Day 21 - A picture of something that makes you happy

A lot of things make me happy. We'll start off with some good ol' ice cream, especially Coldstone ice cream.

Come on, you know that looks delicious.

My sweet daughter makes me happy, when she's not driving me nuts.

That's the center to my whole world right there.

A good book always helps.

Fantastic book. One of my favorites. Her blog and comics are hilarious too.

I love scrapbooking. It nice to be creative once in a while, and it's nice to feel like I'm good at something.

However I just don't get the time to do it as often as I'd like. So I am forever behind.

And as weird as this one sounds, school makes me happy too, stressed but happy. I've always loved school.

I have a love/hate relationship with this campus.
But truthfully, I've enjoyed my time here and I'll be sad to leave.

 Lastly, bright blue skies, sitting out in the sunshine soaking up that vitamin D is the best thing ever. (To a certain aunt: you're not allowed to grumble about this one.)

Oh, and the ocean makes me happy as well. 

Also, I made an edit to the previous day's post. I have put up another wedding photo taken from the photographer's site, courtesy of my aunt (and of course my fantastic Grandma who took the photo). So feel free to go back and look.

Day 11 - Another picture of "you and your friends" - or not.

So for Day 11 I was supposed to do a post with another picture of my friends and I. But I already told you people, I don't have friends, the loosely defined "friends" I have I don't hang out with, and if I did I wouldn't have a picture of it. But if you do want a picture of what I spend the most time with it would be this: 

Rough skinned Newt, Taricha granulosa

Actually I spend most of my time with thousands of larvae, and most of the larvae have some sort of deformity. I study (okay, technically I'm a research assistant, but there isn't a ton of difference) these little creatures in the lab I work in.

Two headed newt larvae. So sad, yet so neat.

These newts contain high amounts of tetrodotoxin which is 10x more toxic than potassium cyanide, which makes them one of the most toxic creatures in North America. Yeah, somehow saying that makes my job sound so much cooler than it really is. If you scare them they like to show off their bright orange color. Aren't they so cute, in a deadly sort of way? 

Unken reflex = don't eat me!

Med School Application Explained

As I've been applying to med school I've been getting a lot of questions from family members, so I figured this would be the easiest way to explain to everyone. Applying to Med School is a 2 year process.

The first year is the Prehealth Evaluation Committee year. The fall of this year is the paperwork section. It is spent gathering letters of recommendations, filling out a data sheet about myself and my activities, and writing a 5 page autobiographical sketch. The complicated thing is actually getting those letter of recommendations, for each letter I had to fill out a questionnaire about myself for each person. Each questionnaire was different and several pages long. Then I interviewed for an hour or more with each of them as well, yes even though they all knew me very well. The data sheet was a little complex as well, since I had to calculate approximately how many hours I'd spent on each activity during the past 4 years. During the spring of the Committee year is spent going interviews with Committee members. These committee members than give you the go ahead to apply, or put a kabosh to it. They write a letter of evaluation to all medical schools informing them of their opinion of you. They can also opt to write a letter that says they do not recommend this individual and please don't ever admit them.

The next year is the Application Year. Typically students take the MCAT the summer/late spring before this year. This is what I did. And then they spend all of May and June in a constant state of stress filling out the AMCAS (American Medical College Application Service) application. (They might also fill out applications with a few other services as well.) The AMCAS asks everything about you. It is a painstaking and tedious process. There are sections on my childhood and demographic information like how much did my parents make on average in my childhood, and where did a grow up. One section is on course work. And I have to manually put in every class I've ever taken, the course classification and number, the class name, class type (lecture or lab), and credit hours. Since I started taking college courses in 2004, this was a lot of classes. I also had to track down transcripts from all 7 colleges I've ever taken a course from, also not fun. (I blame you Manti High.) There is an activities sections where I have to list of all my activities, their classification, hours  spent on each activity, a contact to verify the information, and write a short paragraph on the activity. The part I found the hardest is the personal statement, where they give you the very opened prompt of "Use the space provided to explain why you want to go to medical school. You have 5300 characters, or approximately one full page."

