The Re-View

Today's the last day of classes before our MCP final, and to top that off, we have 3.5 hours of back to back review. 2 hours of professor-mediated, 1.5 hours of student-mediated. This is going to be a long day. Planning on studying till 3 and then attending the super-long review. Wish there were more practice problems.

Unexpected Break after Line 9!

Today's commute was interesting. School buses are out again! School begins for MoCo and DC, though traffic wasn't horribly bad except for when a car decided to break down on CB Pkwy in one of two lanes.

Class today was about hematology and hematopoeisis. Ironically, I actually did hematology centrifugation in high school! So I understand the basic concept.

That being said, we had a 1 hour break between the first and second part of lecture. It's kind of weird, but the M1s had another class while we piled out and semi-studied for 30 minutes and then waited awkwardly outside for their lecture to end. Could have been scheduled better, but meh. Anyways, apparently the textbooks are now ours to keep from the locker based on the finders/keepers rule and the cleanout deadline. Score!

Test on Thursday. Hope I don't get flattened.

No one tells me nuthin'

So I arrive on campus to find several thousand new students and convocation. I parked along the wall of the parking garage, and I hope I don't get towed, ticketed, fined, or burninated. That being said, A LOT OF PEOPLE ON CAMPUS TODAY. Took me half an hour to find parking. So I go on my way, buy some Subway for dinner and lunch, and go to put some snacks in my locker, because it'll be easier to store food in there than in my car. And I find someone else's stuff. Granted, I do have a locker partner, but he's in the SMP as well, so I'm pretty sure he wasn't here last year and taking Renal Physiology in February.

Yup. So I left a nice (that's not sarcastic, I actually left a nice) note telling the owner to email me so he/she/it/dinosauria can reclaim the stuff by emailing me, and if they don't respond by Thursday, the textbooks are getting repossessed, and the notes are being recycled (because trashing them is so environmentally unfriendly.)

Anyways, I go to the library and sign out a room for 2 hours. Imagine to my joy when I find the room's window covered with paper. Someone's been in there studying, and hasn't reserved the room. Their stuff is there, but they aren't. So I sign out another, thankfully empty, room. Drama.

Anyways, getting some studying done.

Some more studying...

Listening to lectures and running through problems... probably going to head to campus early tomorrow to just hunker down and work, and fill my locker with food. Not much else to say about my day in relation to the SMP.

Compass Bueller's Day Off

Visited the harsh wastes of the north. That was fun. Did some administrative stuff, came home, and back to studying.

I do partake!

This second test is already gearing to become much harder than the first test, which I didn't do too hot on. I've decided to go ahead and order a book that'll teach me how to study better for multiple choice tests since my last major test was the MCAT a year ago. Also ordered a USMLE book so I can practice multiple choice questions, since we were majorly lacking on actual practice questions. Managed to stay focused during class with a lot of Java Monster.

Il fait l'ecole buisonnierre.

Class didn't start till 10 today. Pretty relaxing, considering I slept late. Ugh. Anyways, lots of stuff to study for in the next few days with the final being next Thursday and all. Compass be bucklin' down for that day off on Friday to handle administrative stuff.

Back to membrane potential!

Case Studied

Still studying a lot. Being in the scary lecture hall is not fun. I thought I was going to fall down simply by walking down the stairs. We had speeches for nominations for class council. For the record, I was not one of them. Listened to a speech from Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine from Virginia. Enjoyed free pizza from Domino's. Billw as apparently $650, which consisted of about 65 pizzas...

Case Studies was interesting. A lot of these things were things I would have seen in the field to some capacity. That being related to pre-eclampsia and my sensitive case regarding an OB patient, which I will never tell you so as to pique your interest and then be let down over, sure brings back a lot of feelings. It's nice to know we have a few comedians in our class. Overall, not too hard, but made you think.

Back to the plasma membrane!

We're back after a short break for study into the plasma membrane! Sadly, though, there seems to be only 200 participants in a class of approximately 400 people. Guess the exam pooped everyone out and they decided to skip. Not me, though! I'm going to be taking a break Friday since I don't have any classes (I got lucky and have my small groups session Thursday night) and visit my alma mater and pay them... again... *grumble*

If any of you have Clickers at your school, Georgetown has them too. They're provided to you free of charge as long as you return them later. Basically, the lecturer will provide a question as a poll, and you vote ABCDE. Usually, these are like multiple choice test questions to gauge how well the class is doing, and since they're anonymous, you won't feel guilty if you guess wrong, and then depending on how many people get the question right determines how much time is spent reviewing.

Whee.

