Reflections

It's been just over a year now since the day I quit law school to take up this project, and this morning the final information about last semester came up, leaving everything settled and done.

I ended up with an A- in Physics, more or less miraculously. I suppose it's really just the result of my having done ~10% better than the average on nearly everything, combined with some really hard work to get a respectable score on the midterm. My Final in Physics was less respectable. I got a 66% on it, and the median score was 69%, so I finally came at/under the average. That's not particularly surprising though, given that I chose to put all of my time into studying for the Chemistry final.

The way things have turned out, it looks like that was a solid decision in hind-sight. It was a bit risky, but things fell into the right places. Ideally you don't want to put yourself in a position where you need to make "stop-the-bleeding" choices along these lines, I know, but it's both comforting and exciting to know you made the right ones.

As a future applicant, my resume isn't going to have as much padding on it as any of the more qualified prospective medical students who have been putting together their package for years. I have managed to give myself some relevant experience while working in the ER though, and hopefully I can get something else of interest before I start to apply.

As far as grades go, my "new" GPA is a 3.9 after my first three classes, which is solid enough on its own to give me a shot at most schools if I can find a way to score extremely well on the MCAT. So I'm going to have to start seriously considering how to approach the MCAT. It seems unlikely my grades will plummet if I can manage to do well in Physics just one more time. I can't start to focus on them less, because then they will, but its becoming apparent that the MCAT is going to be the single biggest make or break piece of my application.

Anyways. Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with how things stand after a year of working on it. Hopefully everything can continue moving in the right direction.

The Physics Final

Today I found out that I got a 66% on the Physics Final.

Ok. It's a D+. It's an awful grade. It's still better than I thought I did, by a little bit. More importantly, It's over 50%. My grade in Physics is pretty much guaranteed to be a B+ now, with a very small possibility of an A-. I probably won't find out which of those two it is for another day or two.

Either outcome is completely, perfectly, amazingly satisfactory for me though.

Now - that final grade is basically inflated (as I was talking about in the last post). Not by means of a curve, but by means of offering make up quizzes, a lot of take-home homework points, effectively free points from the lab section, etc.

I'm absolutely, postively, clearly not a B+ or A- student in Physics. And that's a serious problem.

It's a problem I'll have to address for the MCAT.

Until the MCAT though, a B+ or A- in the course absolutely keeps me in the running. So let's hope I can do as well, or preferably better, next semester. And, more importantly, let's hope I find a way to step things up in time for the /real/ test I have to take. For now though, this is a great result for me.

And The Grades Start To Roll In

Personal things have had me feeling down lately, despite being on vacation, so I suppose getting my grades is as good a diversion as any.

The first grades in are from Chemistry, where, apparently, I managed to get an A. The break down of that grade isn't available (yet - maybe it will be later), but I know I got a 92% in the Lab section of the course, which counted for 25% of the total. That means I'd have needed a 94% minimum in the lecture to get an A (assuming a 94% is an A, and not an A-, and assuming that a 93.5 is rounded up rather than down).

My grades on the two regular exams were 74 and 96, for a total of 170/200. The final was out of 200 points, and I don't know the exact grade I got on it. Basic math reveals that a 100% would have left me with a 92.5% average in the lecture portion, however, which makes my actual 4.0 untenable without some kind of curve.

Yay for grade inflation.

I didn't really need it in this course - I should have had a 4.0 anyways, if not for carelessness on the first exam. For that reason, the inflation doesn't really worry me. When I take the MCAT, I'm confident my actual ability in Chemistry will reflect a 4.0, or something close to that.

It's possible the curve was small - I was expecting an A- after all, so it could have been as little as a half-step bump. Nonetheless, grade inflation like this in all the classes is really something, and it's not a good something. If inflation is that common in other universities, it might make sense to just adopt a system that's entirely pass/fail across the board, rather than pretend to separate students along a more regimented set of criteria that only exist for show. Added bonus: a pass/fail system would cause students less stress. If you're going to have evaluations, I really think it's worth having them done seriously. Otherwise the whole process turns into something of a joke.

Anyways - next up will be Physics. I expect the results of that in the next few days.

That Went As Badly As Expected...

A bit worse, actually.

The Physics final was one of the more painful tests I've sat through. My plan of focusing on certain bits didn't fair very well, because for some reason most of the exam ended up being on the other bits I didn't get to.

I'm not particularly upset, or distraught, though. Not yet.

I'm far too tired for that. And I saw this coming. And I still suspect a solid minority (or even majority) of people did just as badly, if not worse. So there's nothing to do but sit around and see if it gets curved, and how much it gets curved. My off-chance at getting an A- in Physics is pretty much gone, but that's ok. We'll have to see just how bad it ends up though.

Until I find out, I'm not going to worry.

It's time to sleep, rest, clean my apartment, relax, and have some fun. I'll get back to classes in January, and maybe I can beat Physics in round two.

Seven Years Ago I Had A Chemistry Final

I did so badly on it that I walked out laughing.

Today I had another Chemistry Final, and the result wasn't nearly the same. Now, I'm not going to fool myself. The questions were easier in this course, and some were drawn straight from the book. There was more time to finish the exam as well. So it's not really a perfect comparison.

But still. Having gone from an F on that exam, to what is quite likely an A- or an A on this exam, seems like a real vindication of my project, even if this one was a bit easier.

My final grade for the semester is still undetermined. I don't actually know what I got on this exam, and it's possible I did worse than I think and got a B+ or even a B. If that's the case, given how I stupidly messed up on the first exam, I'd probably be stuck with a B+ for the semester - a huge disappointment. With any luck though, my plan to put my studying time into this will have paid of nicely, and I'll end up with an A- or better in Chemistry.

The downside to my "spend all your time on Chemistry" plan is about to become obvious, however: I have two days to study for my physics exam. Even if I was more or less on the ball in that course, two days probably wouldn't be enough. Given how much I'm struggling, two days is practically a joke. I'd need more like two weeks to be able to get my stuff together.

It was a willful choice on my part, though. I've done ~10% better than everyone on everything throughout the semester, and I'm banking that that trend will carry through on this exam (or, rather, that I'll score in the average, or even 10% below it this time). If that's the case, and there's a curve like I'm banking on, I can probably fail this test and still get a B+ in the course. Maybe even better, depending what type of curve it is.

.... so my study time is going to be all about damage mitigation. A 0 and a 50% will both get me an F on the final, but there's a huge difference between the two. If I can manage to predict two or three problems that are going to be on the exam, and get that type of problem down well, I can probably manage something in the area of a 50%. Sounds awful, I know, but it could actually work out just fine with a bit of luck on my side.

After all - fortune favors the bold.

Exam Planning

I'm still sick. Wow.

Anyways. Exams are getting closer, so I had to come up with a plan of action. I decided to take a cue from mid-terms, where the lesson was that I could have benefited more from extra studying of chemistry rather than working endless hours on physics for a minimal return.

I think I can study Physics a ton between now and the exam, and there's still a very good chance I'll do badly (or not well enough to guarantee an A- w/o a curve, which might very well give me an A- anyways). If I work on Physics a lot, and didn't get an A-, I probably wouldn't have had the time to work much on Chemistry. Chemistry is easier, but isn't getting any curves. So that could put me in a situation where I'm not getting an A- or better in either course. I'd much rather work on Chemistry hard now, get my A in that, and then see if I can get an A- in Physics from a hopeful curve despite having a mediocre final.

The Chemistry exam is coming up first also, so doing well on it will get me in a nice state of mind. And studying Chemistry doesn't panic me like studying Physics does. I was thinking I'd fail Physics for a long time - at this point, it looks like a B+ is fairly likely even if I do badly on the final, and I'm almost guaranteed to not do worse than a B. A B would be bad, but I'd be pretty happy with a B+. It's worth keeping that in perspective.

The Chemistry exam is this coming Tuesday, so I have five more days to get 100% set for it. I have to work on three chapters, plus some general review of earlier stuff. I think I can manage that, if I do a chapter a day. Then I'll have two days before the Physics exam, so I can still get in "some" preparation, and hopefully not end up with a zero on that exam.

Cough. Cough. Hack.

I got really sick over the weekend, and have been dealing with that all week long. The fever and sore throat have kept me from sleeping much, although its starting to get a bit better on that front. Still, if I was going to have to get sick, better now than during finals.

Apart from (or despite) the sickness, I've made it through the last week and into Thanksgiving break. Well... almost. There's still class on Tuesday, but that shouldn't be a big deal. After break there's only one week until the end of classes, and my exams will be a few days after that. Both of my lab sections are finished (although I have to make up one in Physics), and I found out that I got an A- on the Physics re-quiz, which was nice (the average went up on it to a 79%, and I came in with a 92%). That should effectively put my Physics grade at some sort of an A- without any curve, although it's a bit hard to calculate exactly what A- it is.