After the application is submitted that isn't the end. After AMCAS has verified everything and done a background check, the actual medical school receive your application. Then each of them send you a secondary application. Each school's is unique. After they review your secondary application, you may or may not be invited to interview at the school. Yes, this means that hopefully I will be flying all over the countryside this year. That is finally the end, and the school decides to accept or reject you.

As far as the numbers go, what most people say when judging an applicant is the GPA and MCAT scores. There are 3 parts to the GPA: the overall GPA, the science GPA (all science and math courses), and all other (anything not science). To be considered a competitive applicant all of those should be around or above 3.6, an A- average. With the MCAT there are 4 sections. 3 of the sections get a numerical score 1-15, these add up to the total MCAT score. These 3 sections are the Physical Sciences: chemistry and physics, Biological Sciences: organic chemistry, biology and human physiology, and Verbal Reasoning which tests critical thinking and reasoning. The fourth sections is a writing sample, where they give two prompts, and I had an hour to write two essays. This section is scores from J (lowest) to T (highest). Overall the highest obtainable score for the MCAT is a 45. The test scores have a bell shape distribution. The average is a 25. The average of those accepted is 32. The images show the distributions and percentile ranks. Click on the images to make them bigger.

I had told myself that I would be happy with a score that would put in X percentile. But because I couldn't just do that I'd set a goal to shoot for a score that would put me in the X+10 percentile. I got really close to that goal. No I'm not going to post my score on the internet, if you're really curious ask me.

To give you an idea of how hard this whole process is I'm going throw out a few numbers. Nationwide 82,000 people take the MCAT only 44,000 of those apply, and 22,000 get in. And that is of those who get to that point. There is no official data for this but when I started at Utah State there was several hundred pre-meds in my class, probably close to a thousand. There is 37 of us applying this year from Utah State. So less than 10% make it to even applying, and only half of those will get in. This is why I am a complete nervous wreck.

I am applying to 14 schools:
Loma Linda University - Loma Linda, CA (near LA)
University of Colorado - Denver, CO
George Washington University - Washington, DC
Emory University - Atlanta, GA
Tulane University - New Orleans, LA
Boston University - Boston, MA
Albany Medical College - Albany, NY
Drexel University - Philadelphia, PA
Thomas Jefferson University - Philadelphia, PA
Commonwealth Medical College - Scranton, PA
Medical University of South Carolina - Charleston, SC
Meharry Medical College - Nashville, TN
Vanderbilt University - Nashville, TN
West Virginia University - Morgantown, WV

And I think that covers everything.

Ice Cream is Taking Over the World!!!

Many people complain about how the candy companies have taken over the holidays like Halloween and Easter. I'm here to let you know about an even more subtle and insidious conspiracy. The ice cream companies have taken over an entire season, Springtime, especially the end of Springtime. They do not advertise their take over and so have avoided detection while spreading their plot to world domination. (They may or may not have teamed up with magazines like Shape, who have also taken over a season: Summer, a.k.a Bikini Season.) To illustrate my point and to expose their evil conspiracy I give you these examples:

Situation: It's the end of the semester and you are stressed about finals, the horrible tests that can determine your grade.
Solution: Ice Cream

Situation: You said up way to late studying for finals and you need a pick up to get you going.
Solution: Ice Cream

Situation: You wound up failing your finals despite all your studying.
Solution: Ice Cream

Situation: You completely rocked your finals and want to celebrate.
Solution: Ice Cream

Situation: It's the end of the semester, and you have to go through all the hassle of moving.
Solution: Ice Cream

Situation: All your friends are graduating, and you are going to miss them as they move away.
Solution: Ice Cream

Situation: You are graduating and you are so excited to be done with school. But you are also terrified of having to actually go out, find a job,  enter the real world, and in general figure out the rest of your life.
Solution: Ice Cream x 2

