Terrorism?

Big extended family dinner tonight in early celebration of mother's day, and inevitably school and post-school related stuff came up in conversation. Not a particularly pleasant topic for me. (Not that my family they aren't encouraging, loving people, it's because they are so awesome that I feel a lot of pressure to make them proud.) Was in a state of self-loathing after dinner for a while so I instant messaged my friend, Ivana, for a pity party. But she wouldn't have any of that, and snapped me out my wallowing.

me: I dont want to go to school anymore

me: imma just get married

Ivana: WAHAAAT

unless you can find a guy like that dude with eunjung

you're going to school with me

me:....ivana, im just done with school. Imma just be a homemaker

Ivana:lol yeah right

feminist wonderwoman like you

would be so pent up at home

you'd terrorize your husband

so for the safety and peace of the world

you should stay in school and in the workforce

Haha, so "no" on terrorism, I guess.

last month

Why April was pretty good:

1. New favorite drapey shirt from Forever 21.
   
2. Donated blood for the second time ever, didn't feel terribly hung-over the next day like last time. Yay for proper post-donation hydration.
3. Chance to rock a pencil skirt for my research presentation. Shirt also from F21*.
4. Presentation went very well. I was the most nervous out of my group, but we got such great feedback from the audience, which was comprised mostly of doctors and health professionals. Also, I think my clinic's director finally knows my name, cause she told me she enjoyed my part of the presentation more than once. And she said this to me only. Eek.
5. "Keep working on those eye exams" said Dr. M, one the clinic's regular preceptor, after clinic one day. The first time we met, back in 2010, I had asked if I could sit in on him with a retinopathic patient (I was pretty interested in opthamology at the time). Not only was he totally fine with it, he even let me hold a fundoscope to peer into the patient's pupils. I can see the inside of their eye, it was friggin' awesome. Fast forward to now, and he still remembers me (and there's like 50-something student volunteers). Dr. M is way cool.
6. Catching up over froyo. My friend shared the great news with me that she got hired at this summer internship she wanted - in Alaska. How cool is that? And the following week, I shared the news with her that I got hired as a science reporter for my university's newspaper.

So yeah, the end of April was good (the beginning, not so much).

*A Forever 21 opened around the corner from where I live. No joke, it's a two-minute walk away. It's a good stress reliever after midterms, but the traffic around my block is crazy now.

This Thing All Things Devours: Birds, Beasts, Trees, Flowers...

Cortisol. I can feel it concentrating in my brain. I don't know how not to keep producing it. This next two weeks does not look like fun.

I was in clinic today from 9-5 to sort through old charts and, as a separate task, collect FOBT data for an abstract we will be using in a presentation next weekend at a cancer symposium. And I have to be at clinic tomorrow at 8-3, and then stay after to analyze that data. I already spent 2 hours tonight with pivot tables, charts and filters to figure out how the hell we were going present some our more meager findings.

I also have my first assignment as a reporter due next Monday and I need to get the bulk of the research/interviews done by this Wednesday. (more on this later)

I have my first midterm Wednesday and two more in the following week.

Shoot, I just remembered I have a meeting with someone on the other side of town this Wednesday too.

And I have school/clinic related stuff for the next three weekends -not short, little meetings but long, time-consuming events.

Also, I am way behind on my online class.

But hey, got my bike tuned up today. Got laughed at by the mechanic cause I'm not supposed to change gears when I'm not pedaling (nobody has ever bothered to inform me of this). I guess not having to take the bus anymore will probably save me some time, which I so desperately need more of this week. Damn.