Examinicus Terminus

Finished the exam. Pretty exhausted. I had some sort of mini-breakdown about 10-20 questions in when I was confused, but I managed to recover from that. Of the 90 questions, about 80 I was sure about (~90% accuracy) and 10 I was split 50/50 about (~50% accuracy), so that comes to a final total of 77/90 questions, or an 86%...

I have no idea what type of grade breakdown that is equivalent to, since there are no Cs in the SMP, just A, A-, B+, B, B-. I'm really hoping for at least an A- at the moment.

Bloop.

Studying is my day job.

Studied from about 10 to 8 today. Big exam tomorrow. Hoping that I know everything.

Food is allowed in the library!

Cogito ergo nom.

Studied most of the afternoon/night. Got all but 20-23 in. Good times. Basically, you can take food into the lounges and study rooms. Today was the first time I went to the library because it looks pretty packed on weekdays, and I didn't realize you could take food and drink in, carrying around my water bottle and all. Plenty of whiteboard space and private study rooms to work in. Food consists of vending machines unless you want to go even further away from the library, and most of it is closed on the weekends, unfortunately.

Attack of the Whiteboard!

I've been busy scribbling away on the whiteboard since this morning. That was fun and it was nice to see exactly what I was missing. Got most of the first few lectures down pat after a good amount of headscratching.

Anyways, I promised I'd get a photo of the School of Business' rad studying area.

Here it is!



It's about 3 floors of booths, and it's aesthetically relaxing, allows food, and offers enough space for 6 people to study per booth comfortably. Those Business people have it nice. I want to mooch.

Edit: Also found the undergraduate student commons. Comes with printers and study rooms that are sadly marked "UNDERGRADS ONLY." Why all the hate?

Pathways: Wounded Healers

We had an expert come in to talk to us about substance abuse and the medical profession. Interesting stats, and certainly important for both future and current medical professionals to know about, in terms of dealing with and reporting others for substance abuse and issues that may interfere with capability to provide care. It's quite interesting to be able to learn about how such issues are so prevalent yet under-reported.

Anyways, long story short. Drug abuse, whether it be alcohol, illicit, or prescription-related, begins any time, and if detected, results in stringent self-help and abstinence courses.

It was technically more of an informative talk than an applicative subject at the moment. Being a teetotaler and abstaining from all chemicals except for caffeine and MSG seems to have me pretty set in the non-drug-abusing group for now. Hopefully, it stays that way.

Hardcore Studying Time

I've managed to get the first lecture of 4 down pat. It's the actual implantation and development that irks me. That being said, there's a lot of review sessions. Tomorrow there's a class-held review from 10-12, and another from 4-7 held by students.

I managed to find the whiteboard clean and inhabited solely by one lonely red marker. Looks like I can draw the entire development cycle on the board without bothering anyone! Hurray for visual learning!

Classes for the undergrads start in a little under two weeks. It's going to be packed then.

Also, I revisited the School of Business this morning. Apparently, they have some awesome booths on the second floor for studying. Some being at least 10. Looks like a great place to hunker down and study as well, since it's closer to food and parking.

Where'd everyone go?

Seriously feels like people stopped coming to lecture. Compared to the other subject material, it feels like Devo is definitely my weakest link. I think I'm going to spend at least all of this afternoon and some of tomorrow focusing just on the developmental process. Now to see if I can find a public-use white board. Oh, wait, I remember! Public Science Building Lobby!

Yes!

Yeah, the last 4 Devo lectures are very dense. I pre-read them and everything and it's still not easy to remember. Maybe I'll watch some embryology YouTube videos to supplement my knowledge, since these static pictures aren't meshing well with me at the moment.

On second thought...

Leaving earlier might have been VERY bad for me today.

http://wtop.com/?nid=25&sid=2029663

D.C. Fire and EMS spokesman Pete Piringer says rescue swimmers helped rescue people stuck in cars on Canal Road. About people had to be rescued from several vehicles stranded in the 4400 block of Broad Branch Road in Northwest.

I would definitely not have liked losing my car to the storm.

Anyways, first lecturer got stuck on Key Bridge, came in 10 minutes late, but ah well. Got caught up after epithelium lecture. Relatively mild, which is what I definitely can't say for developmental biology, which I have never taken to completion...