Situation: It's the end of the semester and you're boyfriend broke up with you because he is graduating / leaving to summer job / wants to be free during the summer.
Solution: Ice Cream

Situation: It's the end of the summer, you are sick of hearing about your roommates wedding plans, and you realize that everyone is getting married in the next couple of weeks but you.
Solution: Ice Cream

Situation: You are getting married soon and you need to celebrate.
Solution: Ice Cream

Situation: Your child is graduating from high school and will soon be moving out, and you are filled with sorrow at the thought of your baby growing up and leaving the nest.
Solution: Ice Cream

Situation: You are graduating high school, leaving home and completely excited to grow up.
Solution: Ice Cream

Situation: Sumer is approaching, you actually live somewhere with sunshine and it's starting to get really hot.
Solution: Ice Cream

Situation: You live in Logan, it's the last week of April and it's snowing.
Solution: Ice Cream, and plane ticket.

Yes, I might be going through an ice cream craving right now (and stress), but that has no bearing on any of my points whatsoever.

Updates for Sariah

I was told that I needed to update my blog. So here we go.

July: We went to the Larson family reunion. It was a lot of fun. I love camping with my baby girl, even though it's very hard and takes a ton of work to keep her warm, feed and safe. Then JP and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary. No, I don't remember what we did. Shh... don't tell him that. I think we had dinner and went to a movie.

August: I went to Panama!! It was incredible and life changing. I know everyone that reads this blog is on Facebook or has someone in their house that has Facebook. So just go on Facebook at look at my pictures there, so I don't have to repost them. You can also look at pictures from Gabrielle's first birthday on there too, you know the ones I said I'd post on this blog, but didn't.

September: School started, ugh. I was president of the campus rep team (disney) and the switched us to an e-presentation school, rather than a live presentation school, bummer and stressful. I taught human dissection, difficult but so much fun. Gabrielle went to daycare, she loves it. (JP's just been working this whole time, hence why no updates on him).

October: School continued, unfortunately.

November: school just kept going on and on and on...

December: School ended! Yeah! I did decent-ish, so little yeah. We had Christmas (mostly) at our home, which I was thrilled about, I even cooked a ham.

Sometime in between July and now, Baby Girl grew up. I think I may have to stop calling her Baby Girl. So I am pondering new names to call her, Child, Girl, Daughter, The Cuteness, Princess, Jelly Belly (going back to what we called her when I was pregnant), Ellie, GL, Gill. I know, I know to quote m husband, "Heaven forbid, you call her by her name." I would continue to call her Baby Girl, but looking at her, I honestly have to admit that I don't always see a baby anymore, just a young, curious toddler.

She's also learned some super cute thing, like giving hugs, kisses and holding hands. I can't decide which one is the best. Her hugs are these full body, I'm going to throw myself at you hugs with her mouth wide open in excitement. Her kisses vary from open mouth slobber to tiny puckered pecks. Sometimes, she'll go "oooh" afterwards. And when she holds hands she tries to interlock fingers. Her vocabulary, both spoken and signing is increasing rapidly. She's also getting into EVERYTHING, and driving me nuts. A couple days ago she pushed our cooler up next to the stove, climbed up and tried to grab things off of the stove, sending me in a whirlwind of panic. She loves reading, she is constantly handing JP and I books to read to her. She's also into clothes, shoes, jewelry and make up. Like really really into them, obsessed. She picked out her own outfit the other day, and told me to put it on her. Apparently being in PJs wasn't good enough for her. I don't know where she gets it from, especially the jewelry. JP is worried that she may turn into a girly-girl, and he's seeing the $$$ mount up. Oh, and one last thing, she loves taking baths. And she's taught herself (yes, with nothing from me) how to blow bubbles, stick her face in the water, stick her ears in the water, lay back in the water, and she even semi-floats.

For me, right now I am starting the application to Med School. Which is horrendously stressful, like nothing you can imagine. Yes, it's a two year process to get into Med School (not counting the undergraduate schooling). Right now I have to go through an Evaluation Committee. So this past semester I've been stressing out of my mind, writing autobiographical sketches and data sheets, finding people to write letters of recommendations, and general stressing out. Not to mention, trying to pick the 13 schools I'll apply too (I'm down to 26) and studying for the notorious MCAT.