A Little Birdie Told Me

Tomorrow is the first day of classes for spring. A few resolutions/wishes for this quarter:

1. Explore new places to study. Like the above location. It's the arboretum that surrounds one side of my college campus and it's a pretty popular place to study for law students (more incentive to go). Currently, my only experience with this location was a birthday picnic for my ex. But, I digress.
2. Stick to a study schedule. Heh, we'll see how this will turn out.
3. Continue going to office hours that have a large attendance. I find it really beneficial (and motivational) to feed off other people's questions and observations. One-on-one meetings with the prof. serve a whole different purpose.
4. Get more involved. I ambiguously toned that on purpose. What I hope is to find something that I will thoroughly enjoy, instead of mindlessly collecting extracurriculars.
5. Continue being open minded. I know that not everything is going to work for me, but I only know this from trying them out. I would have never guessed that salsa classes would be so 'meh' for me. But I haven't given up on finding my outlet for dancing.
6. Pack my own lunch (and breakfast and dinner) more often. I've given too much money to my university already, don't need to keep contributing by buying their overpriced food.
   

Anyways, something I bought yesterday: 3 gold bangles + one silver birdie from etsy seller allison mooney. I've been meaning to buy some bangles. I've always like the little twinkling sounds they make as they move about on your wrist.

Quarter End Review

Another quarter has passed and a new one is about to begin in 3 days. I've learned more than I expected this quarter. Fell in love with physiology and more in love with gender studies (unfortunately fell out of love with chemistry).

This quarter's grades: 2 A's ...and a chem.

Lessons learned from this quarter (A lot of these are pretty "duh" but I needed to experience it for myself.):

• Don't be afraid to dispute exam/hw questions with professors. There's nothing to lose if I have the goods to back it up.
• Textbook only helps if there's something I am grossly confused about (or is specifically required). Otherwise, don't bother with it.
• All nighters don't really work for finals. I just end up all panicky and anxious. So... stop doing this.
• Office hours are a nice place to meet cute, smart boys.

Next quarter's classes, all upper division again:

• Excercise Metabolism
• Introduction to Nutrition and Metabolism (an online class!)
• Motor Learning and Sport Psychology
• Gender and Sexuality (anthro approach)
  
  

I'm pretty stoked to have classes that might have overlapping material (the two metabolism classes). I enjoy having the opportunity to integrate similar material from different sources. And I never thought I would be taking an upper div science course online, I wonder how this is going to work. I'm kind of liking the idea of getting to stay home, away from the spring rain, with a nice cup of team, sitting in on online office hour chats. Also excited to take another class with my women's studies professor from last quarter. She has renewed my faith in my ability to write in-class essays.

I know all this positivity and optimism is gonna be gone by the 3rd week of school so I'm going to bathe in it while I can. Yay school.

Tan Tan Men

Met up with a friend for lunch. We went to eat ramen at this little japanese place downtown. I have never ate ramen outside of home before. It was raining but people were still waiting outside for a seat so the place must have been good. And it was. I had a small bowl of Tan Tan Men and a side of chirashi. After our meal, she had to pick up her brother from work but since we were early we killed some time by getting froyo.

I always add gummies to my yogurt because I can't say no to candy.

The froyo places back home are so different from the ones at school. I guess since the demand is lower here, the quality is lower as well. The fruit pieces were huge in comparison to the ones in Davis, like 5x bigger. It just doesn't feel the same plopping one-two large chunks of fruit into your cup instead of that the nice toppling spoonful of bite-size pieces. My guess is that the owner is trying to make her customers add on as much ounces that they can to their cup. A lot less fresh and a smaller selection of toppings too. It was also 43 cent per ounce here versus Davis's 34-38 cents. Expensive.

Cardigan: From China Shirt: Plain white tee, F21 Pants: Mossimo/Target Scarf: Claire's

Lucky Chambray Dress

Did some shopping over my spring break back home. Haven't shopped for clothes since winter vacation. I saw this embroidered chambray dress (below) at Lucky Brand during the Christmas season and totally loved it on the mannequin but for the full price of $119, I passed. Fast forward 3 months and it's on sale for $30. Yay.

From site.

With a skinny belt.

With a bejewelled leather belt.

Also found some nice pieces at Banana Republic (below). The sale rack was stuffed with clothes. I was chatting with a friend from SF and she got some good deals as well. Also found out that BR offered 15% off discount to students off their full priced items. Neat.

Shirt: Banana Republic $13 Jeans: Banana Republic $17

Finals Week Entropy

1:00 pm

1:00 am

Notice the post-its migrating up my wall.

