 seasons for the Packers, starting all but the initial three games. Could Aaron Rodgers follow in Favre’s footsteps in a similar way to Steve Young following Joe Montana? Sure. He could. I hope so, but we aren’t going to know for sure until at least a few games have passed.

In ending, I want to thank Brett Favre for his many years playing for the Green Bay Packers. He was an excellent leader for the team, and his love of the game was beneficial to the team, the league, and sports in general. Thank you Brett. I wish you the best of luck in whatever is in your future.

That post I promised.

Things have been going pretty well at school. Grades were good. Classes are going well this semester so far. But I’ve been thinking lately about another option besides medical school and becoming a physician. I’m absolutely loving my Genetics class right now, and I think that it’s something worth pursuing as a career goal.

Now, to be clear, it wouldn’t change much in terms of undergrad school. I’ll still be getting a degree in Biology, and I still need to do well in my classes. So the preparation doesn’t really change much. I would probably need to do some sort of “independent” research. There’s a program through school that I could use to do that. Summer research would probably be a lot of fun for me. There’s an informational meeting for the program coming up on Thursday, and I plan to go to that. While it wouldn’t necessarily have anything to do with genetics, it’s the experience and understanding gained from it that are important.

I don’t know yet what I want to do. As of right now, going to medical school is on the list above trying to get into a Ph.D. program in Genetics. That might change as I get further into this course or as I take other courses. And while a lot of geneticists don’t make as much as physicians, surgeons, and the like, it’s never been about the money. I want to help people, and I want to be happy with whatever I do. Both options present both of those opportunities, though perhaps in different ways.

Basically, I figured this would happen. School has given me the opportunity to explore things that I find interesting and might enjoy. I have no problem with this other option, and I want to keep as many as I can open, in case I do change my mind later on.

Other than that, there’s really not been a whole lot new with me. I’ve pretty much been working hard on doing well in school. So far, I’ve succeeded in doing that.