Sneak preview of my weekend at the office: Physiology and microbiology coloring books from my boyfriend, colored pencils from a nice guy in GSD, and my coworker’s cute elephant planter.
And… Done!
Took my Physics II final yesterday, which means I’m finished my medical school pre-requisite courses: Bio x2, Chem x2, O-Chem x2, Physics x2, plus bonus Calculus x2, Human Physio, and Cell Bio.
Celebrated with a huge plate of chips and salsa. So unketo. If I’m being totally honest, it wasn’t worth it, but shhh.
Came home, played video games with darling Dan, and then slept for 11 hours. Glorious.
It hadn’t really hit me that a huge chunk of my time just got freed up for the next three weeks, but then I was watching 24 on Netflix while getting ready for work and this happened:
So, yeah: Let the slacking begin. And by slacking, I mean crossfit, research, work, volunteering, cleaning (omg cleaning <3), setting up my prep schedule for the MCAT, and watching every damn episode of 24 I can get my hands on. Fall semester starts September 5th. Heeere we goooo.
Squats is a four letter word.
Exciting discovery: If you’re still sore from the first Crossfit OnRamp class, you’ll feel muuuch better after the warmup of the second class.
I truly never understood warming up until today. It was like, “Oh, athletes are sore all the time and this actually *helps*. Got it.”
Crossfit may finally teach me to put away my clean clothes instead of dumping them in a pile on the floor. Bending huuuurts.
Two more days until I’m done with Physics and I can start planning my life! I have six and a half labs to write tomorrow and four chapters to study for the final, but all I want to do is set up a hundred calendars to work out my exercise/study/volunteer/research schedule. It’s such a satisfying way to procrastinate but no. No Lizz. Dun do it. Study. Finish your assignments. Get that A. Then organize all the things.
One step closer to being Lara Croft.
Crossfit!
Only three people in my Foundations class, and I’m dating one of them. Not bad.
Overall, I’m totally glad I signed up and I absolutely plan on recruiting a bunch of my friends to join. Sara, this means you! 25% discount for students!
The trainer is great. Talks a lot, which I like, cos if he’s talking, I’m not lifting something. <- terrible attitude, but shh, I’m new at this.
The climbing walls and ropes make me drool a little bit. I’ve never been able to do a single pull-up or find my way up a rope, but I know I’m going to work at it until I get there.
Dan and I were pretty much wiped out after the session, but it was more “I can’t go down these stairs because someone replaced all my muscles with wet socks!” and less “holy shit it hurts to move.” From what I understand about delayed-onset muscle soreness, that’s for tomorrow. Which should be interesting, since I’m supposed to volunteer at the hospital. On my feet. Without ibuprofen, to boot - Apparently ibuprofen is terrible to take if you’re trying to build strength.
My plan for the rest of the night is to crank out as many physics labs as I can and then go to bed suuuuuuper early. You can’t OD on sleep.
Next class is Wednesday. Can’t wait.
Even shopping for Crossfit is brutal.
I very nearly had to shoplift a sports bra last night. Not because I couldn’t afford it or because I enjoy the illicit thrill. No. Because I couldn’t get it to come off.
Frogress report
Yesterday was a marathon:
Up at 6:15 to drink my weight in Vanilla Coke Zero / finish studying for my Cell Biology final exam
8:30-10:30: Beasting through the exam (more on this in a bit)
10:30-1:30: H&E staining of the tadpole section slides with Jackie and Dr. S. For the past few weeks, we’ve been preparing the slides: Dehydrating and embedding the tadpoles in wax blocks, using a super deli slicer (microtome!) to cut them into histology sections, and now putting them through a series of dyeing solutions to stain the tissues. Looong process made longer by the fact that it was the first time we’d done it, but the results look great! The slides are the same type of thing you’d look at under a microscope in any intro biology class. It’s neat, developing an actual skill. Reminds me of organic chemistry lab last year.
1:30-1:45: Fighting with the registrar to get them to let me register for classes. Did I mention how the official post-bacc pre-health studies program I’m enrolled in is being shut down because they can’t reserve seats in classes for people in my position? And I might actually be the last student in the program? And I found this out by accident? Whatever, it doesn’t affect me (in the sense that they’re not going to kick me out, but I’ll still have to fight tooth and nail for classes just like I always have), but WOW! Glad I signed up a year ago instead of waiting.
1:45-2:30: Lunch with Dan. He made me chicken :D and we watched Luther, which is on Netflix and is just fantastic. It’s like House if House was set in London, played by Idris Elba, and based around a detective instead of a physician.
