Natural hair, don't care!!

Over the past few years, I've become known to family and friends for going from wearing a wig (see my "about me" pic) to wearing my natural hair. And I've recently decided to not only wear my natural hair more often, but grow it out very long the way I wore my hair when I had a perm.

Ironically one of the first things I noticed about Black women in Texas is that very few of them wear their natural hair which coming from the East Coast/Metro DC, is VERY strange to me. You would think the opposite would be the case especially in a place where during the month of August, having 100+ degree days for the entire month is not unheard of. And I know from personal experience, wigs are hot as hell in the summer months!

Movin' on, after learning yesterday that my assignment to a new Supv is temporary, I've decided to jump ship as soon I can to another cancer research group. That is unless my department decides not to do that and that's a real possibility given that everything in my department is in such a flux. My readers may also have noticed that I haven't mentioned the type of cancer I'm studying and that's because of the politically charged nature of it at my current institution. Whoda' thunk that political game playing would play such a STRONG role in the quest to "cure cancer". But it does. It really, really does and that in my mind ends up costing lives.

I'll also finally be starting my clinical rotations for my health informatics course and that is so SUPER DUPER exciting, that I can hardly contain myself!! I'm starting with Internal Medicine which is ironically the field of medicine I feel most likely to pursue after med school. I'll also be shadowing my prof and I'll probably let him in on my "secret" to pursue med school after finishing my PhD. And no, I'm not worried about what he's going to say about it, in fact, I don't really give a $hit what he thinks about it. I'm just that laser focused after MANY years in the premed game.

So I think I now have not just a plan for completing this dual degree program, but a GOOD PLAN THAT FITS MY LIFE AT THIS POINT. And I think that's an important distinction to make for a nontrad premed. So here goes my year by year plan:

Summer/August 2014 - Take MCAT

Fall 2014/Spg 2015 - PhD courses

Fall 2015/Spg 2016 - PhD courses

Summer 2016 - Apply to Med school

Fall 2016/Spg 2017 - PhD Courses/Finish PhD

Summer 2017 - Matriculate in Med school

And this is my "worst case" plan, my first choice plan is to apply to med school in the summer of 2015 but wanted to give myself some wiggle room due to some other personal plans I have on the table.

The other highlight of my week was the rooster in the above photo that kept me from getting into my car the other day. I have NO IDEA where this thing came from because there aren't any farms nearby. And I didn't think roosters could fly all that well so how he got here is my lingering question. Needless to say, this thing scared the hell outta' me and it took about 15 mins for to get into my car because he was chasing me around the car. And I'm certain I looked like a fool running away from a rooster. URGH, LOL!!!