Anyhow, a B+ or higher on the final would pretty much guarantee I keep my A- GPA whether the final and/or course are subject to a curve or not. A high B "might" do that too, depending on how my lab scores ended up breaking down. If there is a curve, which wouldn't shock me too much, even a C+ might do it....

If I got an A- under those circumstances, of course, it wouldn't mean I knew physics well. And the MCAT will get a good chance to reveal that in a year and change. But I'd still be happy. One step at a time - getting a good grade now is a prerequisite for taking the MCAT. I can worry extensively about the physics sections of the MCAT later on.

Basically, this is the end of things for the semester. I need to put out a really really solid two weeks of studying like I did for mid-terms, and hopefully things will turn out well. I'm going to work under the assumption that they will and register for next semester's courses later tonight, even.

The Re-Quiz

I got to take the make up quiz in physics this morning, for that first quiz-test from what now seems so long ago.

I hadn't written about it much, mostly because it hadn't been on my mind. I've been preoccupied this week with more current physics work, and with finishing my final Chemistry and Physics labs. I hardly had time to study for the make up quiz, but I was more or less ok with that and was resigned to not doing particularly better (or better at all).

The quiz went respectably well though, actually. It was a nice surprise to know I've retained more old knowledge than I thought I had, when I've been so worried over the new stuff I haven't figured out yet. I didn't get a 100%, but I'm pretty sure I did well enough to boost my grade somewhat.

A Scare

It's a bit past Halloween, but people were talking in my physics lab today, and I overheard the TA say she thought Calculus 2 was required to sign up for the second semester of Physics. That would have been respectably problematic for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which is that I'm not even sure I could schedule Phys 2/Calc 2/Chem 2 at the same time in one semester. The money would have been a problem as well, not to mention the difficulty of taking more math (Calc 1 ended up going nicely, but I had nothing else competing for my time over the summer).

Anyways. I /just/ got home and the very first thing I did was check on the Internet to see if this rumor was true. Fortunately, it wasn't.

:: sigh of relief ::

Yay. (5-4-3-2-1)

Now relief time is over (I enjoyed my 5 seconds...).

Finals are impending. I'm not too worried about chemistry (yet), but the physics one will take me forever to get to a "decent" level on, again. Something about this class absolutely does not click for me, and it was only thanks to a monumental amount of studying/praying/panicking that i got through the last exam.

Hopefully I can go through that again without suffering a total mental breakdown, and will grab another ok score in the process. Then I'll get to move onto next semester, where I'll have to do it two more times before things finally start looking up for me. My labs in both physics and chemistry are (almost) done this week though, so I'll have a bit more time to put exclusively into exams for this go around.

(Unfortunately, it looks like I'll be staying up into the wee hours of the morning finishing my last chemistry lab report tonight though.)

I Got Beat By A Korean...

But I'm still happy.

I took my Chemistry test at 8:00, after having been unable to fall asleep most of the night because of stress. I think I got two hours of sleep... something near that. The stress managed to keep me up for the test though, and - knock on wood - I think I did quite well. Right now I'm expecting that I got an A- on it, though it's possible I did a bit better or a bit worse.

That means I can reasonably expect to salvage my Chemistry grade for the semester. An A is out of the picture, given how I flubbed the first test, but if I do this well again an A- is still possible, and a B+ is very attainable. B+ is too weak a score for Vanderbilt Medical School, of course, but it's strong enough to keep me in the running for others.

I finished the test very quickly too, which was fun. I used to do that back in college, but haven't been able to do any tests well /and/ quickly since returning to school. It was a really fun feeling to just walk in, crush, and walk out.

The fun faded a bit after that, since I got to sit around for an hour waiting on my Physics class to start. A more cautious person might have double checked their test. Maybe even twice. That's not stylish though.

Physics brought more nice surprises. We got our tests back and, as I thought, I'm not the only person who didn't get around to finishing the last problem. So the last problem was just scrapped and counted as extra credit. Not having (most) of the unfinished material count really helped out my score, and I ended up with an 82%. It's not a great score, sure. But it's actually enough to let me still get an A- in the course if I do about as well on the final. It was also better than the average score again (which was somewhere around 74% this time).

The "word" is that a small curve gets put in place after the course as well, so even an A might be possible, if I do well on the final. That could bring me to a tangent about ridiculous grade inflation and its attendant problems.... I won't get into it now though. I'm just happy to not have an F.

The Korean, by the way, was my Physics lab partner. He got a 108%. (Someone's getting into med school....)

I Don't Remember The Last Time I Failed A Test This Badly...

Possibly because it's never happened.

Didn't have time to finish ~25% worth of the test, score wise. Of the parts I did finish, I know I didn't get it all right. I expect my final score to be somewhere around a 50%. Possibly worse, with a minuscule chance of being slightly better.

Oddly, I'm not as upset as you might think I'd be. Whether that's because I saw this coming a long way off, because I worked as hard as I reasonably could have, am pretty sure at least half the class failed as well, or am simply in denial, I'm not sure.

What's most upsetting is that I have to somehow find the motivation to convince myself to study for next week's Chemistry test now. If I bomb that test, things are kind of pretty much over. If I do well though, I'm convinced "something" will happen with Physics. I mean... I just can't imagine a class giving over half the students failing grades. It doesn't seem possible. I don't know.

I just have to try and get myself caught up on Chemistry over this week.

And Here We Are Again

Test-Night's Eve. Almost.

It's been awhile since I last posted, so let me fill you in on what's been going on in my life: studying physics.

I've been going through that book, the problems, and dropping by office hours every day, more or less, since I last posted. I've managed to spend up to six or seven hours in a day working on Physics, which is a level of time I'm not really used to putting into a subject. To be fair, most of my days have been closer to 3 or 4 hours spent studying Physics before I burn out on it, but that's still a lot (I dropped studying Chemistry so... I'll pay for this later. But like I said, there's no use doing well in Chemistry if I can't get a B in Physics.)

So how much has this helped me? That's a good question.

If I had another week or two, I think it would help me a lot. I have a pretty clear idea of what's going on now, although I still fumble around reforming the equations properly and (non)uniform circular motion. And I have problems dealing with harder problems that combine all sorts of kinematics. But still, I've come somewhere. I know what's going on, I can use my trigonometry properly to decompose the right vectors, etc, etc. I've come "somewhere".

Unfortunately, of course, I don't have another week or two. I just have tomorrow.

I'll probably spend the day (the part I'm not in chem lab, at least) going over the in class multiple choice questions we've been given, and the multiple choice questions in our book. I'll also spend some time working on non-uniform circular motion, but it's really late enough now that I can't expect to be able to go from stopped cold on that type of problem to getting it correct overnight. 40% of the quiz will be short answer/multiple choice type questions. If even just one or two come from questions in the notes that I've looked over, that could make an impact.

I'm hoping now that I'll get a 70. That would be a pretty nice number, and would keep me "in the running" if I improve a little bit more by the final exam.

Even though I'm struggling, a 70 seems possible. I felt I would do absolutely horrible last time (and I did....) but I still got a score in the mid-sixties. I'm somewhat more confident this time, and only need my score to go up by 8 or 10%.

Here's hoping.

Here's What's Going To Happen

So, in case it hasn't become clear to anyone reading yet, I have a tendancy to get too down over setbacks and too excited over success. Apart from being a generally bad trait for a doctor, that's also not a good trait for someone trying to simply get the chance to become a doctor. Also, I think I talked in my first post about how my old undergraduate science grades scared me off science courses more than they probably should have.

So. A 74 is a bad test grade. Sure. Instead of focusing on that, it would make more sense (and be more healthy) to focus on the 2/3s of the test I effectively got an A- on. I made some mistakes, they were repeated because the problems were similar, and that's just how things go. I have two tests left, plus my lab grades. Fixing my Chemistry grade is something I can totally pull off.

Physics is bad still. Sure. But by just thinking about that and repeating it ad nauseum I'm not doing much more than discouraging myself. I just need to focus on one thing in Physics - getting a 70 or better on the next test. If I can do that, things can really start to look up.

All this said....

The Next Tests:
Physics - October 23rd
Chemistry - October 30th

There's a good chunk of time in between each test, to study for the next one. I need to prioritize, and just work. If I crash on these tests too, that will be that. But I'm not going to let that happen without a solid effort on my part. If I do well on them, then everything is back in play.

A Bad Day

I got my Chemistry test back today, and did worse than I thought I would. I ended up with a 74. What makes that really terrible is that I just saw the number on the front at first, and thought I had an A-. So I was happy. It wasn't until ~30 minutes later that I looked inside, and realized the A- was only for the first part, and that I had done some problems in the last half completely incorrectly. So A- and Awful averaged out to a C.