2:30-4:00: Driving to Worcester because even though I’ve already had a full day, it’s not even close to over - Still have to survive a few hours of Physics II lecture and lab.
4:00-10:00: Physics and then driving home. The highlight of the class was logging in to check my grades and seeing that I got a 97 on my Cell Bio final! Without extra credit or a scale! I mean, I knew I did well enough, but I had no idea I did THAT well.
10:00-11:00: Cuddlin with Dan, then bed.
So yeah, that was one of the longer days I’ve had in a while, and hopefully one of the longer ones I’ll have for a while yet. My schedule’s about to improve significantly. With Cell Bio out of the way and only one week left of Physics II, Dan and I are starting a Crossfit Foundations class next week. Which means I have to shave my legs for the first time in an embarrassingly long while. And buy exercise clothes. And actually exercise, which is Something Lizz Does Not Do. Seriously, this sounds terrible, but every single Crossfitter I’ve encountered raves about the program, so I’m super excited.
Fall semester starts in a month! I worked out my schedule for working, volunteering, physician shadowing, MCAT prepping, Crossfitting, and class-taking, and it doesn’t look like I’ll have as much time for MCAT prep as I expected. As it stands, I’m only enrolled in one class, and I’m probably not going to do Chem SI anymore, and it’s still not freeing up enough time. Whatever. Challenge accepted!
To no friends!
Yesterday, I used FaceTime for the first time. To talk to my research professor.
To the future!
In which I measure my life in Batman movies
With the new Christopher Nolan Batman movie coming out this week, let’s take a look over my personal history as measured in Batman movies:
Batman Begins: Saw it with Alex, who was my totally-platonic favorite person ever. Now he’s the dude I send links to on Facebook sometimes. (But hey, he’s still a pretty excellent guy - If I found out one of my ladyfriends was dating him, I’d be all “awww” and all “hell yeah” and all “Alex is great!” and so forth.)
The Dark Knight: Saw the midnight showing with a enormo group of people, including this dude who I was frantically flirting with. There weren’t enough seats for all of us, so I sat in the aisle like a boss! And I worked at 9am the next day and was like that’s it, no more midnight showings for me. (I broke this rule for The Watchmen, and we all saw how that turned out: Horribly.) Anyhoo, the dude and I went out for a couple weeks before I got a massive case meh-itis and broke it off. He introduced me to my current boyfriend of 2.5 years, so… It all worked out. For me, at least. (Bonus: Saw it again in IMAX with Aly and BJ. BJ fell asleep, which is just unacceptable. Needless to say, I am no longer friends with either of them.)
The Dark Knight Rises comes out in two days and I’ve already bought my tickets to see it after work with Winson, but I’m considering seeing it with my boyfriend before work (YEAH, 9am showings!) - When the suits in Hollywood get around to rebooting the series (which, ugh, will probably happen sooner than you’d think), I want to be able to say, “Kids, the last time I saw this movie, I was dating your father!” And then Dan’s wife comes in and tells me to get out of her house and stop bothering their children or she’ll call the cops. :|
My life has changed a bunch since the last Batman flick. Mostly I’ve done a lot of things I didn’t think I was capable of doing. Got my license, got my stupid yellow car, got my amazing dream-for-now job, rocked all my pre-med prereqs (except for Physics 2, which I’m finishing up now - 92 on my first exam, so I’m off to a good start!), saved up a boatload of money to support myself through med school, volunteered, did research, started keto, made a goddamn Tumblr to make Sara happy, watched an ABSURD amount of television, read the internet from cover to cover at least twice.
This movie is supposed to be the end of the Christopher Nolan Batman movie, so I won’t be able to do another retrospective like this in a few years. Quel dommage. So instead, how about a preemptive retrospective!
Three years from now I’ll have: Taken the MCAT and gotten a record-breaking score, lost 70 pounds from stress/keto/crossfit, gotten into medical school, taken on several thousands of dollars in educational debt, possibly moved across the country to attend (which would be equal parts omgNO and omgEXCITING!), run a marathon, quit my job, spent a summer doing meaningful medical work in some kind of sweaty tent/inner city clinic/rural clinic, learned a hundred other languages. (Man, writing all this out just makes me want to quit watching TV. I could get so much done! The least I could do is start watching TV in French. Mrr.)
Alright, writing this during class is not productive. I’m a bad kid, okay? I know this. This is not news. Back off. Jeez.