Flood Warning in Effect

A killer 1.5hr commute today. Clara Barton Pkwy got shut down so I had to take the long way around. It is not a good day to be raining. In fact, it seems like Clara Barton Pkwy falls apart whenever there is rain. Note to self, leave earlier when it's raining. The part of Clara Barton that I was on, there were miniature waterfalls and at least 2 inches of standing water on the left side of the road, and at points an immeasurable amount elsewhere. We had an engine company pull up, and surprisingly enough, fit between both lanes of cars on a 2 lane road. Now that is some close driving. The road shutdown basically extended my arrival time by a good 50 minutes as the remaining off-road was used for what is normally considered a 2-path commute. Once we got back onto the main road, traffic alleviated greatly, and the rain conveniently died down by the time I got onto campus.

Unfortunately, there is now a miniature moat on the path to the medical campus. It's either through the mud and 2" of water, or a balancing act between the bushes and the curb.

Today, we go over the rest of cell structure and then move on to developmental biology. An early day, hopefully, since getting home will be an even more killer commute if the rains continue to hold like this.

Nucular!

Had to move half of my lectures to a separate binder last night. There was no way I was going to be able to carry all of it in my one binder, so I left the extra notes in the car if I need them.

Anyways, we started with histology today (the study of cells under microscopes, methinks.) Basically talked about functionality of light microscopes and electron microscopes. That was a nice, short lecture. We followed up with a longer lecture about the components of the nucleus and the ribosomes and moved on to other components of the cell, such as the ER and Golgi. All in all, a much more in-depth view of cellular components that you probably wouldn't have covered in college cell biology. That being said, a lot of this material is inter-linked with other discussions from previous lectures, such as the usage of the signal receptor protein (SRP) to target a ribosome's protein to be translated directly into the ER. We also went over the N-linked glycosolation we learned yesterday again, only at a larger scale. Then, an hour for lunch!

Class meeting today is apparently about class elections for semi-formal positions for event management. I can safely say that I will not be running for these positions.

Argh, my head!

Well, this afternoon's lectures were a bit more in-depth look at proteoglycans and system biology, which is apparently a very cool subset of Bioinformatics, right up my alley. We were introduced to biomarkers and their implementation, as well as the practicality of sensitivity and specificity. Then, we basically learned about how Mr. Mass Spec (if you get this reference, +1 cookie to you), in recent years, has been able to ionize larger-sized molecules, like proteins, into gaseous forms and fire them at detectors so we can analyze large-scale proteins by cross-referencing their molecular weights with known sequences, using trypsin as a reagent to cleave some of the protein bonds. Very cool stuff.

Problem-Solving Workshop was only half-full today. Half of me wants to believe that they are slackers and the other half wants me to believe that they are hardcore and have mastered the material. At this point, though, I'm pretty focused on my game alone. Gotta study, gotta study!

That being said, I got a migraine and had to find some medicine from the book store.

Seriously, if you're reading this blog, please leave a message. It's kinda weird talking to myself and I'm sure in another medium, such as out loud, would be considered a precursor to psychosis or insanity.

Stat(s)!

MNTS 2012 has these notes in an outline form, which initially threw me off, but in the end, I figured out what was going on. That being said, class let out on time, so I went for a walk, got some junk food, and came back. That was a fun class about post-translational modifications though. This afternoon is 2 hours of lecture and 2 hours of problem solving workshop. Glad I got most of the workshop out of the way, but I didn't read Lecture 18, so I'm feeling a little short on that.

Anyways, I've had a few questions regarding stats. I'm going to give guesstimates. If you've followed me on SDN, you'll know them more accurately, because I have posted them. Anyways, these are approximations, +/-0.2 pts. There's no closet 4.0 GPA, and I don't want to just turn into a categorical benchmark.

sGPA ~ 3.4, BS in BINF, 2009
cGPA ~ 3.6, downward trend, bad senior year.

MCAT > 32

several years EMS experience
~100 hours shadowing at local hospital
1 year out-of-school research.
Several summers/years of university research.

Also, for some reason, the applications demand my SAT score. Let's just say it's > 1400 for the 1600 SAT, and > 700 for the Writing SAT II when it was around. Who knows if it's still there?

2 years of applications, 1 interview per year, 1 waitlist 2nd year -> rejection

There's no major skeletons in my closet. No drug use, no arrests, not even a driving violation. No alcohol-related incidents, since I am a teetotaler.

All that pre-reading paid off!

I really felt like I knew sugars, because I was busy all weekend reading and highlighting old MNTS notes (2012 set is fan-tastic!).

Oop, class starting, short blog entry.

No Bagels for a Week

Apparently the bagel shop closes for a week in between semesters. That's unfortunate. I'm sure I can live that long without a bagel, though.

Anyways, since I still haven't gotten an apartment yet, I'm continuing my commute.