Physics is... as awful as ever.

When I got back home, I found out I'd accidentally thrown away the bagel I had been saving for lunch.

Things look bad. It's still premature to say they certainly won't work out - I could manage a B in Physics, and Chemistry is certainly something I can turn back into a B+ or even an A- if I score on the next two tests like I did on the first half of this one. ... But overall things look pretty bad.

I'm not sure what I'll do when/if this doesn't work out.

I'm not particularly qualified for anything, and I've been away from school/work for so long that my resume is full of gaps and no one would want to hire me anyways.

Not. Looking. Good.

Our Physics Test

The quiz-test was returned today, and I got a 69. It's an awful score, but it's better than I was expecting and better than I needed. ... I suppose I'm happy?

I don't know. That class is keeping me really nervous.

For what it's worth, the mean score was a 63, so I actually did above the average. That's still not impressive though...

Our Chemistry test should be returned sometime in the next week or so, and I'm curious how that turned out. It should be better than a 69 at least.

Everything else is just me "keeping up" with the work, mostly. I'm finding it hard to do much extra, because it seems like every day I have a reasonably time consuming project that needs doing to stay on par (a lot of physics home work, a physics lab report, a chemistry lab report, a test to study for...) When I get back from my late labs I'm generally too tired to put in much serious work as well, which doesn't help things. I'm doing what I can though, I think.

And On We Go

Well. Things have gone exactly as I planned. I wish I could say I was proud of that but... I really can't. It could be worse though: at least this shows that I'm fairly aware of where things stand.

I spent the weekend studying chemistry (a bit... not as much as I should have) and getting caught up on physics. I got caught up to the first three chapters, as I had planned, and then failed the quiz, as I had (sort of) planned. But there was a shocking announcement! We'll get the chance to take a second quiz of sorts later, and the lowest will be dropped.

That was the oddest moment. I'd ended up not really sleeping, and showed up completely exhausted expecting to get an F and ruin things... only to find out my grade can still (technically) end up as an A. That's good news. Hopefully something will come of it... but I don't know. I'm having lots of trouble. It seems funny how one course could stand in the way and ruin all my plans... not funny funny, but amusing in its own way.

Chemistry I have two good days to study for now, and intend to do just that. I want a B+ or better on that test if at all possible. If I can manage that, I'll be happy. And I think that's a manageable goal.

After the Chem test, one or two days of regrouping, and then I need to hammer the physics. Repeatedly.

Things are in a tight spot, but it's all doable.

And So Ended A Week of Despair

The title's putting it a bit over the top but... yeah. That's a pretty good summary. Things haven't been going great till now, and this last week that was particularly true. The last two days in particular I was a overwhelmed with work. I managed to pull of the Chemistry Lab report (decently) well. The physics I had to finish for Friday was disastrous. Our lowest homework score is dropped though so, amusingly, I still technically have an A in that class.

That's about to change next week, when we have our first Physics (and Chemistry) test. The Physics test is the one that's only worth 5% of our grade and, really, I'll be very happy if I can pull off a 40% on it. That means I only loose 3% of my grade in the course, and leaves a B+ average very much in reach if I can actually manage to start (and pull off) a complete turn around starting... now.

So. Apart from wanting that turn around, and possibly praying some, what am I going to do to get it?

The most immediate idea that comes to mind is to start going to the GEFAP sessions, which are basically undergraduate led study sessions AU has in place for courses like this. I have my doubts about how useful it will be for my particular situation (I don't have one, two, or three questions I need help with... I'm just /lost/), but it's worth trying. At the very least, I can raise/maintain a good homework average through it. Those are on Monday and Thursday nights. I should go to at least one a week. They're late at night though, and I have my early morning courses the next day, so.... I also should get my car's license plates fixed up. Biking is fun, but biking in the dark is less fun, and being stuck with 5 hours of sleep is simply awful.

I should also restart trying to read the physics textbook. Just... from scratch. We're only at the end of chapter four now, so it's still early enough that it's sort of reasonable to try doing that. I don't know how much of that I can get done this weekend, since studying for the Chemistry test is my priority. I'll try and get chapters one and two done, at least, over the weekend. I have a semi-decent grasp of that half, at least. It's difficult for me to read the book... sadly. I sort of just stare at it, and I've found it hard to help that. Maybe I can find a physics for dummies book somewhere to help out a bit on the side. Going to a bookstore could make a decent study break, if nothing else. And I need to go out to get those new car plates anyways.

After all this, I can go to office hours again. When I have some sort of a better sense of what my problem is.

That's the plan for now, and I'm sticking to it. In a few weeks I'll either have failed the course, or will be able to feel (justifiably) proud of myself.

Sometimes It's Better To Make A Call

So yesterday was my last day volunteering at the hospital. I hadn't been sure I'd wanted to stop before, and had been thinking about trying a different part of the hospital next, but classes haven't been going well. Technically, they're not going "badly" yet either, but that's just because I've had no tests, and my only grades so far are from homework. I'm well aware that if I have a test, especially in Physics, but in either course at the moment, it will be an ugly and unpleasant affair.

Speaking of which... we have our first tests next week I believe, in each class. The Physics one is a very small quiz-test. It's the length and difficulty of a normal exam, but only counts for 5% of our grade. The idea behind it is to help us understand his tests, and get us working extra hard if we haven't been so far. The Chemistry test is a normal one, and probably worth ~25% of my grade.

Since I've been getting behind, I've wondered how I can change things. Freeing up my Monday's seems like a decent start... that's a lot of extra time I can use to study. The afternoon-evening labs I have really hurt my ability to work well on those days, and on the days immediately preceding them I'm always busy trying to do my lab reports. Then there's the general stuff I have to do for the classes themselves. It's only two classes, but I've found that I really don't have that much time to do more than "keep up" with them. Just "keeping up" won't work for me, since I'm not innately good at this stuff. I need lots of time to go over it if I'm going to be able to get it to work.

I decided to take today off rather than go in for my morning courses on four hours of sleep. I'm not sure if that was mistake or not. It won't really matter for Chemistry: all the teacher does is regurgitate her powerpoint slides word for word (actually, I don't think they're even /her/ own slides, I think they're bought from some company....). Missing my Physics class, on the other hand, is a genuinely bad thing. At least doing this helps make today feel like genuinely new start.

Regarding my two tests next week, I have three main choices. I can focus almost exclusively on
Physics, almost exclusively on Chemistry, or try to study both. Normally, studying both would be the obvious call. Given how far behind I am in Physics though, and how the Physics test is only worth 5% of our grade, I'm thinking it might make sense to go all out on Chemistry for the next 7 days, and then try to go all out getting caught up in Physics after the tests have come and gone. I can completely fail the Physics test and still get a 96% in the class, after all (technically...).

A City's Pulse

So I'm a Starbucks addict. That's nothing new; it started way back in undergraduate school. I feel compelled to give myself at least 3 hours between waking up and being at point A. In those three hours I can take a shower, read a bit, wake up, have breakfast, or what have you. When I have classes at 8:00 am, unfortunately, that means I get to wake up at 5:00 am.

I'd noticed this before, but it struck me today: the Starbucks I go to in DC has /always/ had at least one person there when it opened, other than myself. Usually two or three other people. Today there were five people there, and I then ran into my next-door neighbor walking a dog on the way back in.

Wow. In Nashville or Atlanta, when I showed up to Starbucks at opening, I'd usually be alone, or with one other person.

In the world of relevant updates, Physics is still being hard. I spent all of this last weekend working almost 9:00-5:00 on our Physics HW 1 and our first Physics Lab. The good news is that I got it done, mostly. Thanks to an extra credit problem I'll have an A. The bad news is that it took me two whole days to get done, and even with all that time I wouldn't have had an A without the extra credit. The worse news is that I've been putting so much time into Physics that I think I'm starting to slip in Chemistry now (although I have no grades there yet, so its still just a potential problem at this point).

It's A Small World

I haven't written much about my work in the Office of Neurosurgery lately, mostly because my working isn't particularly exciting. Some of it is sort of borderline interesting, like collecting the statistics on operations performed by various doctors from the departmental records and from the OR records, and comparing the two. Sometimes there's a big discrepancy because the OR won't credit non-lead surgeons despite their participation, and the comparison is necessary to show that certain doctors have been doing as much, if not a good deal more, work than they should be. All in all though, it's fairly slow and uneventful work.