Eggs in the morning

Suffering for vanity. Burnt my forehead this morning with the curling iron. My roommate can hear me scream from the living room. My first curling iron burn, I tried to remember what my mom told me to do to put on burns. Egg white. I called her just to make sure. After scolding me for being clumsy, she confirmed that egg white was best, no cold water (oops). Immediately put the egg white to prevent air bubbles and scarring. Funny, cause on the episode of Doc Martin I watched last night, when a cook accidentally stuck her hand in boiling oil, he asked for cellophane to wrap around the burn to prevent air bubbles. Both serve as a film to prevent air from entering, but egg white has the added benefit of scar prevention (couldn't find any scientific backing, but whatever my mom still knows everything).

Histamine

What a glorious day. Why? Well I have been dreading getting my paper back for my Arab gender class since the day that I turned it. I felt that I completely missed the mark on this one, focusing too much on analyzing each individual movie and not enough on the patterns. I honestly have no idea how I wrote 12 pages when the minimum was 8, and still feel that I didn't hit all the points I wanted to. But I literally worked up to the last minute I could for the paper (because I didn't sleep at all) and there was no going back. It was the longest paper I ever wrote; with the bibliography and 5 movie reviews we had to include, I could barely fit it into my report holder.

Anyways, fast forward 2 weeks to the last day of class, the Professor started calling out names, some warranted a "Nice job" others - "good work'. I didn't hear my name called the first time, cause I was grouching my head down low in nervous angst. On the second "A-va!", I mustered out a meeble "here!" and she excitedly said "Terrific job!" with one of her big smiles. I looked down at my paper in disbelief. An "A"? My hands shook at the thumbed through my paper, thinking that they made a mistake. But nope, just a "nice work" comment from my T.A.. I texted my roommate my news and my disbelief to which she replied, "I TOLD YOU SO". This paper has singularly teared down and rebuilt my confidence. I don't know what more to say but "game on" for the final.

After class, I checked my e-mail and saw that there was an announcement from my physiology professor. My complaint about a incorrectly written question did not fall on deaf ears and two answers for that question would be accepted. Again, yes I do feel vindication. How can I mark a statement that stated Histamine stimulated the release of both HCL and pepsinogen as true when I was taught that only the former substance is released? When I brought this up in the class's chatroom a few students agreed and followed my suggestion to email the professor. I made sure to include two printscreens of his lecture/book that showed that histamine only stimulated parietal cells and not chief cells.

Hmm, I hope I don't come off as a petulant child to my professors. I just want all the points that I deserve.

And finally after all my classes, I went with some friends to the dining commons for Harry Potter night. It was so cute to see all that freshmen, even saw a few parents. The food wasn't as great as I remembered it to be, but definitely felt some nostalgia. All in all, an awesome day.

"Lost"

What up with some guys being super creepy when they drink?

My friend called me last week to ask about this guy I am friends/used to work with. They were at a party together that I couldn't make it to, and she told me he kind of hung around her all night. And he offered to drive her home since they lived in the same area. Halfway of the ride back, he said he was "lost" and suddenly stopped his car in some dark, deserted street (BS, since I've seen him use his smartphone GPS in the car before).

After a few moments of acting lost, he attacked her mouth. Now, she did give in to a little making out with the guy but stopped him from going further (even with his continued attempts). When he finally got her home, he was trying really hard to get her to let him stay since she had said earlier in the car ride that no one was home. No need to guess what he wanted. But she was able to fend him off.

Well the first thing my friend asked me whens she called was, "Does he have a girlfriend?" (and this was before she told me about the whole story). And I answered in the affirmative, and I definitely heard her voice drop as she said: "Oooh."

After her story, she lamented: I just feel so... so..
Me: Cheated?
Friend: No, not really cheated, since I don't really know him.
Me: Hmmm. Used?
Friend: Yes! Used. He kept asking to go to my apartment (instead of his) so I knew
something was fishy.

