Celebrating!

I have shadowing experience set up finally. A small, rural clinic with the most awesome physician letting me shadow as often as I want/need to fulfill that part of my application. I've often wondered what I don't hear or see behind the closed doors of the clinics. The stories already related to me are interesting but I cannot wait to see first hand.

My questions now are: will I still be as enthralled with rural family med as I think? or will I wander back over to the oncology mind set, palliative care aside, oncology is an amazing specialty.

Hard to believe the summer has flown by and school will be starting again. Hard to believe that at this time next year I will be sitting for my MCAT, typing out applications, and answering the supplementals (I hope!)

And really hard to believe it took me 20 years to get to this point again. Let the beaming begin!

Innocence

Sitting at my kitchen counter, talking with my parents about my plans for the fall and spring, what I can do to lessen the impact of my own dreams, I looked up to find:

From Backyard Life

There Are No Words...

In his prime, he was amazingly talented, and supremely gracious.

The words at the end of this song say everything. I hope he is remembered for the songs such as this, We Are The World, Man In The Mirror, and others... not for the garish man he became at the end.

RIP.

Student Loan Consolidation Update

Follow-up to financial aid post a few days back.

The federal government has come out with a new consolidation scheme for those stuck in higher interest rate loans. Which should sound awesome to many students. However, for those that already consolidated after July 1, 2006, you are stuck with whatever rate you got at that time.

http://news-reviews.org/finance/record-low-student-loan-interest-rate/

The worst part about all of these loans is they reset to the relative same number of years.

For instance, if you are currently in year 3 of 10 years of repayment, your new consolidated loan could spread that out yet again, over 10 years. The actual interest paid COULD be MORE than what is currently going to be paid if the individual keeps on paying current rate for another 7 years.

One other note of interest, especially to medical school students, never under estimate the value of working in the non-profit sector while taking pre-req courses.

Eeep! Bleep! And Physics, Oh My!

Organic, it is said, wears thick upon the pre-med heart and is known as a med school killer. Serial killer, stalking it's victims one carbon, one reaction, or one mechanism at a time. Ginkgo biloba notwithstanding, organic chemistry kills.

I embraced organic when I was in high school. My chemistry teacher taught us to make esters, polypeptides, and more. There were four mechanisms he required us to know ... I think I did then, not so much anymore.

My fear, beyond animals wearing scales sporting a forked tongue, is physics. I bought the book today, a full 2.5 months early, just to have some light reading, get my mind wrapped around a subject matter that has generally made my eyes retreat to the other side of my brain, neurons silently saying "Goodnight".

Here's to physics! It will not master me, I will master it...

Or die trying!