There you go, I've updated. 6 months in half an hour, not bad I say.

So Elder Ballard came to stake conference last Sunday, and told us that we need to be more active in blogging. Yep, for reals, so here I am. However it is getting late, so this will only be a brief catch-up post and better posts will (hopefully) come a little later. So the last time I posted was.... October. Wow.

So after October here is what happened, school got really busy and really hard and the blog dropped on the priority list. In November there was Thanksgiving, which we spent with my family. In December JP got swine flu, which was all sorts of nasty and took forever to get better from. He also decided to time this to be during finals week, so I had to do all of the parenting with zero help, during one of the most stressful weeks of school by myself, darn him. I also had to sleep on the floor of the baby's room, since JP was under quarantine, this resulted in Baby Girl and I waking each other up as we talk in our sleep. Well, our quarantine was apparently pointless anyways because the next week, thankfully after finals and after JP had been fever free for three days, I got swine flu (yes, that means the apparent latency period of 48 hrs according to Pres Obama is wrong). By the way swine flu sucks really bad, it's like the flu but worse, and even after you're "better" you still feel like crap for weeks.

Somewhere in the midst of this JP also graduated from school (however we are still waiting for that diploma, which is probably at his parent's house). Yeah, go JP, he's all growed up. All joking aside I am proud of  my husband. Then came Christmas, which we spent as his family's house. After that we went to Disney World. It was a lot of fun, but I don't think I slept the whole trip. Apparently the jet lag really screwed the poor baby up, so she slept at all the wrong times (read: the entire day, no matter how hard you tried to wake her up) and therefore was awake when she shouldn't be (the whole stinkin' night, every night).

Then the next semester of school started. JP started his new job as Event Coordinator for Campus Rec, and I think he is ridiculously lucky. First off, he loves his job, second, his office goes skiing every other week or so, and  it's called working, and he gets paid to do it. Seriously, who gets paid to go ski, unless you're an Olympian? Gabrielle had to start to go to a babysitter. Well, there's another baby there who is 2 months older than her, and this baby crawls. After a couple days of being babysat Gabrielle started getting up in crawl position. She sits there and stares at the other baby and then tries to imitate her. And the other day when I went to pick Gabrielle up, this other baby was cruising. Darn it! I don't want Gabrielle to learn that, I have no idea how to baby proof our house. And well after all these changes for the rest of the family, what did I do? I went to school, like I always have and will for the rest of my life. I am taking Organic Chemistry (which I hate with a passion), Biochemistry, and Medical Anthropology. Yes that adds up to a full time student, 12 credits right there. There you go 5 months in 15 minutes. I'll try to update again, but when the last half off the semester is here, all bets are off.

358,560 minutes

You know what I just noticed, every post has the same font except one, the one about labor and delivery. Weird, don't know how I did that, but I really don't care. It's actually kind of cool. I mean, if any post deserves to be special and a little bit different, it gets to be that one.

So today, my Baby Girl laughed for the first time, or so I'm told. I wasn't there. I was in class. It really hurt that I wasn't there for that milestone. It just like, I'm here mother and I wasn't there and I should've been. It was a little bit of a kick in the gut. It made me wonder if I was being selfish for going to school, and wanting to work. Am I going to be there enough for her? Is she going to someday resent me for never being home? How many other things in her life am I going to miss out on by not being a stay at home mom.

But the thought of just staying home makes me want to cry. I don't think I have the patience or sanity to do that everyday. And I don't know what I would do without school or work, or some form of getting away and having other responsibilities. It's what's keeping me sane right now. It's what makes me happy, but so does Gabrielle.