Yeah, I didn't think that any of my guy friends could be this...icky. I let him hug me last week! He's very clean cut and Abercrombie-fied (maybe that should have been a warning). Not what I expected. That whole "lost" trick? I wonder how many times he has used that on a girl. I feel really bad for my other friend, the host of the party, cause he's kind of in love with my friend. And works/is friends with that guy. Sad.

On Principle

So I got back a problem set from chem today and I saw that I was docked a point (out of 20). Now I normally don't go arguing with TAs or Professors over points because it's a little degrading and pre-health students get a bad rep for point-mongering anyway. But the reason I got deducted was because I had used significant figures instead of keeping a few numbers past the decimal place. Now this professor has never established any rule on sig figs until a student in class had asked him about it right before our first midterm (after we had turned in our problem sets), to which he responded: "Just put a reasonable number, don't round up too much." Ummm, okay, that's not ambiguous at all.

So I brought up my 1 point with the TA and he looked at it and went "hmmm, thats a good point, ask the professor." So I did. And at first, he was like "however the TAs grade should be fair" and asked what the TA had said. So I told him and I tried to explain myself better.

Professor: So you want one point? That will make you happy?
Me: Well...yeah. But I'm doing it on principle, cause I only made sure to account for significant figures based on the information you gave, I was just being safe.
Professor: *looks more carefully at paper* But even if you did do sig. figures, it should be two numbers.
Me: No, the lowest number you have is 0.04 moles.
Professors: OHH, I see what you did. okay. okay. Alright, I agree with you.
Me: *muhahaha in head*

Yes, I do feel vindicated.

The Last Shell

I am trying to study Physical Chemistry but I seem to have no motivation to learn about the molecular orbit theory and the valence bond theory. I hope I'm not the only person who keep forgetting these theories every time they learn it. I know that it's been covered at least 4 times during my schooling: 8th grade science, 10th grade Honors Chem, Freshmen Gen. Chem, and Organic Chem. Oh well.

In other news, my new netbook is set to arrive tomorrow.



Nothing fancy, just a tentative replacement for my dying laptop. Got it for $200 over president's day weekend. Supposed to have a scratch free surface and a waterproof keyboard though I'm pretty sure mine doesn't have a touchscreen like the one shown above.

Call-back!

Well more like an interview-back for the research position. I recieved a confirmation email that they recieved my application on Thursday, and it said that they would contact me the next day to inform me if I earned an interview. So I was checking my email and phone all day Friday. My housemate said that Friday is too early, it'll probably take a week to get back to me, but I still went to sleep a little bummed. But hurrah, I got an interview. They gave me like 50 different time slots to choose from, so they probalbly gave everyone an interview who applied but whatever, I'm happy.

Currently watching: Doc Martin (netflix recommended)

Softness All Around

Went to see my Arab gender professor yesterday evening to discuss my paper. I feel better about my topic and thesis now. Instead of trying to find a pattern among media depictions of Arabs, I am trying to find a "disruption" (as she puts it). I didn't even realize that was what I was doing, but she seems to like it. I also discussed my midterm with her, like what I can do to improve. I explained that I worked up to the last minute and she advised to do an outline. Like actually write it out, not just having it in my head. And to also repeat key words that were used in the essay prompt. The few points that I missed were because I forgot to discuss one facet of the third question in the prompt. She was very nice and helpful, asked me at least three times how I was liking the class. I'm glad I went. She commented that she remembered my essay, and it was "one of the good ones". Her words motivate me to aim higher for the final.
-
A little gift from my brother through Kleenex's "Softness worth sharing" campaign, where they allow you to send someone a tiny pack of tissue with a note on the front of the package. I sent one to him for his allergies and morning sniffles and he sent one back to me to for toilet-paper back-up (he knows that my apartment always seems to run low).

Job Fair

Got back my Arab Gender midterm today. I was surprised by how fast my heart started to beat as the professor pulled out the large stack of blue-books from her little suitcase. When she called my name "A!-va" (I still haven't corrected her pronunciation yet), I raised my hand for her recognition and accepted my exam back. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and then opened up the front flap. A-. Whew. I was so nervous because I hadn't taken an in-class essay exam since my first quarter in university, over 2 years ago, in which I did horrible in (and thus proceeded to avoid classes with such exams). The night before the midterm I had become slightly delirious with fear and could only muster about 4 hours of sleep.