My commute takes me up Cabin John Pkwy to Clara Barton Pkwy, which is one of those weird roads in and out of DC that switches directions based on the hour. Luckily for you, it's built for getting into DC during the morning, and out during the evening. Traffic gets pretty bad, so I leave around 6:30-7 to avoid the rush, and have a nice, relaxing drive along the Potomac River. That gets me to campus around 7-7:30.

In terms of parking, it is expensive, but technically less so than living in an apartment, for those of you who are locals. You can easily Metro in to Rossyln and use GUTS to get to campus, but for those of you who like to go by your own schedule, there is the normal commute. I know a lot of people recommend the northern campus meters, which are literally 50 feet from the medical campus, but those work at 4 hours at a time and you have to move them after 4 hours theoretically or be towed/booted. Yeah. And it's DC, so those things definitely do happen.

The other alternative is to drive to the south side of campus, and enter around where 3801 Canal Rd would be. The Southwest Parking Garage is easy to spot. Parking here is $15 for a daily pass, or $3 an hour. In the afternoon, you can get a discounted rate if you're a student, ~$3 after 7PM, which lasts till 6AM the following day.

It takes about 10 minutes at a leisurely pace to go uphill from South Campus to North Campus, so it's not a long walk.

Parking at other areas on campus, like the hospital's 2 garages, costs $25, so if you think saving you 10 minutes of walking is worth $10, go ahead and do so.

One week to the test...

It's amazing to think about, but my test is next Monday, and then I have the final the week after that. Looking at my current material and comparing it to previous tests, I can see that the previous tests had a bunch of material on the citric acid cycle, none of wihch has been covered in lecture so far, or any time in the rest of the class. I'm not sure what to think of that...

Anyways, tomorrow looks to be a long day: Lecture from 9-11, then a 2 hour break, then lecture from 1-3, and problem solving workshop from 3-5.

Basically, the problem workshops are set up for various conceptual problems the lecturers assign to us. Most of them are a page to two pages of questions, focusing on mathematical calculations that normally require a calculator to do. Calculators aren't allowed on the exam, but the exam normally offers whole number answers easy operations like log(1/100) or simple numbers like 100mmols of 0.20M sodium hydroxide.

Each problem set covers a single set of topics, normally linking to medically and biologically related topics to establish a foundation. One such previous question which was of great consternation to many people was determining why the bicarbonate buffer system is so effective at maintaining a normal pH of 7.4 when none of the given pKas come anywhere close to that value. These problem sets make you think and understand the concepts. It is recommended (read: required) that you do the problem sets before the workshop. In most cases, the problems won't take more than an hour to complete, and if you're stuck, you can always phone a friend or check previous years' MNTS to see if the problems have been done before. In most cases, the workshop should only take about an hour, but the extra hour is provided just in case you need it. I wouldn't say you'd need to go to a workshop if you already know how to do the questions and master them, but if you're a bit wonky, it never hurts to get refreshed.

Well, today was another study day, as usual. I know people will be fishing around my blog, so if you need to contact me to ask me questions about the SMP, I'd be happy to answer at compass@studentdoctor.net

See you tomorrow!

Saturday is a day of work!

What can I say, I'm studying relatively efficiently on my weekend. Cracked my textbook open, started reading, and realized that a lot of this stuff really is supplementary to the lectures, and proceeded to skim through the information. I've gone back to my habit of making index cards for things I don't seem to remember and then cracking the entire index card box open to play recitation solitaire. I managed to get most of the problem workshop done, but life without a printer is pretty terrible, so I will probably pick up a cheap one tomorrow.

In regards to my AMCAS, this is for future applicants. If you submit your AMCAS and get into the SMP, you will not be able to add your classes directly to your primary application anymore. Make sure DEFINITELY to send either the adcoms office or mention in your secondary that you are in Georgetown's SMP program while waiting for secondaries, especially if the schools pre-screen.

One other study tactic I have been doing for the past three days is to simply print out one of the exams, find problems that I should know the answer to, and attempt to answer them. If I get them right, hurray, highlight the answer, move on. If I get them wrong, boo, highlight the number, and come back on another pass in a day.

Anyways, since today isn't a class day, I'd like to talk about MNTS a bit more. I mentioned a bit in passing but I thought I'd make it a bit clearer.

