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

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.

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…

• 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…

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.

School has been going very well for me. My first semester back after like five years off has gone as well as can be expected. I got straight A’s in my four classes for a GPA of 4.00. Now, my cumulative GPA for med school admissions purposes is significantly lower than that, but hopefully I’ll be able to get it up high enough to get in somewhere.

This semester is also going pretty well. A couple classes are more difficult, but I’m putting in the work, and I seem to be doing fine. While I don’t find it necessary to post my exact schedule with time-slots, I’m taking the following courses:

• Pre-Calculus
• Life Sciences II
• Principles of Chemistry II
• Probability and Statistics
• Genetics

Yes, I’m taking two math courses and three science courses. I’m alright with that. I like both subject areas. However, there is a lot more homework than I had last semester, and that’s taking up the majority of my time. The rest of it is pretty much doing work for Steadfast Networks, helping with a project they’ve been working on for a while.

That’s pretty much it for this update. I’m still planning on posting something more significant probably Monday night.