Today while sorting files, I ran into one from an old friend. Friend's not the word really... I only knew her briefly and we didn't leave on very good terms. It was the first pseudo-ethical dilemma I've had here, really. It was tempting to open the file and see what was wrong. I didn't, of course, because that would have been horrible of me in addition to violating all sorts of professional conduct rules, but the temptation was there.

Whatever happened, here's hoping she manages to get through it well. Neurological problems can suck. I know.

Apart from this, I'm getting more and more worried about Physics. I can still follow what goes on in class just fine, but I absolutely positively cannot make sense of our textbook. There's a million and one symbols in it, and I don't even know how to say them all. Then it starts talking about integrals, which we never covered in our first semester Calculus course.... It's really really disconcerting, and I don't know what to do.

Failing the class (or getting a C) simply isn't an option. Even a B isn't very good. I'm someone who quit grad school, so I suspect anything less than stellar will be likely to raise red flags to the admissions committee.

So I need to figure out a good plan of action. I think I'll meet the teacher this week and talk to him, which is fairly rare for me... I'm not the type of person who likes to drop in on office hours for better or worse, but right now I think I've got to.

The First Week [Fall 09]

I've been run through one of every class now (with the exception of my physics lab, which doesn't start meeting till next week), and thought I'd put down my thoughts on them.

Physics:
It takes all the math stuff I dislike, and makes it trickier. Plus, this is the first teacher I've ever had who's explicitly said that he's going to make his tests hard; most of my teachers have just said something about how they'll be "appropriate" when some nosy student brings it up. I have no clue what a "hard" test means to him, and I won't find out for some time. Until I do find out, that's going to be a cause for concern.

The course itself seems tough. We have lots of work assigned from online sources, offline sources, and then we have lots of textbook reading (although not nearly as much reading as there was in law school). I'm not sure how easy or difficult these will be, so I'm not sure how much time it will consume. It seems like it will be difficult though, if I want to stay on top of things (and I do).

Our teacher is in love with tech gadgets. That shows up in the use of Powerpoint (which I guess is common nowadays... I /hate/ it. I could have a huge rant about how terrible it is, and I might post that rant someday).

He also uses little remote controls in class, so he can ask questions, we can input the answer, and everyone can see who put in what (anonymously, but there's a computer program that breaks down the stats and graphs them instantly). Unlike Powerpoint, this is very neat. I can see lots of uses for it, besides the novelty. It helps him see if he has to slow down and it helps students see where they stand in relation to the rest of the class.

Grading wise, only ~40% of our grade is determined from the exams (which is probably why he wants them to be difficult). The other 60% is a combination of attendance, participation, physics lab, homework, and online homework. I've never had a grading set up like that, so I'm not quite sure what I think of it yet.

Chemistry:
Our Chemistry teacher makes good (by which I mean frequent) use of powerpoint as well, but doesn't bring online assignments, little remote controls, or any other technological gadgets to bear.

I'm sure it won't be an "easy" course, but I feel much more comfortable in Chemistry than in Physics. I'm looking forward to it, actually. The teacher seems nice enough, and I think she's on the lenient side. She said ~80% of exam questions will be copied from assigned homework questions, which means there's no excuse for getting lower than an 80% on any exam. That sort of stuff helps my GPA, but it won't help me when I take my MCAT in a year. So I've got to make sure I stay 100% focused, and learn the material well enough to keep it with me until I get to my MCAT - not just well enough to manage a 4.0 in the course.

The thing about this class is that it's, more or less, a first year class. Calculus was too, but it had some older students since I took it during the summer. Being in a course with a full compliment of freshman really brings out the fact that I'm older than these people. I never thought of myself as having changed /that/ much since college, but I'm really a bit self conscious about it. It's funny, and sort of depressing at the same time.

Chemistry Lab:
Chemistry lab looks a lot like my old chemistry lab at Vanderbilt (I took one semester of Gen. Chem. there - I didn't take the second though, so I get to do it all over here). The lab itself is, marginally, nicer than the lab I had at Vanderbilt, though the lab I had there was in an old building that was being redone (I took Chemistry there my first year, by my last year the building had been completely redone and was /much/ nicer). Still, that's a pleasant surprise.

We got lab partners, and I think I like the one I'm with. I don't really know after just one day of course, and that's one day without any experiments. Just in cleaning up the drawers and taking inventory of our things and such though, you can get a sense of a person. How self-motivated they are, how able to assist they are, how careful they are, and how you'll be able to get along with them in general. Having a bad lab partner for a semester would be unfortunate, but I don't think that will be a problem at all.

And Classes Start Once More

I had a fun little mini-vacation. There was a lot of stress from being locked up around my parents for a week for the first time in two years or so, but things more or less worked out. And I got to see wild deer (the kind living in a marsh, as opposed to the one eating up your backyard garden), ponies, jelly fish, and who knows how many different kinds of birds. The water was warm, although I couldn't go in it too much; one of the waves reminded me just how injured my shoulder is, and how little pressure it can take at an awkward angle to briefly light it up with pain. Still - the beach was fun, the food was fun, the sun was fun, my books were fun, and the wildlife watching was fun.

But now I'm back. My courses start tomorrow.

This means, of course, that it's time to drop everything else and focus. I had a few quick looks at my books and lab manuals. They seem a little bit intimidating, but hopefully it's not as bad as the first glance makes it out to be. I'm quite excited to get started up again, actually, and am really looking forward to tomorrow.

I need to get going on sorting out my extra-curriculars, be that continuing the ones I have, rescheduling things, or finding new ones. I'll probably wait a week before I start really worrying about that though, so I have time to settle into my courses.

Results

My Calculus grades got placed in the system today and I've ended up with an A, which is absolutely fantastic. I suspect that our grades might have been curved up a percentage point or two as a result of some other people doing very poorly on the final, but I could be mistaken. It's possible that I simply got a few more of the "maybe this is right..." questions than I expected. I'll never get the test back so I'll never really know.

Either way: the important things are that I got a good GPA and that I feel I worked hard and understood the material well enough to earn it.

Thoughts On My Calculus Final

I've never been so happy about an exam I've done so poorly on before.

Ok. So I don't know exactly how well or poorly I did, but I have pretty fair sense. I'm almost sure I got a 75% at least. If I messed up and got something wrong that I'm fairly certain I got right, I'll still be above the magic 67% mark for an A- GPA. There were four or so problems I was able to get answers for, without having any serious confidence in the answer I came up with. It's unlikely, but still possible that the grade could shoot from a 75% to a high 80%, or even a low 90%, and I'd get a 4.0 in the course.

I finished the problems I was able to do easily, and was right under the 67% mark. I freaked out a bit, but pulled myself together. I've never had as much satisfaction from solving a problem as I did when I got one I'd been staring at for 10 minutes, and thought I was completely stuck on. That's the problem that (probably) shot my final grade up to an A-. After that I got a few others when I remembered that you can't differentiate the absolute value function at 0, etc, but nothing compared.

I also relearned two things I really knew all along:

• Don't let yourself take a week off mentally because things seem like a sealed deal- it can easily catch up with you.
• Don't go out and celebrate success up to a point in a course when you should be using that time to study for success at the course's completion.

I'm lucky things ended well, and that I'd been able to do so well up to the final to give myself the buffer I had. Things could easily have ended up differently. I'll make sure to never loose sight of these points again; I might even make a wallpaper for my pc with a list of "things to remember" artfully included.

What now? Some well-earned vacation.

Courses will start again in roughly three weeks. I get to spend one of those weeks at the beach looking at ponies and other assorted wildlife. The other two I'll spend coming up with a new plan of action.

Edit: I've changed the layout to something darker. I don't know if it's better or not, but it's different, and I like the change for now. I'll work on making this a real site in the future, I think, but that's a distant and unimportant priority.

Results | Fall '09 Scheduling

Today was the last day of Calculus for all intents and purposes (there's the final exam still, and one day after that). We got our second test back today, and I got a 100%, as expected. That doesn't say too much - the test was much harder than the first, and I only did well because I had three days to spend on it with my math book open. Still, this means I only need a 67% on the final to get an A- average in the course, which I would be very happy with. I'd be ok with a B+, thrilled with an A, and slightly disappointed with a B.

The final is this coming Tuesday, and I have a lot of studying to do for it. 67% sounds low, but depending on the number of questions, it could be easier to slip up badly than it seems. Especially since things have been getting notably harder lately. Making things worse, I showed up for every class but kind of let my brain take this last week off. While I'm a bit behind though, hopefully it's nothing four days of hard work can't fix.

Scheduling for Fall has been more complicated than I'd anticipated. I've had the last selection of courses as a non-degree student, which caused various complications. The only available Chemistry course had a lab that met on the only days the remaining Biology courses met. I stressed out over this - a lot, at first.