Basically, a student takes notes and diagrams and uploads them to BlackBoard for download about 1 or 2 days post-lecture, and delivers them to your mailbox. Furthermore, ALL of the previous years' MNTS are available for download, so if you need MNTS notes ASAP before then, you can go ahead and use slightly outdated but nevertheless high-quality notes. The MCP class has approximately 250 pages of MNTS notes, which is enough to fill a 3" binder. Printing them out 2 to a page is doable. If you really want to save paper, 4 per page is somewhat acceptable, but you're going to get eyestrain. Some of the MNTS notes are interspersed with humor and commentary, which can either be great or a bore depending on the day of the week. Another important point is that different people take MNTS notes, so depending on the quality of the note-taker, you may have an additional awesome study resource or great paper airplane material. For the most part, though, MNTS are pretty good.

Well, that's about it for my Saturday. Study, study, study!

Week One

Finished Problem Workshop 2, popped in to say high and talk application stuff with my team leader, and commuted home early.

What a week.

It's hard to describe what I'm feeling right now. About this time last week, I had virtually lost all hope entering the SMP. Looking ahead, I know I have a final in 2 weeks. I know it's important that I learn everything and do well, and that this week is not a feature performance. I'm probably going to put in a good 20 hours of studying this weekend, because I know there's a lot of material ahead that I'm not prepared for. I know it sounds gunner-ish, but staring at the practice exams we have, I hardly recognize half the questions, and I have a bunch of questions I should know unanswered or answered incorrectly.

I can say right off the bat that the SMP is not a pushover. It's not hard to the point that you will be crying, but even with material you already know, you still need to spend time to review the material. In the past week, I've put in more studying in a week than I have probably ever done in my life. Surprisingly, it doesn't feel out of the ordinary. I never outgrew the slacker lifestyle in college, and that eventually led to my ruin.

looking at my two years of application scratches, I find it kind of interesting that I never took the post-acceptance lifestyle seriously. I'm not sure what I would have done if I had gotten into a medical school instead. I would probably have failed out and become a full-time emo.

Georgetown's SMP motivates students to do well by promising the top half of the class interviews. When I look around at my classmates, I do feel somewhat intimidated. A lot of classmates are from big-name schools like UPenn, U Cals, Stanford, Columbia, Wake Forest, and so on, and that certainly intimidates me. I'm from a state school, and a lesser-known one at that. Am I content with my sad excuse for a social life being eliminated? No, but I understand it's a sacrifice I'm going to have to make to do well.

Wow, I can't believe I wrote such a serious expose. I can't even take myself seriously half the time!

Hopefully, my studying will pay off. I didn't take classes seriously because they were so sparsely placed. The block scheduling could ironically be the thing that motivates me to study my ass off.

Fire!

I made it out of lecture okay. No, there was not an actual fire. I'll get to that in a few. We were talking about membrane constituents and membrane transport. Basically, transmembrane proteins, integral proteins, lipid-linked proteins, attaching the membrane, and then discussing RNA translation of proteins and then their associated transport into mediums like the ER and mitochondria via SRPs and chaperone proteins. Fun, fun, fun.

After buying the usual, I come back to find the fire alarm going off. It was solved in short order and I'm back to not panicking or standing around awkwardly because my backpack is heavy and my foot is dying.

One thing I'm sure people ask is: do you really study X hours a day? In college, it was probably X = 2. And I did OK. Not great, OK. Nowadays, X>=5. No joke. There was no magical weaning into studying. Day 1, I began studying 5 hours a day. Considering Day -2 to -365, I was working at a job, it's not like I had practice doing so. There's just so much material, it doesn't seem reasonable studying less than that. Take an hour to review each lecture's notes, spend half an hour re-reviewing previous notes, spend half an hour doing problems, and so on, and within 5 hours, you'll go "Wow, I just studied for 5 hours."

It's not a tough transition, at least for me. I didn't enroll here to party or play video games all day, and my study schedule reflects that. In the past, I'd play LOTS OF VIDEO GAMES. Lots being defined as I could probably go semi-pro and win some game tournaments locally.

Nowadays, I study, maybe sneak in a 5 minute break every now and then, but it's a big difference from 2 weeks ago when I could basically play video games all day if I had wanted to.

Studying just feels like a natural part of your schedule once you get here, I guess.

Patience

Just had our first patient panel. Learned a lot more about sickle cell factors, cause, analysis, and so on. *edited now that I've had more time, Saturday*

Basically, we had a doctor come in with one of his patients to discuss the onset of sickle cell disease, and then ask one of his patients, as well as a social worker, about the real-life issues regarding life with sickle-cell.

