Keeping my expectations grounded in reality!

This is the story of my pre-med life to many people, LOL!! However I've learned to accept that, not because I think this image is in any way accurate to ME, but because the way God planned my life has nothing to do with how others think He should have planned it. The fact is that save for one too many disappointing research endeavors, it's been a pretty interesting ride. And the most important fact of my journey is that I succeeded remarkable in raising my kid to become the fabulous and successful person she is today, receiving MUCH more family support for her life and goals than I received. More than that, I'm resolved myself to the fact that my med school journey will not include my parents (for reasons I've mentioned before but won't elaborate on again, my father is deceased so that's one part of it) and it's just taken me until very recently to accept that and MOVE ON anyway!

Speaking of which, my MCAT review is going  at a pretty steady clip and I mix it up to keep myself motivated. One of the sites I'm using is the Khan Academy website which now has all of the new sections of the MCAT included among their materials:

Khan Academy MCAT Prep

Of course, being a college chemistry professor keeps me on my MCAT toes and I remain very grateful for the opportunity to not only teach/mentor other minority students, but relearn some things myself.

The other really cool thing going on is that I've settled on a new research group for my dissertation and it looks right now like I'm back in the infectious disease (ID) arena. I finally came to the realization that besides not taking the advice I give students to pick your research group based on support first and interest second, I was causing an unnecessary delay in getting things going (my target date to finish my PhD is December 2018). Sure, I'd much rather work on a project related to cancer, but I accept the fact that right now, I don't have any support in that area unless I want to leave Texas. And that's the other part of this, my unwillingness to move placed me in a situation of not having many options but I accepted that because I LOVE the people and living in Texas, and hope to practice medicine in this state as well.

While enjoying my last bit of free time (I start with my new research group next week), I spend a LOT of time walking in my downtown neighborhood. Out home is about a block from dog park and I snapped this pick on the way back from picking up a package from the post office:

Again, it's so mega cool living blocks from the arts district!!!