I got in touch with my premed advisers though (both at American and my alma mater), and both agreed that I don't have to take the standard order of courses so long as I make sure I can take Organic Chemistry next year. So what I did is switch things up and register for Physics and Chemistry in the Fall. I'm saddled with bad course times (the earliest possible start time, and late evening lab sessions), but other than that the courses fit together well. (Physics is right after my 8AM Chemistry course, I have my labs spread out instead of being stuck doing 6 hours on one single day, I don't have a morning course followed by a 4 hour wait before my next course, etc).

So, if I manage to get a 67% or better on my Calculus final, I'll be quite pleased with the way things are shaping up. If I manage to keep an A- or higher average after a year of Physics and Gen Chem, I'll be fairly certain that things will actually work out for me (and I might go get myself a real site to keep this blog up, and add fancy pictures, and ways for users to leave feed back, and a real domain name, and... such).

I had a daydream of getting back to Vanderbilt for med school today, after getting my second test back. It's ridiculously premature for that though. People with 4.0 averages who're coming straight out of college get rejected from there, and there's not a single reason to believe they'd let me in. That would be my ideal school though, I think. I really do have fond memories of it, and it has a world class hospital and medical school.

Pre-Med Advising

I think it's rather easy to take for granted the benefits of being in a top 20+ university with lots of money to burn, when you're used to them.

I'd kind of picked up on this earlier. American University has some nice buildings (I'm a big fan of their library, in particular, which is well designed and has lots of light. It's a library you'd actually want to work in, rather than one where you'd want to pick up what you need and run out asap), but most of the buildings seem a bit small, old, and/or run down. Even the library has a noticeably smaller collection than the other schools I've been at to date. The facilities and labs are certainly decent enough to do what needs to be done, but they don't seem particularly pleasant or modern on the whole.

The pre-med advising system sort of struck me as another example of this. The office was a small hole in the wall, and the advisor didn't seem particularly interested. There was a dog in the office even, and while I have nothing against dogs, I don't think that's particularly professional.

We had a brief chat... not a conversation. Essentially I was handed out a sheet for new college freshman that told me nothing particularly new, and I've already seen when I was an undergrad. To be fair, I'm probably partly at fault. I could have pushed for more dialogue, but I felt brushed off enough that I decided to head out after getting the most immediately pressing information. I don't know if it's because I'm a non-degree student (bad reason to ignore me... I'm still a paying student), because they'd met with 1000 new freshman who all wanted to do premed right off the bat without a good reason, because they were just having an off day, or... whatever. I wasn't particularly happy though.

What I did learn was that I only have to take this one Calculus course. Also, I need to register for Gen. Chem and Gen. Bio in the Fall (although I knew that part). I have some other questions... some pressing, others not so much. Do I need to take genetics, do I need to take cell bio, when do I start getting ready for/registering for the MCAT, how many miscellaneous upper level science courses do I need beyond the fundamental prereqs, if any, etc, etc.

Right now, I'm thinking I'll e-mail the lady I spoke with back at Emory's medical school though. She seemed more approachable to me, even though my problems weren't her responsibility. I still have her business card though, and might as well make good use of it. I might see if I can work with the pre-med advisor at Vanderbilt as well, being an alumni.

For now, I'm going to register for General Biology and Chemistry, and I'm going to get started on my second Calculus test.

Test Two

In a fortunate stroke of luck (and, probably, our teacher taking pity on some of the summer students who didn't do so well on the first exam), our second test is a take home. It was handed out today, is due on Monday, and there's not really any limits on what we can do (beyond working together on it).

Some of the math here I'm a bit behind on, and that could have been problematic if this were given as a real test. With 72 hours to work on it though, and an open-book policy, I can't imagine myself doing worse than a 90%. Honestly, I really should get a 100%: not doing so would be mildly embarrassing.

That pretty much means 70% of my Calculus grade will be 100% after this, with nothing between me and a decent grade other than the final (which won't be a take home). A 67% or so on the final will give me an A- in the course. (I could fail the final - badly - and get a B-, but I don't think anything less than a B+ is really acceptable for what I'm trying to do).

This is doubly awesome because I spoke with the pre-med advisor today, and learned that I only have to take this one Calculus course. A second semester of higher Calculus won't be required, so I'm almost in the clear as far as math goes.

Results

I got the actual results of my test last Thursday, so this is a bit late, but I did as well as I had hoped. I managed to get a 100% on it, which doesn't say much since it was the first and simplest test we'll have. Things are already getting more difficult, I can tell, but hopefully I'll manage to get through that as I did last time.

What it does say is that I can score an average of ~63% on my next/final two exams, and get a B-, which probably isn't good enough. If I can score an average of ~83% or so on my next two exams though, I'll be able to end up with an A-, which would probably suffice. An 83% average on two tests should be entirely doable as long as I keep putting in a strong effort.

So: the verdict is that my plan goes on along the medical school path.

In other news, I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed lately, in general. I even missed an assignment (no problem, since they're only collected on the days of our exams), and spent this weekend catching up as well as trying to keep up. This coming week, I'll be missing a class too, which won't help things. I've been trying to schedule or make all sorts of other appointments as well, in addition to trying to get a refill of the medication for my epilepsy (the doctors here won't give me one because I haven't seen them yet, and I'm having trouble with my old doctors in Atlanta because I haven't seen them in too long....) I'm stressed out, and feeling a bit like a chicken running around blindly with its head cut off.

Hopefully the medical part of getting appointments should be finished soon, and I can stop stressing over that. My volunteering at the hospital is nearing the mark at which I'm allowed to stop working as well. I hadn't planned to stop just yet, but I might end up doing that to free up some time if I'm still feeling this way in a few weeks.

Thoughts On My Calc. Test

It's entirely premature to be happy about how I did. While studying I made incredibly stupid mistakes like reading addition signs as subtraction signs (which, of course, produced the wrong result). The test itself was fairly short - some 15 questions - so even one of these stupid mistakes would be enough to have a respectably negative impact on my grade.

As an aside, to anyone who wonders what Calculus has to do with medicine (a question I've gotten a few times, actually) - here's an easy answer. Careless mistakes on math tests get you to fail. Careless mistakes in medicine kill people. Therefore, people who habitually make careless mistakes shouldn't be in positions of medical responsibility, and failing a course in Calculus keeps people from entering medical school in the first place.

That said, I /think/ I did fairly well, and I'm sure I didn't do /too/ badly. I was happy enough with how I thought I did to go get a bottle of my favorite hard-to-find wine at a nearby restaurant afterwards (which, for the record, I'm not drinking all at once).

Speaking of wine, I also had my first soft drink in about a month today before the exam (I've been, fairly successfully, working at fixing my diet of late). It's shocking how sickening-sweet that soda tastes after having broken the habit. I don't even want to get another... (My favorite wine was still awesome though). Actually.... on the off-chance anyone is actually reading my blog, the wine is Eroica Riesling. It's grown in the US, but is an absolutely phenomenal Riesling in my opinion. And it's only ~$25 / bottle. ... and I think it's making me ramble a bit in this post: hopefully, future medical school reviewers who have found this site will be willing to overlook that, just this once. (Please?)

Back to the test, its results, and their impact.

The registration deadline for the fall semester is, I think, approaching quickly. Once I'm sure I've done well on this exam (assuming that is the case) I'll have a lot of decisions to make, without an entirely satisfactory set of information to base them on.

1: Do I continue the medical school courses in the fall Semester, or opt out for nursing?
- If I got an A of some color on this, as I hope, I opt to schedule med. school prereqs.

2: Do I (need) to take a second semester of Calculus? If so, do I take it now, or do that next summer and dedicate the year to pure science courses?
- I don't know what the best plan would be. It would be helpful if I could isolate math in Summer again, as it's my weakest point, but I need to talk to an academic advisor of some color.

3: How intense do I want to make my curriculum?
- I can, technically, take nearly everything at once. Taking Gen Chem/Bio/Physics/Organic Chem/Calculus/Bio Chem at the same time strikes me as begging to fail, though. Or, at the least, asking to perform sub-par. That's an overwhelming schedule. I need to decided how to split things though. Again, an advisor can hopefully assist here.

Until I find out how I did for sure though, I shouldn't get ahead of myself.

Test One

The first Calculus test is coming up on Monday the 13th. So far, everything seems to be going well. At least, that was the case until Tuesday's class, when I completely blanked once we started covering delta-epsilon proofs. I didn't understand a single thing - math with more letters than numbers scares me.

I've really been working on it since that class though, for the last 48 hours or so, and I had a breakthrough this morning. I get it now. Mostly. I think. And I was really proud of myself for managing to push through that (if I actually have). I'm not good at it, but it would be nice to know that you can just manage to force through things if you have enough stubbornness.