At one part of our discussion, "drug-seeking" was brought up. Drug-seeking, for those of you with little exposure to clinical/emergency work, is a type of activity where a patient seems to constantly come to an emergency room "read: frequent flyer" or complains of pain and then requests for a certain drug, such as morphine or Dilaudid. Often, patients will ask for said drug by name. Some patients are simply addicted to the drug and aren't actually suffering any sort of pain associated it. Our patient, on the other hand, had been treated for years with a variety of drugs and found that Dilaudid worked the best for her. When nurses/MDs are confronted with a direct request for a painkiller such as Dilaudid, a red flag is normally brought up regarding some sort of drug habit, which is unfortunate, because in some cases, like this one, it is actually warranted. It's an important concept to understand, especially for those of you guys going to family medicine.

It's nice to be able to view a patient's perspective once in a while. In the past, I have had patients that are so prevalent that even the staff tell me their name before I give it to them.

Well, that's enough about my experience! On to class!

Rainy Days

It's another day of rain and thunderstorms at Georgetown. There's a small lake at the construction site where they're constructing a new building. I'm really thinking about getting a locker simply to put an umbrella inside for emergency purposes. The bagel today for breakfast was fantastic. I've got a lecture in an hour and a patient panel after that. I'm relatively well-read up to speed, though I will be reviewing stuff for the next hour.

Squared away...

Stayed on campus till 9, studying and meeting up with other SMP students. There is A LOT OF MATERIAL. Also, my printer broke, so I can't print out notes. Oh, dear. The commute home was pretty bad. Car accidents and storm damage all along the commute, so I ended up driving in a completely dark part of town for half an hour.

Before architecture had to even be practical...

Our Pathways lecture got moved from New Research to LA4 at 1PM. It was then moved to C-105 1 MINUTE prior to the start of lecture. So we all rushed over to the new lecture hall. C-105 is not a pretty sight. The building its in is pretty old, so I guess it's temporary. The pipes and lights were all pretty shoddy.

That being said, lecture was about secondary applications. I'm already hard at work. It's sad that I've done over 60 secondaries in my not-so-short application life, and I'm still stuck in the rut.

Back to housing. Probably looking for a 1BR, since the roommate got lucky and found someone to rent out a bedroom. The commute's not bad, and I pay less for a month's parking than I do for a month of rent, so I guess I'm not in any sort of hurry to find my own place to live.

Mints

Got my first MNTS notes today post-class. This is an optional opt-out service that provides you notes that are taken by people who have previously taken the class. They are designed to be a very informal set of notes to accompany the note sets and PowerPoints. That being said, the new ones are usually delayed by a few days, so it doesn't help if you don't go to class. Apparently, jokes in the MNTS are popular.

Anyways, the last part of class wasn't so bad. We may have found another possible house, which opens up in 2 weeks, and are looking for 2 ringers. I have a Pathways class at 3PM, so I'm going to stay on campus until 8 to get some hardcore studying in.

Sickle Cel Shading

Much more awake now. Talked about Sickle Cell Anemia, causes, explanation, so on. Right up the genetics alley.

Pants have mostly dried off by now, though they still feel kinda cool and as such, somewhat uncomfortable. Stupid rain.

I really want an SMP t-shirt now.

I miss you, chocolate chip bagel...

Life without breakfast... argh... I was drifting in and out during that one about Hemoglobin, though I understand most of the structures. It's kind of weird looking at what you've written, and then go... WAIT, WHAT?

Totally not focused at the moment and wished there were some sort of way I could have gotten breakfast before the Atlantic Ocean fell on campus. 2 more hours of lecture before lunch.

Stormy Skies

Today's forecast is thunderstorms. Weather over my house turned south REALLY fast, and I'm glad I got out before the power went out, which it supposedly did. The sky's REALLY dark today. Imagine dusk/night sky at 8AM when it's normally sunny.

This was 5 minutes before the rain came...

Well, the front of my pants are soaked, but at least I brought an umbrella that kept the rest of me nice and dry.

What brings me to the lecture hall at 8AM in the morning? Well, one syllabus says 8AM, one says 9AM. At 745, it looks like I'm one of two people here. The only thing that came out okay was that I missed most of the storm on the walk over, and simply had to walk 200 feet through what Marylanders would call "flash floods" or 2" of standing water from backlog and poor irrigation. I guess next time I should consider learning how to go through the hospital to the medical school to avoid getting wet, but if the rain continues all day, it looks like I will have to camp out at the Lounge until 8PM.

Problem Solving Workshop 1

Back up to speed! Got most of the problems down after understanding the concepts. Just going to review tomorrow's lecture, today's notes, and perhaps hunt around for another apartment. I'm not really sure if I should avoid the late commute or stay on campus. I was proposed the option of Meh-tro to avoid traffic, but the past year for Meh-tro has been pretty dramatic, especially considering the accident that shut down service in Silver Spring, especially from the EMS side. That, coupled with rising prices and the poor schedules, makes me less willing to Meh-tro in and out of the District.