295,200 minutes

So today was my first day of school with Baby. I was so excited to get back to school. I love school, yes I know that makes me crazy and weird. But it works, since I want to be a professional student. I'm taking a smaller course load, and I think it's a good amount. Enough that I get out of the house enough to preserve my sanity and I get to feel like I'm doing something I love. Yes, I love Gabrielle, but I'm just not the type to do that day in and day out. And yes, in a few weeks I will be complaining about school and the time and hard work and frustrating professors, but in the midst of my complaining I always know that it's what I want.

Anyways, I was on the bus riding up to campus, and I was just so happy. You get to see some familiar faces, like the alibino girl. I don't know her name, the newspaper did an article on her and her brother, apparently albino twins are really rare, so I should know her name but I don't. She has the coolest pale white hair that goes all the way down her back. Also on the bus is all the freshman, they're easy to pick out, looking nervous, lost and asking directions from anyone who looks like they know what their doing. The A-team was out on Blue Bikes today with little flags so answer question and give directions. Their flags said they would give you candy if you asked a question. It's a good idea, poor A-team that it was raining all day, I hope they didn't get too cold. I was thinking, well I know I've been here three years but I'm sure I could think up some question to get candy. I didn't ask a question.

Baby got to come with me to O Chem today. When JP switches over the Head Guard duties next week, the scheduling is supposed to work out better, but we'll just have to deal with it for this week. Unfortunately she was fussy the whole class, so I had to stand in the back and rock her so she would be quiet. I missed about fifteen minutes while she was busy screaming, where I tried to shush her outside (not outside the building but outside the class). I don't think it mattered so much since the teacher just went over the syllabus. Yeah, he took a whole 50 minutes to go over the syllabus. I don't understand teachers going over syllabi, they handed it to us, and we're college students, we should be able to read the syllabus on our own. But apparently there is some mandate that teachers need to go over the syllabus. This is probably due to the fact that most students aren't responsible to read the thing on their own, though they should be, and then they will go whining to the teacher about how they didn't know. These students will still whine about how they didn't know, but I guess teachers feel better about saying, "Sucks to be you, it was in the syllabus and I went over it at the start of the class." So teachers read the syllabus to us on the first day of class. I just wish more teachers went over it in ten minutes, answered questions and then went on to lecturing.

After class I had to go pick up some last minute supplies at the Bookstore, I know on the first day of classes, I'm a fool. I thought I'd gotten most of them before, but new supplies kept popping up. My most exciting purchase was a lab coat (I got to pick inbetween a size 6, 16 or 49, go figure), a dissecting knife, and a scalpel.

I wanted to take a picture of Baby by the A, but it was cold and she was not happy so I decided that probably wasn't a good idea. But look what else I got from the bookstore instead!

Yes, I'm pretty sure I just violated something by putting my baby in a bag.

So that was my first day of school, I survived, and I did it on 4 hours of sleep.

34,560 minutes

JP finally succeeded in getting me to work out and be semi-healthy. It did take bribery, I get ice cream, okay not just ice cream but Aggie ice cream, after I work out for a week, which kind of counteracts the working out, but I'm not complaining. So we went to the Fieldhouse to run/walk on the treadmills and use some of the machines, and almost every other treadmill had an out of order sign on it. It was really frustrating, because then there wasn't any empty machines. I think they should spend more time fixing the machines than creating pretty laminated out-of-order signs.

25,920 minutes

So I saw this is the Ag Science building while I was hanging up posters so I took some pictures of it. The second picture is to show that yes, it is a cupboard under the stairs. I laughed so hard when I saw it. 

24,480 minutes

The most beautiful sign. Seriously, the two best phrases in the world are "class is cancelled" and "the homework assignment's due date is postponed," which I got to read in the email later from the teacher. Yeah! Thank you for small favors and tender mercies. 

I walked into the Engineering building (to attend said class above) and randomly I see there is a giant blow up slide. Unfortunately they were still blowing it up, and I didn't have time to wait, even though class had been cancelled, so I didn't actually slide down it. Sad.