Anyhow... the first test is this coming Monday, and it's fairly important. Between that and my (more or less) free 20% from homework, roughly 50% of my grade in the course will be determined by the end of the day. If I manage to do spectacularly well on this test, I'll be able to do quite poorly on the next two (in the range of 60%...) and still reach some form of a B in the class. On the other hand, if I do spectacularly poorly, I can pretty much put an end to all my MD plans right now - especially given that the next two tests will only be harder.

Anything in between will keep me in suspense and in frustration.

Calculus Begins

Well, it wasn't shockingly exciting, but I thought the start of my Calculus course was enough of a landmark to justify a post.

The instructor seems decent, and his voice is clear (which was a problem with the Russian TA/Instructor I had during undergrad, when I dropped it). Also, we get to use our graphing calculators (something I wasn't able to do in my previously ill-fated attempt).

The course is fairly small, as you might expect in Summer. I don't know the people in it, but they seem to range from High School students trying to get something impressive on their college applications to students who did poorly at Math in college and had to try it again, to a few random people like myself. Unlike law school, grades aren't curved, so I could really care less who's in it. The only person to compete against is myself.

The course format is more like a college course than my previous law courses (... go figure, right? ~.~) .... which is to say it has two tests worth 25% each, and a final worth 30%. The homework actually counts for part of our grade (again, that wasn't the case with my previous math course), which should be a free 20% unless I manage to fall asleep at the wheel.

We opened with the standard overview of the course, syllabus, etc, and took a small diagnostic test not unlike the placement test I've already done. Only this time, it was for the teacher's benefit, so he can try to figure out where everyone is, and how much time needs to be dumped on review (one day, or two). I didn't do great, but that's mostly because my mind blanked on some easy problems with inequalities and protracted division. By the time I remembered, I'd wasted a bit too much time.

I knew how to do it, and went on to make sure I could once I got back home. It's also the kind of problem I wouldn't have on a regular test, when I'm prepared and expecting it. Otherwise, there were still a few issues. I'll see how much we cover them in class tomorrow. If they're not fixed then, I'll spend a day immediately fixing it myself.

I think I'm getting a positive vibe from this though, to start things off at least. It should be more comfortable than the last time I tried (Apart from the intense nature of it; each of the two tests and our final is only separated by two weeks).

Code Orange

Today was my last day volunteering in the ER (although not my last day of volunteering - my ER time has to stop because of the schedule conflict with my pending Calculus class), and what a day it was.

I'm not sure if a Code Orange (disaster code) was actually called. I think it wasn't while I was there, but may have been just after I left. What happened is two of DC's subway trains collided during rush hour, just when I showed up to work. At least six people died, and several dozen were injured. I think George Washington took most, but several found their way to Georgetown by ambulance or helicopter. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31495088/ns/us_news-life/

Exciting isn't necessarily the right word. It's not pleasant when a huge accident occurs and people get seriously injured. But it's an immense change of pace from "life as normal" in the ER, where most of the cases consist of people who don't necessarily belong there. It's like a switch flips, and everyone takes it up a gear. People were called in from all over the hospital, rooms were cleared out, corridors were packed, and the injuries were severe. People in neck braces lined the walls, and some people were wailing in pain.

It's certainly not good - but at the same time it's the atmosphere I always thought I'd enjoy working in, trying to fix things in a point by point order. It's good to find out that I actually do enjoy it, rather than just abstractly thinking I can cope with it. And the odds of something like this happening during my few months of volunteer time were fairly small. It was a surprise to have it come up on my last day.

In other news, I bought the book for my Calculus course ($173 for a book? seriously?). It's the same author/book that I used in my first (dropped) first-year undergraduate course (albeit two editions later). I'm not sure if that's a good sign or not, but I'll pretend it is, though. The book has some pre-calculus diagnostic tests in this edition. I plan to do those before the first day of classes, to kick of my pre-pre-studying. They look like they'll be pretty helpful in specifically pointing out the areas I'm weak in. I also got a stylish AU notebook and t-shirt, so I can pretend I'm an undergrad again.

D Is For Done

The placement test is done. I didn't do particularly well. In fact, I did just about as poorly as I could have while still getting permission to sign up for my course: not particularly uplifting news. However, I /did/ do well enough to manage to sign up, and that has to count for something.

Whether I can make the class work against all odds is up to me now - and it is against all odds. I haven't had a math course in years, the last time I had one I didn't do particularly well, and I'm not intuitively adept at this. Add on the fact that this is a semester's worth of material crammed into six weeks, and we have something of a situation.

It's the sort of situation that brings out my inner ID, screaming that failure is unacceptable, that any challenge will break itself against my will, that I'm flawless. Etc, etc. Unfortunately, when all is said and done, my inner three year old won't get much of a say. It'll be up to me to find a way to pass the course (and hopefully do well in it... passing with a C is broadly the same as failing, for my purposes. Even a B is borderline).

The class itself starts two weeks from today. I'm going to more or less just rest for this first week, and I might try to do some more reviewing the second. Once it does starts, I'll have to live, love, eat, and breath math for a month and a half if this is going to have any chance of working. If it does work, somehow, it'll be the biggest confidence builder I could ever come up with... so let's see what can be done.

'Twas The Night Before...

With under twenty-four hours to go before my placement test, I'm a bit nervous. I'm not entirely sure what my plan b is should this not work out, although I have a few possibilities running around in the back of my head.

I'm done studying though.

Back in college I used to laugh at the people who brought their study notes to their exams, trying to look everything over at the last minute. My laughter there, and lack of last-minute studying, was broadly fueled by confidence that I'd do well. That confidence isn't here this time, although the underlying rationale is still pretty much the same.

• I've spent lots of time looking over my pre-cal materials.
• Spending another few hours probably won't let me remember the things I don't as of now.
• Spending another few hours realizing what I /don't/ remember probably /will/ make me more nervous, which won't help, and might hurt.

So that's that. If I know it now, I'll know it on the test. If I don't know it now, I'll have a 20% shot at guessing correctly.

I have a pretty good idea of where I stand. If the test were designed as a final exam, going out of it's way to make questions tricky and bring up relatively minor details, I'd do poorly. If it were designed to simply gauge my understanding of things at a broad level, I'd do just fine. I suspect this test will be somewhere in between the two though, and I can't predict my performance.

I do know that I'll be glad when this is over, and I can start figuring out my "next steps".

A Date Is Set

Among other interesting, and not entirely pleasant, things that have happened to me lately, I've now set an official date for the placement test. I'll be taking it Monday June 15th at 10:00 AM. Calculators are forbidden, which saves me some money, but takes away an easy way of checking my answers. The test itself is a 40 minute affair, in which I have to answer 30 multiple choice questions. They span the range of pre-cal material, and none seem to be all /that/ involved. They're more like broad memory checks of some basic principles and formulae.

I have to say, at this point, I'm quite anxious to just take the test and be done with it. I've been sitting around getting ready for it, worrying about it, and staring at walls for months and months now: it's time to move on.

Hopefully it will go well (enough) and things will go on as planned.

In other news I think I had a seizure again. I say "think" because I have no memory whatsoever (which is probably a decent enough sign on its own) other than waking up with my right shoulder dislocated again, and several little cuts on my left hand. And some bruises. And really aching muscles. ... in short, not fun.

It was neat though, in a way, to go to Georgetown Hospital for this, since I knew some of the people over in the ER. It was around 4AM too, and pretty empty, so I got to talk to people a bit about their jobs. As much as it sucks, I'd sort of been anticipating this moment since I started working there.

Unlike the other hospitals, Georgetown gave me some real painkillers after this. They're helping out a bit, and certainly not unpleasant. I talked to a doctor about surgery, and he said it would probably be overly risky, since a seizure within six months or so would tear apart everything they did in my shoulder. I'm going to give physical therapy a shot this time, although I'm skeptical about that at best. I'm about to go on a doctor binge, between all this, the physical therapists, another visit to a neurologist, a visit to a general practitioner, and the regular tooth cleaning visit to my dentist. What fun.

Anyways, I'm off to get ready for my placement test. That's what I really need to be worrying about now.

Placement Test Panic

As the time for my placement test draws closer (no official deadline, but I've got to do it sometime very soon now), I've started to panic again. It's a bit odd, since I've never been a habitual worrier over tests. I suppose it's a mixture of a: not having taken any tests in a long time now, b: being a fairly important test in progressing my personal plans, and c: me having not done particularly well on my last tests in law school.

Panic is bad.