The Professor said we all did well, with majority of people earning B's and 11 with A's. She continued that some of the essays were written just beautifully, on the level of graduate students. I'm sure that the wonderful, sophisticated essays were on the Palestine/Israel essay prompt that I purposefully didn't pick, and not on the more easier mother/son relationships that I did choose. But I'm going to go ahead and happily delude myself in believing that that compliment applies to me too.

We finished watching Elia Suleiman's movie, "Divine Intervention", today.


It was bizarre. Beautiful. Bad-ass. It needs a full post.

After class, I walked over to the winter internship and career fair held quarterly in my university's pavilion. I didn't think that many students would attend because of the pouring weather but I should never underestimate ambitious college students. The majority of the attendants were dressed in 3-piece suits or pencil skirts toting around a folder of resumes - totally putting my sweater dress, black tights and empty hands to shame. To be fair, I didn't really go to the fair intending to find some prospective career, it was more out of curiosity and boredom (since class was canceled).

I was surprised to find one internship that I would consider applying to. A paid one at Pearson's textbooks. I know it's completely random of me but it seems so different and unique. The representative, Polly, was really sweet and encouraging. She said that they hired two of the last few Davis undergrads that interned there, comparing my major/minor to a Physiology major who had a linguistic minor. They only want graduating seniors, so I will definitely keep this job opportunity in the back of my mind for next summer.

A page from their little info book about their company:




How can I say no to a Roald Dahl reference?

Steady-state outbox/inbox volume

Finished my research application. It is due at noon. I should not have procrastinated but I could not muster up the motivation to write the two essays on the last page until the last minute. I let my housemate read it before I send it and she said it was "really good"-so I'm mollified.

Right after I turned it in, I saw this in my inbox:



Tempting.

Samtana

Call me a typical fan-girl but I totally loved Glee's Bieber episode. And I don't even like Justin Bieber. I haven't been too into this season but I actually sat through this whole episode. This was totally me after Sam's "Baby" performance:


Maybe I'm into Sam's renditions cause my my conscience deemed him age-appropriate to lust after, where as Justin Bieber was a definite no-go. Anyways, Team Samtana!

RLN: I typed Justine Bieber twice in this post and it was an honest mistake both times, I swear. It was very tempting to leave it like that.

Women in Medicine

The midterm yesterday went well. It was less challenging then what I expected which is good, I guess. I'm pretty sure I got a A. Office hours definitely helped reinforce the material from lecture. So I'm patting myself on the back for trekking out to his office the last two weeks.

After the midterm, around 6, I attended a Women in Medicine panel on campus. It was put on by a medical sorority so a lot of the women were alums, which is great. I met the first medical student I know who has gone straight from undergrad to medical school, no gap year. I asked her when she took her MCATS and she said April of Junior year, which is the latest you can take it if you want to get straight in. She got a 34. Yikes, I can not imagine taking that in two months, nor can I imagine doing that well. She's 25 now, in her first year of residency - family medicine, I believe. She had her first child third year in Med school. Props to her. All of the women on the panel were married, and most had children. It was pretty motivational. The take home message from the panel was not to rush, everything will fall into place. They emphasized that they know it's hard for us to to believe that now but in the end, there is no rush. Hmmm. I'm trying to let that sink in. That thought is battling with my parent's urging to figure out what I want to do and do it quickly.

Halfway through the panel, my stomach started hurting like crazy. Sigh, this is what midterms do to me: stress, indigestion, sleep deprivation and the worst: canker sores from the sleep deprivation. It's usually only one or two sores, but that's enough pain, thank you. Except for the stomach ache, the usual symptoms weren't as prevalent this time around because I managed my studying and time better.

Today was pretty low-key, nothing particularly interesting. My physiology professor is canceling class again. 3rd time this quarter. It makes me completely sad, because the reason for the cancellation is because his wife is going into surgery. I would give up all potential canceled class days for all my undergrad and grad years for his wife to be in better health. But I can only hope that the surgery goes well. Of course he remained perfectly positive and happy in office hour today.