About PSW: Several questions are given, and using info from lecture, you can solve the problems beforehand. Then, you can check answers/learn anything that confuses you in the workshop. Very classic homework help/weekly review session.

Provides open-ended, discrete, and medically-related concepts. Not very challenging if you're up to date.

Black-jackpot!

I got Blackboard access and course access at around 11AM, during class, so I managed to get the problem sets and at least peruse them. Unfortunately, sending out e-mails takes up more time than managing this blog, so that's my first strike. Gotta look over as much of the problem set as possible. There's 7 questions and they're all styled in such a way as to require a calculator, so I'm doing mental math like crazy. I'm going to get a Graduate 15 at this rate with all the Taco Bell I'm consuming. Still looking for a place, probably going to stay on campus and study till 8. Class in half an hour, time to study.

Thermodynamite!

A review of thermo for the first part of lecture, then Kinetics and Catalysis.

I can't tell too easily, but it really does look like people area already starting to pass on lecture. What was a very packed lecture hall now looks half-empty. I'm not qualified to give a breakdown of med students vs. SMP students so I'd assume it's a shared "lack of burden..."

Well, there's not much to talk about regarding class since it is a review lecture, so instead I'll talk about my brand new note-taking pen.

Pilot FriXion is an erasable pen. Sort of. A lot of erasable pens in the past had cruddy ink that would gunk up and clutter. FriXion, on the other hand, doesn't have that gunky effect. It does have a runny effect and comes in as more of a dark gray than as a pure black pen that has a bit of an ink-pooling effect at the end of the stroke, but just using it, you can tell that the ink is of higher quality.

The end of the FriXion consists of a rubber nib. It's not really an eraser, and you won't erase any pencils with it. Using, IRONICALLY, thermodynamically sensitive ink, by using friction, you can make the ink DISAPPEAR. Entirely. It doesn't leave behind colored streaks if you put in a minor amount of effort into it. The only thing left behind is the imprint of the pen, and you can immediately write over it, making it less of a disappearing-ink method that prevents re-writing. They're a bit expensive, ~$3 for a pair, but I got a steal at 2 2-packs for the price of one pack. Win.

Parking is a nightmare...

At the Union again... there's a guy who looks like he's been here since yesterday... (read: sleepin' here...)

<_<

Anyways, it is apparently impossible to reach the south side of campus from the north side of campus without some sort of magical doodad. But apparently the road to campus is open, albiet it's one lane, in the south. That cost me about 25 minutes, which isn't too bad since class still doesn't start till 9.

Still no place to live... Sigh...

Got Blackboard access! Yesh!

But nooooo! There's no courses listed. Gotta get that fixed... Yeesh.

Mosquitos getting pretty bad. Found another one on my shin, and with the one currently on my forehead, this is pretty messed up. I put on some bug repellent. Hopefully that'll work today. Maybe it won't wear off in 100 steps, either.

Ah well, at least I worked a lot yesterday on my studies!

That's not a binder...

I still don't have access to BlackBoard, so I've been getting lectures from med students and friends. I think I already have ~100 pages in slides, problem sets, and generic notes. And I'm still missing Day 2's problem set. By the end of this class, my note set will be 400 pages long, apparently, unless I digitize stuff. I'm thinking about dropping my loose-leaf notebook, or at least turning it into a 50 page notepad, simply because it isn't as practical as either computer notes or scribblepoint handouts.

The good news, though, is that I've followed most of my schedule to the dot. I also FINALLY understood the Michaelis-Menten equation. I was pretty dumb to skip understanding the derivation, because apparently understanding that made everything so much easier.

Home, sweet, home!

Lecture ended early, so me and other prospective people went to check out the house. No one was home, and the realtor hasn't called back, but we did notice two cars in the back. :( Not sure if it's rented or not. Anyways, I'm home early simply to avoid the traffic. Since undergrad hasn't started yet, campus empties out very fast, especially north campus. I expect the food joints to hold out very late once all the UGs start rushing in.

The drive home is kinda nice. It's all local roads by the Potomac River and then I take a fun route to my house. Half an hour out of traffic isn't bad, but the fact that there's no lights on Clara Barton Parkway on the way home makes it extremely dangerous. There's some blind corners that are tough even in daylight because of all the hills and bumps.

Lecture's Done! GO Card Hunting Time!

