30 hour day?

It occurred to me this morning that for only the second time in my professional/academic life, I'm exhausted doing something I really love! The other time was when I was enrolled in med school courses full-time. Of course the problem is that many things, like household chores fall by the way side which has me thinking about hiring someone to do some basic cleaning. And that could work except the idea of someone cleaning my sink with the same cloth used to wipe down the toilet seat is enough to put that idea to rest, LOL!!!

This past week I had my second "challenge" since I was appointed director and with every "challenge" I realize that my "skills" are greatly improving. Of course, this little lesson cost me many, many hours of work and almost $700 in fees but luckily, my supervisor was pretty cool about things. And I will NOT be "played" on this particular issue again, especially not by a graduate student. The net result was that we had to amend how we do business because trying to get over isn't lost on highly educated, smart people (which I should have already known). But to get played the way I did by a Black woman makes me far more angry than I would normally be. No, I'm not really playing the race card here, but the fact is that there are too few Black women in medical science/research, so to see one be flippant about using people is pretty sad. Me, I try not to burn bridges because I say you never know who you may end up working for, but this young chick doesn't get that........yet. Chances are very good she's going to need our services again, but I suspect she'll look to an outside group to do it for her. If she brings us more work in the future, I'll do it of course as I'm not one to turn down income for my group, but she'll need to sign off on EVERYTHING before I do ANYTHING again.

Moving on, I think it's safe to say that my MCAT studying is going to have to be put off until next Spring. I simply don't have the energy or time to put in 100% effort with an already tight schedule. In fact, I'm wondering how I'm going to get through what I do need to do this semester because some days, I just wish there were more hours in the day. Especially on the weekends, LOL!!! :)

I HATE peaches (and Georgia!!)

So after flunking my first molec physio exam (a "C" is a flunking grade in grad school), I realized that I finally have a regular study schedule. GREAT! Now I only have to make A's on the next twp exams to get a "B" in the class, LOL!! Oh well, that's the way it goes................

I also made reservations for a family get together this Thanksgiving in southern Georgia, where my mother retired 5 years ago. And because SOMEONE always clowns at family gatherings, my sister and I decided to reserve a suite a local hotel. In other words, I'm NOT in the mood for any foolishness and I need to get some rest. And anyone reading my blog knows how much I despise the South and ALL that it represents so I'll have to suck it up later this month to enjoy my visit.

Other news in my life is that I have a facebook page (sorry I need to keep my private life private) and it's been a blast touching base with people from high school. I realized that for whatever reason, I've made few friends since high school, as in people I regularly keep in touch with and I'm not sure why. I do have a problem trusting people, so maybe that plays a role, but I guess I'm not that open to people especially as I get older.

Speaking of getting older, I've got so much silver in my hair (thanks to my Native American heritage) I finally had to get it professionally colored. In the meantime, I get a kick out of allowing people to think I'm in my early 30's and one person even asked to see my driver's license, LOL!!

Ok I'd better get to bed before I have bags under my eyes to go with my silver hair!

YIKES!!!

So now my hair is starting to fall out and I barely have my sanity! Okay, so my hair really isn't falling out but I MUST be going insane to have even attempted the schedule I have now. EVERDAY last week, takeout was the order of the day for dinner and I personally like to cook! So this week,I decided to spend most of Sunday cooking a few meals to get me satrted for the week. I still may have to do take out on Thur and Fri, but that's Okay since we normally do take out on Friday anyway.

Other news, I didn't do ANY MCAT review last week and was pretty occupied with work and school and the new challenge in my life, deciding on which new car to get. Turns out my non dealer mechanic (BAD move) decided to screw up my transmission a few months ago now it's pretty much shot and I have to decide to get a new one or buy another car. The car is almost paid off so that's why I'm considering getting it repaired and keeping it, but I haven't exactly kept the car up like I should, so I've picked out a few to test drive over the next few days. Then I'll have to make a decision which is hard because I haven't found a mechanic I can trust to work on the old car so I'm leaning toward not getting the same brand car again. I have received some recs on some other dealers but when I think about it, who's to say that the same thing isn't going to happen again? Just because Jane Doe has a great expereince with a dealership repair shop doesn't mean I will especially in a recessions when it seems people are trying to get money by any means necessary. Man, life was so much easier when the Metro was my primary mode of transportation!!!