The worst part is that it stops me from studying. I pick up my books, my heart starts jumping around, and I can't focus to save my life. I imagine that'd be equally bad on the actual test. It's also a state of mind that feeds itself. The more you panic, the more you think about what can go wrong and what's at stake (Not even objectively... what's at stake is big, but it's not life-ending if I can't place. I could probably take gen chem first, and try to place into calculus this fall instead). The more you think about these things though, the more you panic.

I finally managed to beat back the panic late today, and went back to some trig stuff that had been totally baffling me in the morning. I didn't get it 100% the second time round, but I got most of it. It's just a state of mind I have to affirmatively avoid if I want to have a shot at doing this.

My pool opened now, which gives me a decent (and pleasant) study space away from most of my distractions as long as the weather holds. I'll be spending a lot of time there in the next few days, and trying to make every hour count.

Birds!

I've been back to my job for awhile now. It's getting more fun, now that I understand what to do and am starting to understand who's who. It's much easier even when you only recognize one or two nurses by name, and it feels a lot better when you're actually able to help people get the things they need.

The "Swine Flu" has been a big thing around here. Lots of people have come in, concerned they have it, and there's a whole process for getting them masks and in respiratory isolation. I don't know if/how many of them actually had it... probably not all that many, fortunately, but it's still exciting. If something serious ever did come around, the ER would be where everything got done. It's a bit scary, but pretty exciting too. I'd like to be a part of it.

People who think they have Swine Flu have stopped coming in as much, but something else came in today - a bird. People were chasing him around the ER to try and get him back outside (or out of the ER, at the very least). Once the bird got into the waiting room, some patients got upset. It had been a crowded day, and we'd been telling them how all the medical staff was busy (which was true). It's hard to explain how all the medical staff is busy when it 1/5 of them seem to be out in the waiting room trying to hunt a bird though. (The bird was safely taken outside eventually, after we trapped it in a towel.)

Speaking of the waiting room, it got a fantastic (and overdue, imo) renovation. The ER is still in the progress of getting renovated. I'm definitely more proud to be around there now; it's amazing what a few small changes can do.

My math studying is still in progress. It's slowed down some - not because I've been working less: I've been working much more, in fact - but because it's starting to be "real" math, instead of the other stuff that was much easier to review. Some of it I still have a few problems with, but some of it is kind of neat. I've been working with logarithms and natural logs lately, and remember that they used to give me trouble back in high school. Those things make perfect sense now, though, which is kind of cool.

I said I'd take the placement test in May, but I might try and push it off even a bit more. Hopefully I'll do well (enough) on it. What happens after that... we'll see.

An Uneventful Month

I thought I'd post since I haven't said anything in awhile, but life's been fairly uneventful. I'm still studying math for my placement test and am a bit behind where I'd like to be, but I'm making fairly good progress. I'll have to pick up the intensity of that a bit, but I'm confident I'll be ready.

I've taken some time off from working at the hospital for jury duty, and should get back to working there towards the end of this week.

No news is good news, I suppose, as long as things keep going well.

The C3

As I expected, the Critical Care Center (ER) wasn't like the neurology office at all.

Most pointedly, I felt like a total fifth wheel. That'll probably ameliorate itself somewhat as I get to know the place/people a bit better, but I don't think it's going to change too much. In the neurology office I can put myself to good use working on real office projects that - while not strikingly important - have to get done. Here I don't do much at all.

Talking to visitors is one thing I should be doing. Unfortunately for me, asking strangers how I can help them when I only sort of know the place is something I'm very bad at. My key card doesn't open the ER door either. It's not a big deal for me, since I can get back there another way, but when visitors come in and ask to get through.... I can only point them to the desk or security guard right next to me. Or nearest nurse, depending on who is busy.

Basically, this will /not/ be the fun half of my volunteering work.

There was some really neat stuff though. It's quite an experience to be able to go back in the ER, and see how everything works. It's a bit overwhelming at first. It's really busy, even when it's not. Everything is charted down, and the hospital gets to take care of issues ranging from the common cold to serious psychological disorders to airborne infectious strains of disease that are highly contagious and don't respond to drugs.

Seeing patients go through the steps of registration/tech work/triage/etc is neat as well. And it's amazing how many different types of patients come in. I can't talk about any of them because of privacy issues, but the ER is a neat little microcosm of the world. Some patients are belligerent.... some complain. Apparently the less serious someones problem, the more likely they are to complain.

So it is good for me to be here.

First Day On The Job

Yesterday was my first day at the hospital, working in the office of neurosurgery. All in all it was fairly regular stuff - the type of bureaucratic filing, sorting, and creating - I've done in internships with NOAA and other groups, but with a medical spin. I don't mind that. In fact, I fairly enjoyed it. I'm good with getting that sort of work done fast and well, even if it's not particularly involved. I was scared I'd be stuck answering phones instead, which would not have been as good for me.

Tomorrow is my second day, but it's going to be with another department. I'll be working in the ER, and I suspect my duties there will be pretty different. It's also a different time shift - I work evening in the ER, which I think is kind of neat. I've never been much of a morning person anyways, so it suits me perfectly.

Orientation

Today was orientation for my volunteer job with the hospital. Nothing terribly exciting happened - we went over HIPAA, JCAHO, EMTALA, and a few other alphabet soupy things. There was also an overview of which building is where (the Georgetown Hospital is really a bit of a maze in parts), and we learned all the other basic stuff one needs to know (how to sign in/out, etc).

I'm going to be working two days a week, and my time is getting split between the office of neurosurgery and the emergency room. In both places I expect I'll just be doing lots of clerical work, and customer service stuff. Guess I'd better practice keeping up a charming smile while frustrated injured people yell at me.

It's funny actually, because I relate entirely. A few months ago I had to visit the hospital down at Emory when I dislocated my shoulder. The lady in the waiting room gave me a pile of forms to fill out when i couldn't even bend my arm in the proper angle to write.

My studying for the placement test is progressing... a bit. I'm still not moving along at an on par speed for that though. I'm hoping that that will get better as I'm forced into a more normal 9-5 schedule with this job. Hope really won't cut it though - I've got to /make/ it get better. I intend to.

On Placement Tests

I got some good news last week, and found out that I'd be able to take the placement test at some point after registering for the course, provided I pass before the course begins. Sadly, I immediately became irresponsible and spent the week in celebration (aka: not working).

That's bad, and needs to stop. I'll make a conscious effort to get back to studying for my test now, so I don't find myself in a similar "one month all or nothing" situation. If that happened, it would be really inexcusable.

If I can get myself in line though, I've got a bit over two months remaining to do what I thought had to be done in a bit under one. So things are working out to that extent.

The bad news is that my old computer finally died. It had been struggling for some time with broken drives, and those other computer errors that creep up with time and are fairly inexplicable. The last straw came when I tried to upgrade my video drivers. That crashed the system, and caused all my icons to vanish. Instead of spending the 50-100 dollars to fix that (plus the 150 dollars for a new dvd drive, plus 100 dollars or so for extra memory), I just decided to pay up for a new pc.

So far the new pc seems nice enough: I'll have a better idea later. I got in on sale at Best Buy (seriously... who buys their pc's in stores anymore?) and think I got a fairly decent price. I did skimp on lots of stuff I /should/ have though. I don't have Microsoft Office, and I'm sure that will come back to haunt me in the near future. I don't have the extended warranty either...

And I've lost some files I'd rather not have. Let that be a good lesson in backing things up, to anyone reading this. I lost my resume, my honors thesis and other undergraduate work, a few pictures, and either part or all of my MP3 collection (depending on if I can transfer back the things that were on my iPod). Not particularly pleasant.

The Calculus

As I started organizing a study plan for Calculus I got pretty excited - the book I have splits it up into 76 little lessons, and as it turned out there were 75 weekdays between this coming Monday and the start of my course. One lesson a day: perfect, right? Well... kind of. It should have been, at least.

Apparently, I have to take the placement test to take the class. I have no real objection to that on its own - but it seems likely I'll have to take it before registration (March 30th I think), rather than simply before the course begins.

That's completely ridiculous.

A placement test now isn't going to give any accurate measure of where I could be, should be, or would be with 4 months of reviewing as I had planned.

I can't really dwell on that though, because there's nothing that can be done to fix it. So now instead of a lesson a day Monday through Friday, I'll be trying to get ~4 or 5 done, every day of the week. With luck, I can do enough to pass the placement test. That's still not good though, because cramming for things like this won't help me remember it for when I really need it - the course itself - which won't start for months after I have to take this test. As I said, ridiculous.

It needs doing though, otherwise there's no good alternative. I could take the precalculus class in the first summer session, but that would be a waste of ~3000 dollars. I'd rather not. Or I could not start courses until the regular academic year, but then I'd loose the advantage of being able to use this class to determine whether I should start down the path towards medical school or towards nursing.

Off to start cramming then.