14,400 minutes

Today there is lots of pictures... I think that's okay. I missed the bus today (hey, only my second time ever this semester, I'm doing pretty good). It was snowing this morning, which I was kind of happy about 'cause I'd been missing the snow, and Logan in snow just looks cool, though I wasn't happy about having to walk to school in it. But I took a lot of pictures of my walk to campus.

The corridor of snow covered trees. They look so cool, but I swear they wait until someone is right underneath them to drop snow.

Frozen creek.

Old Main. I hate that hill. Anyone who has ever walked up it will understand when I says that totally counts as my exercise for the day. You get all aspects, muscle building, cardio and aerobic, endurance and stamina, as well as balance on icy days. 

Barely visible mountains through all the snow and clouds. The second picture you can hardly see it, but there is a very big mountain, bigger than the first, that is hiding and slowly fades into the fog.

7,200 minutes

The day was ending, and I realized I hadn't taken a picture today. And what was I supposed to take a picture of, especially 'cause I needed it to be quick, since I still want to cram in as much studying as I can? So this is my Stats textbook and my calculator. I've been spending all day with these two items, since I have a test tomorrow in Stat 3000. Ahh!!! All other math: algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, they all came really easy to me. Trust me, go ask my past teachers, I didn't even have to show up and I would easily ace the test. I won math contests (and scholarships) without hardly trying. (I'm really not trying to come off as arrogant, just explaining how dramatic a change this is for me, and how it's confusing the dickens out of me.) But stats is kicking my trash and burning it. I guess the saying is true that your mind either understands calc or stats.

Oh, and to top it off I have a test tomorrow in Human Anatomy as well. Okay, technically in the lab, but still. By the way if you didn't know it Human Anatomy gets the glory of claiming to be the most failed class of campus (Human Physiology is number 2). And I didn't do as good as I would've liked in the first test. Yeah, I swear teachers are malicious and plan this. All my tests are very closely grouped together.

Well I'm going to go back to studying, and then tomorrow after this is all done I am going to relax, watch Ever After, and eat the rest of the brownies that I made today.

4,320 minutes

Every morning I trudge out to this bus stop, and freeze while I wait for the bus to take me to school. That's one thing I love about Logan, they have a very nice bus system, and it's free (minus whatever comes out of my taxes - if I had a job). Thank you very much Cache Valley Transit!

2,880 minutes

This is my office where every Monday night I get to sit and wait for some poor student to decide that they are desperate enough to come to me for help with Human Physiology. So far it has yet to happen. However I haven't given up hope yet, there is still the hardest exam, exam #3 - The nervous system, and finals coming up. Mainly I just sit here bored, trying to tell myself to do my own homework.

So my office. Yes, that is a really old oven built into the wall, I don't know why, it also has baking pans sitting inside it. Somebody decided though that we would appreciate a microwave better than an oven, which I really do, so it has a microwave as well. To top it off it also has a bottle of Windex (for making the old oven shiny?), and a fairly large set of biological and medical books that I'm pretty sure don't get read much. Here is a sample of the reading found in the office Internal Medicine, 4th edition (3,000 pages of itty-bitty font!), the 1996 edition of Medical Diagnostics and Treatments, Infectious Diseases also 4th edition, The Lippincott Manual of Nursing Practices, 2nd edition, and my favorite Sabiston's Essentials of Surgery. Yes, Sabiston's Essentials of Surgery really is just what you think, a book of surgeries complete with chapters entitled: Surgical Complications, Preoperative Preparation, Anesthesia, and Technique, Sutures and Drains. Yep, your average biology undergrad reading material. Oh, it also contains a copy of the textbook for just about every biology class on campus, just 2 editions too old. Lastly, there is a white board and a copy machine on the walls not shown. And of course, this ancient computer, which oh so stealthily has the password to it written on a blue post-it note in the corner. Unfortunately this computer is old enough that it doesn't have a slot for my memory card - though it does have a slot for a floppy disk, yeah those ancient dinosaur things that I'm pretty sure are extinct or should be - so you will have to wait for me to post this when I get home so I can upload the picture.