Have a carrot?

So I survived my first week as a full-time employee and full-time graduate student and I still have my hair and sanity, LOL!! I also had my first midterm and for the first time in a LONG time, I don't think I did well at all on it. So I've pretty much conceded that my streak of all A's is over unfortunately.

Other things going on is that my daughter had her 13th B'day party a few weeks ago and I temporarily lost my mind when I decided to have 4 other 13 year old's here for a sleepover. NEVER WILL THAT HAPPEN AGAIN!!!!!!!!! EVER!!!!!

My Micro/Immuno course is getting VERY, VERY interesting with lectures on the orgin of swine flu being a recently covered topic. Man, I can't get over how fascinating infectious diseases are, so much so that I'm having to reconsider residency choices!!! IM combined with a fellowship in Infectious Disease could be just the ticket a woman with an empty nest!

I also learned that each director at my job is now expected to do original research which is of course, right up my alley!!! And that opens up the possibility of me being able to do dissertation work while working full-time in kinda of a 2 for 1 deal, hence the new "carrot" in my life. Now I'm very aware of just how difficult that would be, but my thinking is that every educational option I'm considering is going to be very difficult so it's 6 of one, half dozen of the other and otherwise all the same. In this scenario, my PhD would be in Biodefense/Infectious Disease with an emphasis on bioterrorist agents (gotta keep that DOD thing going). My research would also of course, have a pathology flavor and all of that sounds nice in theory. The issue would be putting together a committee and not just any committee, but a committee of folks who can get along with each other and get me out in decent time.

We'll see what happens, for now I'm going to set things in motion for this as in get my application in to the program, while continuing on my study schedule for the MCAT. And this point I can confidently say that the TBR review is the best MCAT review out there!!!

Busy, busy, BUSY!!!!!

As the title indicates, I was VERY busy this week. I ended up skipping class on Monday because I was swamped in the lab, which meant that I had to listen to the lectures on line. I got through that OK, and had a very interesting lecture in my Micro/Immuno class about how swine flu evolved. Yep, I'm thrilled to be back where I started research wise in 1988, hitting infectious diseases hard core!

I mentioned that I was promoted last week with no increase in pay, but I found out on Friday that I will get an increase in pay of about 10% of my salary, so I'm pretty stoked about that!!!! I also had a solid MCAT Chemistry review this week starting out with "12's" and ending up with "10's" by the end of the week. Lemme tell you that by the time I did my last set of passages on Thursday, my brain was just fried from exhaustion but I succeeded in getting through the first section of my TBR Chemistry review! I also realized by the end of the week that I have to make sure I get at least a 30 minute nap/rest, EVERYDAY to get me through the studying I have to do for the evening if I'm to retain anything I learn and keep my grades high.

Unfortunately, I didn't run any this week, but I did get my 4 miles of walking in, plus I take a 1 hour tennis class once a week with my daughter too. With me feeling very wary of riding metro, I got my DOD decal and now drive in everyday. I HATE driving in metro DC, but I hate even more the idea of riding what I think isn't a very safe public transportation system with people sneezing, coughing and otherwise sharing minute particles of mucus with other passengers. YUK!!!

Guess that's it for this week!!! :)

And we're off!!!

All and all, this wasn't a very good week for me and I took 2 sick days off, as some old health issues became problematic but I have to concede that I haven't done a very good job eating healthy, resting, and taking my medications. I'm just finding it difficult to remember to take my meds so I decided to purchase one of those pill dispenser things with the days of the week on them so I can stay on track. I figured I had another 20 or so years before I needed to buy one to remember what I'm supposed to be taking, but I guess that didn't work out to be the case for me.

I received my TBR review books in the mail today and I'm working on generating a new and improved study schedule for the MCAT. So far, this review material appears to be much more helpful than EK because like my old Chemistry and Organic textbooks, they quiz you on each new topic right after it's discussed. There's also MCAT style review passages after each major section, for example there are 14 passages/100 questions immediately after the section on Carbonyls and Alcohols. One other very critical change to my study plan this go round is that I'm spending more time figuring out why I get answers right or wrong than I spend testing myself. It finally occurred to me that if I'm to make some permanent and long term (ie USMLE) improvements in my test taking ability, I'd better go all out NOW, least I end up like so folks I've heard about, those who get in and can't do well on standardized tests for the remainder of their medical careers with disastrous consequences.