Neato facto from our discussion:

Carbon Monoxide poisoning is a result of Hemoglobulin's high affinity for that gas (compared to oxygen), causing the amount of oxygen delivered to our tissues to be almost none (only .3ml per 100ml of blood from non-Hb bound dissolved oxygen). This doesn't get sensed by the baroreceptors in our carotid sinus or our aortic arch because blood pressure remains the same, making carbon monoxide a silent killer. Ooo, deadly.

Teach-in: Egypt

Part of an essay for my Arab Gender class:

Professor Asad AbuKhalil begins the teach-in with a provocative question that sends the auditorium into mostly silence, mingled with a few indignant murmurs: If Americans says that they identify with the Egyptians protestors, why then do they not protest like them on our American streets?
The self-titled “angry Arab” continues his criticism by exclaiming that the passiveness of the American people toward the Egyptian Revolution extends to the American government. Their mostly ambiguous stance is in actually quiet support for the dictator, Hosni Mubarak, and that such support is both political and race based. He continues that the Obama administration is in compliance with the regime, they want the dictatorship to continue as long as it can for the United State’s own personal gain. This claim sends the older white male next to me to scoff, and become restless in his school desk. Does Professor AbuKhalil speak the truth? Is our government in allegiance with this tyrant? Does our government seek to benefit in some way from keeping Mubarak? These were all questions I have never considered before attending the teach-in.

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Professor Abukhalil from the popular blog, The Angry Arab News Service
The essay is for extra credit. I'm really glad I attended the event. Was surrounded by many cultural/political erudites. A great undergrad experience. Over 300 people attended. One of the professors was actually in Tahrir Square two weeks ago. Some of the fake protestors started physically beating her after she had came out of a building she was doing an interview in but some policemen were able to grab her and hide her in one of their tanks. Amazing.

Hearts

Physiology midterm tomorrow. I feel pretty prepared but I want to look over muscle contraction again and create some concept maps for blood pressure maintenance. I'm really digging this class- the material and the professor. The office hours seem to pass by so fast. He's such a positive upbeat guy. His wife is pretty sick and sometimes he picks up calls during office hours and we overhear him giving the person on the other end an update on his wife, like all the tests that they are running on her. Today, he relayed to the caller that he wouldn't be home to feed his dogs because he needed to go to the hospital. Did I mention that the hospital is in San Francisco? He's been commuting every day after his lectures and office hour. What a guy.

Two cool factoids from our discussion:

Diuretics are prescribed to patients with high blood pressure because diuretics cause an increase in urination. More liquid out means less steady-state volume, or more specifically for the CV system, less arterial blood, which equals less arterial pressure.

The military gives people who are hemorrhaging injections of Sodium Chloride to decrease the loss of fluids. I think he said that the ions diffuses into the vascular system which produces the osmotic pressure to cause flow into the blood vessels from the interstitial fluid compartment, reducing filtration and increasing re-absorption. Neat.

Right after that discussion, I headed straight to my clinic class with my classmate. Preceptor coordinator gave an impressive presentation in all the details and planning that goes in to arranging doctors to become preceptors for the clinic. After that I stayed behind for the Susan G. Komen grant committee presentation. Most or all of the members are leaving or graduating soon and they were looking for new people to continue with the spread of breast health. It sounds like a lot of work but I think that I might apply for a position. The fact that it is paid is a plus.

After that, I walked across campus to take the bus home, there was loud music playing and hundreds of people in line for something. Seeing all the shivering college girls in their not-so-weather proof mini dresses jogged my memory that Snoop Dog was here today for a concert. Lol, I was tempted to name this blog title, Doggy Style, but decided against it. I completely forgot that today was Valentine's day, I thought it was tomorrow. I suppose it's a good thing that this midterm-induced haze has made me completely desensitized to the holiday. Oh well, cardiovascular physiology has already given its heart to me. ♥

Random last note: The Merriam Webster Dictionary site word of the day was "canoodle". Cute.