Course Registration

In the spirit of starting March off right, I went to American University today to learn how/when to apply as a non-degree student. I picked up all the forms I need, and some notebooks and such at the bookstore as well. It was too late to fill out the forms on the spot, but I went home and took care of that. Later this week - preferably tomorrow - I'll go back to AU to turn things in and keep this process moving.

The actual registration won't start until April I believe, and it won't start for a bit longer for me since I'm not a real student. Since I have to clear a bunch of forms and bureaucrat-types first though, starting now is probably a good idea.

Volunteerism

Apart from a few pieces of broken furniture and other loose ends, my apartment is all set up now. This clears the way for me to start focusing on other things.

As far as my job at the hospital goes, I took and passed the first TB test last week, and am having the second test today. With any luck this test should clear too, and I'll have my orientation/begin work in early/mid March.

The second thing I need to get on/back to is working on my Precalculus. I'm not actually behind schedule on this, since the Calculus summer course I plan on taking is offered only in the second session, but it's important that I stay on pace.

I've been a bit off-track the last week, enjoying my new desk and tv. I suppose it's fair enough to allow myself a week or two for that though, after all the moving. I plan to keep taking it easy for the last four days in February, and I'll get working on the math much more seriously as soon as March begins. Once March begins, I'll also start thinking about ways to find a doctor I can shadow.

That's more of a long term search, and I don't need to find someone this year: in fact, I shouldn't bother finding someone until I've taken the Calculus course. If I do badly in it and go for nursing school rather than medical school, I wouldn't want to be shadowing an M.D. in the first place. It could be a difficult search though, so I should start working on it by and by.

And We're Back!

Moving... not so fun.

The movers themselves made great time, which I thought was fantastic, until I realized that most everything had been broken or damaged. Most of the things are still usable, and just have little chips, so it's not a complete disaster. It's just really annoying. I lost the box with all my computer wires and speakers too... I don't /think/ it was stolen, because that stuff is worth just about nothing. And there were much better boxes a thief could have pilfered. Go figure.

Setting up the new place with utilities has taken longer than I wanted as well. Today I'm finally back up with cable/internet/phones though. I'm typing this from my floor instead of a desk, but lets ignore that; the desk should be good to go soon. The place itself is really nice, although the wall along the hallway doesn't seem to block sound all that well (which, given my sporadic evenings of "let's sing along to loud music" is probably worse for my neighbors than for me... I'll do my best to be nice though.)

Apart from the move annoying me to no end, things have been going well. I'm waking up at 8:00/9:00 without an alarm everyday now, my insomnia has vanished, I'm getting out and running, and I have time to cook (which means I get to eat healthier food as well). I've been going to a theology/chatechetical course at a nearby greek orthodox church for fun, and unless I fail my TB test (.... which had better not happen...) I'm going to be set with my volunteer job at Georgetown University Hospital.

Well, I have lots of stuff to take care of, but I'm here again. I'll get back to updating this on a reasonably regular basis.

Moving Out

After all this time, I finally get to say goodbye to Atlanta. I'm getting my internet/phone/cable cut off tomorrow, and leaving the day after. I don't know how long it will take the movers to get to my new home, or how long it will take to set up my internet there, so this might be my last post here for a few weeks.

It's exciting to get out of here, and carry on with my project. That's been tempered a bit due to some personal stuff that's left me feeling really down the last week or so, but I'm not going to get into that here. Suffice it to say that there's never been a better time for me to have a clean break and a fresh start, if such things are really possible.

Once I manage to get my new apartment set up, I'm thinking of changing the way posts are set up on this blog to something more point by point. I don't know exactly what, but it'd probably involve lists. Especially lists of goals, so we can tune in regularly to see how well (one hopes) I'm progressing. A goal I haven't met yet has been waking up earlier... I'll give that a try again after the move.

Anyways: all my other belongings are boxed up, and it's time for my pc to join them. I'll see you guys in DC.

A Lull

It's been over a month since I made my choice to head out of law school, and enjoyed all the excitement that came with that. It will be over a month before I'm able to start real work towards my goal now (volunteering in a hospital, shadowing a neurologist... what have you), and it will be even longer before I'm able to start taking the courses I need (registration for the summer session isn't even open for another few months). As far keeping busy setting up my move goes, that's all pretty much finished now as well, apart from the actual work of packing things into boxes.

So the excitement seems to have slowly faded, being replaced piece-wise with the reality.

It's scary, because the more I look at 4% acceptance rates, the more I realize what a tiny tiny number that is.

On the upside, my cold has finally completely left me so I've managed to start running again. Exercise will be a good way to kill some spare time - certainly a more healthy way to spend it than to worry about events that are several months off and, for now, outside my control. I'm also going to start getting myself up earlier. There's something that feels unhealthy about sleeping in past noon on a regular basis, and I'd like to put an end to it. I'll start just with 11:00 am. That leaves plenty of time to sleep, but gets through that mental issue of waking up in the pm. I'll push it back earlier later, but this should be a good start.

Christmas - Part 2

Well, it's a bit after tomorrow. Like I said though, I'm busy :(.

I also talked to some medical school admissions people over my break, and they said that while going to a community college to finish my requirements is probably a bad idea - there's really no big difference between any "normal" accredited school. That gives me a little bit of choice in where to go, at least. They also strongly suggested that I find a doctor I can shadow. Apparently this is getting harder to do because of random malpractice issues, but it should still be possible "if I'm willing to be hung up on a lot". Along with that, I want to get a volunteer job at a hospital.

Some hospitals will let me pick the area I want to be in, and it would be great if I could work in neurology. It would be even better if I could find a doctor in neurology to shadow (and volunteering around them is a good way to meet them). Ideally, I want to get lots of neurology work going on because I want to make that the focus of my application and (probably) career. I dropped by the law school and found some people who are willing to give me letters of recommendation for this, which was quite nice of them (mental note: I need to send them the forms for that like... tonight.)

As far my impending move is concerned, things are going well. I haven't picked a company yet, but have been getting all sorts of estimates. I've started canceling my utilities and will probably start boxing up some of my books and clothing this weekend. It'll take the movers ~1 week to get the boxes to my new apartment, but I really want to see if I can start living there right away, even if I have to sleep on the floor with a little blanket or something. I love my parents, but being with them for two weeks over Christmas almost drove me crazy. I'd rather love them from a healthy distance.

Christmas - Part 1

Just got back to Atlanta from my break up in DC. I learned a few things, made a few decisions, got a few presents, and had a pretty fun time until I got sick in the last week. But such things happen.

The big decision I came to is that I'll try to go to medical school for an actual M.D. I think I'd enjoy it more than nursing. Doctors have much more responsibility and make the critical decisions in patient care - they also get to do the diagnosing, which is a big part of medicine's draw for me. There's also extra research opportunities I might be able to get as a professional. This is a bit tricky though, since most medical schools have an admissions rate of about 5% (excluding in-state student admissions at state schools, which can get much higher). A bit over 50% of medical school applicants fail to get into any medical school at all each year. So.... excitement.

Also, I don't have any of my science or math courses from college that I'd need to apply. The good news is that these courses are much more standardized prereqs than the courses I'd need for nursing school. I'll have to take Calculus, Gen. Chem, Organic Chem, Biology, and Physics. A very small amount of medical schools will want Bio Chem as well. The bad news is that I'll /need/ A's to be competitive, and that these courses will take me twice as long to finish as the prerequisites for nursing (they're year-long courses, so I'll have to split this into two years).

I'll start by taking a course in Calculus this Summer. I was never good at math, so if I can take this course in a condensed summer session of 6-7 weeks and still manage an A - the odds are decent that I can handle the rest. If I do terribly, I can go right back to working on nursing. No big loss other than one summer. I think it's a worthwhile risk. (The /real/ risk though is that I do my two years of prereqs, and still don't get accepted... then I'm in a really bad position). But still. If I'm going to be dumb and quit law to shoot for a career I really want, I might as well go all the way.

So I have lots of work to do.

First, I need to more or less relearn precalculus/algebra/trig. I haven't done any math in over six years and while I vaguely remember having gone over these classes, I don't remember how to do any of it. I bought a sort of teach-yourself-precalculus book as a self-gift for Christmas. I've got roughly five months to manage to get all of it down perfectly, or I'll have no chance of passing calculus this summer.

I'm going to start working on this pretty much immediately. I also bought a new pair of running shoes, and hope to start using those pretty much immediately as well (once my cold goes away, at least). A future doctor has to keep in shape, right? I also have to find a moving company, start packing up all my stuff, cancel my utilities in Atlanta, and get my address changed for the companies I'll want to keep forwarding me mail. I'm going to be super busy. More ramblings from my vacation to come tomorrow.