Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Stuntin' like a med student!

Obviously I won't know how it feels to be a med student until I become one. But until then, I'll be THOROUGHLY acclimated to being SUPER busy ALL THE TIME!!!

With just 2 weeks left this semester, I'm FINALLY feeling what I call "academically normal". My grades are still high though I did have little slump when I got sick a couple weeks ago for the second time (still working on managing my allergies/asthma in a new climate), but overall I'm VERY pleased with my academic performance this semester.

MCAT wise I'm behind but without a set testing date on my schedule, I'm not overly worried that I haven't done much in the way of formal studying. With the way my schedule is working out, I won't be able to do a lot of focused studying until May at the earliest. So maybe a late June/early July 2016 date will work? We'll see!!

Movin' on, I'm spending a lot of time reading papers for what I hope will be my dissertation project and I'm meeting with PIs as well. However, given my VERY specific interest in health disparities and natural language processing (NLP) in clinical decision support, I'm realizing that I may be "winging" this dissertation work solo. And by that I mean that rather than taking on a project already in progress, I'll be creating and defending my own. And given the paucity of research in health disparities using NLP, this will be a TON of work. But hey, this is what I've wanted to do for a while so it's ALL good!! :)

Lastly, I've realized the hard way that I'm at the age now where it's do or die as far as me getting in tip top health is concerned. So after realizing that I've gained 15 pounds since I relocated to Texas ( putting the "B" in baby got back), I'm back down to what I was when I moved here, 5'8" and 140 pounds. I haven't started running again just yet, but I am exercising on a regular basis about 3X/week. But this weight "stabilization" hasn't come without major sacrifice, I eat at most 2.5 complete meals a day. And that works out to me eating 5 smaller meals everyday so I'm not hungry. To say it's been a little rough is an understatement especially since I've never in my life had to monitor what I eat. But between the escalating blood pressure and getting a booty made for a rap video, I decided that it's more important to be healthy especially as an old premed and to pass on the ability to REALLY "make it clap", lol!!


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