Other things on my mind these days is my future in medicine, specifically what fields I'm interested in. Of course, I LOVE pathology and decided on it when I was in high school 20_+ years ago, but with the realization that my nest is going to be empty in the next 5 years, I've decided to open my mind to the possibility of other fields. Given my strong involvement in breast cancer outreach through the Komen Foundation, I've always kept in the back of my mind a possible career as on Oncologist. But I wonder if despite my formal training as a hospice volunteer, if I could deal with the day in and day out of my patients being seriously ill and/or dying. The other field I'd keep on my radar is as a Gerontologist although I know from experience that caring for the elderly can be quite a challenge. I'm thinking that since my life these days is about as unplanned and unscripted as can be, it be best to keep an open mind about my future. Besides, I'm getting a little tired of making God laugh with my own plans! :)

Sh*t or get off the pot!!!!

So after meeting the other day with another adcom member at a local school, I realized that my movement toward becoming an MD could be best described by the image of me sitting on a toilet seat with a line of 1000 people waiting their turn. With me locked to it by a chain. I realized that when it boils down to it, I have been in my own way a realization I don't think I could have made earlier due to the extreme stress of my personal life combined with lingering health issue. But at this phase of my life, a significant portion of the stress in my personal life is gone, my health is better than it has been in years, and I think I'm now able to take a clear, objective look at what's really been holding me back. Because as I've known for years, and had confirmed yet again, there's nothing in my med school app keeping me from being accepted somewhere here in the states................

However when I began this journey I wasn't over 40 and I don't care what anyone says, being over 40 with a less than perfect academic record from 25 years ago is a HUGE problem, and this was pretty much confirmed by the long standing adcom I met with this past week. I'm also aware that I'm not saying the right thing to "sell" myself as far as admissions is concerned and quite frankly being strongly interested in Pathology isn't really helping much. In other words, I'm gonna have to learn to "dance" and I mean Fred Astaire dance, if I'm to overcome the issues my age is going to present for most admission committees.

Of course, my biggest issue is my unwillingness to move until my kid finishes high school, a position I fully accept could cost me in the short run. My argument is that there are 8 med schools with in what I call commutable distances to where I live, so surely one of them can give me a shot. Of course, on problem is that one of them already did, 3 others recruited me back in the day, so I'm a little concerned about the not being focused issue coming up again. But that isn't going to stop me from trying anyway.......

Other news, I got another promotion this time to Director of Histopathology Services (but no more money, LOL) so that's exciting. So while I'm quite thankful and enjoy my work, it isn't enough, doesn't require enough of my brain cells, I don't really know why this couldn't be satisfying in the long run, just that it wouldn't be. The adcom asked me what my plan "B" was and I told this person that I'm living that now, six figure salary, high ranking position, that allows me to teach, do research, and use my scope on a regular basis. Then this person suggested that I could have a plan "C" and I thought to myself, I already tried that too, roll eyes, LOL!!. At the end of the conversation, this person couldn't understand why I hadn't reapplied to med school in recent years and suggested that that is what kept me out of the 5 year postbacc/MD program, a statement that made me go hmmmm because this person has a vote on the committee for the 5 year postbacc/MD program (althought this person didn't vote on my application). Most important for me in this conversation was learning that taking the MCAT again for the upteenth time wouldn't be a large concern and it was suggested to me that if I didn't crack 30 and felt I could with one more go at it, to just do it. Now that may sound crazy as hell until I tell you about a young lady that recently graduate Hopkins med school having taken the MCAT 6 times previously!

Speaking of MCAT, I ordered 2 of the AMCAS exams and my TBR books so they should be here soon and when they get here, I'll start my all out prep for the exam. I've also decided to take the MCAT in March and register for it as soon as I can. Overall, I'm quite comfortable with this plan for the exam because it doesn't feel rushed and allows me to do what I need to do to keep my grades at "A" level.

So with all that said, I'm off to spend yet another Saturday afternoon doing some MCAT verbal passages and other school work.