Talked about protein modeling, right down my BINF alley. Fold.it is a monster program, and I basically learned folding from that. Also talked about sorting proteins by size using SDS PAGE and various forms of protein filtration. Lots of conceptual data, but nothing that was of major new interest, unfortunately. I understand that the hydrophobic parts are favored on the inside, and that folding a structure together is done in small steps towards the stable native state instead of all at once (like denaturing in Fold.it and refolding using auto-fold.

Getting my NETID set up and my GO card printed! Will check in class meeting. Hope I won't be randomly introduced to 180+ students, because I skipped orientation, though I do believe it is small-group meeting with team leaders. I'll probably be short on lunch time, so a bite of Taco Bell (-_- still miffed about cost) and then back to class.

Net-ready!

Just rushed out of class during the break. Got my netID and and Student ID number. GO Card here I come! Lecture was about Pri->Quat structure, which was much more attention-grabbing. Managed to get through it without problems, though a lot of the pictures at the end were more FYI and less to-be-tested on. Collagen deficiencies sure are dramatic :(

One more hour and then lunch time!

Zzz*Wha?

I noticed something in lecture. Those slides look familiar. Apparently, I already own Lehninger's textbook. Whoopsie! Thank goodness I didn't order it yet. Gotta find the book when I go home today. That being said, I really could have used some caffeine. I was drifting in and out since I didn't have any sort of writing capability. Muh. Two more hours of this. After that, a run to the SMP coordinator for my stuff.

Also, Sprint gets no service in the lecture hall. Would not recommend.

Also, secret website for learning amino acids!

Well, that was a fast 2 minute break. Back to lecture.

Mmm, bagels...

Currently taking a break at Uncommon Grounds, the coffee shop of Georgetown, apparently. Styled like a Starbucks. They have bagels! That being said, I was exploring campus and found the business school. What a feat of architecture. Haven't seen a building this impressive in months. I'll take pictures later, simply because it looks so grand, with all the green granite or whatever rock-like material leading to the upper floors.

The drive was pretty simple. Driving along the Potomac at 7AM is pretty relaxing. Sadly, the south entrance was closed for construction, so I had to drive all around the campus to the north side to find parking on the south side, then walk back to the north side. Price for parking today: $15 for a daily pass (Anything longer than 4 hours is $15...) It ain't cheap, but there's no other real way to get here unless I take local Metro, transfer at Dupont to Rossyln, and then the GUTS. After that nuttiness in Metro a few days ago, I'm pretty sure I'll pass on that for now.

Unfortunately, I won't be getting Blackboard (and as such, lecture notes) until noon at the earliest, so I'm going to have to take notes the boring style. Seriously... when I take notes in a notebook, it forms neat lines and meshes poorly with power points. When I take notes on slides, it comes out much more disorderly, but somehow makes more sense, because you have the slide it relates to and diagrams for it as well. Messily organized!

Yes... red pen... because I forgot my black pen...

Hopefully, I'll have my ID and everything squared away so that I can get PowerPoints again soon.

Anyways, I've got 3 hours of lecture today, 9-12, and then a class meeting at 1. If all goes well, I'll either go looking for a house from 2-3 or simply driving home and studying.

I'm up, I'm up!

As a native of the Washington, D.C., area, I know what traffic is. It sucks. Anyways, no house yet, so obviously I should start going early. A 6:30 exit will get me there by about 7:00, after which I will attempt to study for 2 hours before class starts at 9:00.

It sounds terrible, but I've been getting up at 6:30 for work commute for a year... Hopefully I'll have a house to live in by the end of the week.

Going to be sploiting the Amazon Prime Student for massive textbooks and supporting my favorite SDN bookstore!

A Long Day for Sure

Took a stroll the apartment. It's BIG. It's also VERY FAR. A good 1.5 miles uphill to it, and downhill to campus. It's a nice place, but it's SUPER EMPTY. As in, there's enough in there to have 6 people living comfortably if 2 people share each room, though there is only one bathroom. Walking Georgetown is nice, but I'm not sure if a 25 minute walk is really all that fun. Ugh, my feet hurt.

First Day of SMP, After-Action Report

Well, I just finished Pathways. Pathways is apparently a 1c course designed to teach study habits. 5 hours a day of studying. I think I can take that...

Anyways, SMP's program feels pretty nifty and chill. A lot of the med students and the SMP students sit together, so it's hard to tell who's in the grad and who's in the med. Currently working on a housing opportunity in a housing co-op community, not sure how that's going to work out, but it has a garage to eat my car.

The first three lectures, on the whole, aren't very deep. One of the lecturers used only textbook images, almost without text, which was surprisingly a lot easier to follow than I expected. Plenty of notes to study. I'm still without a log-in, so no lecture notes for tomorrow *ouch* which I'll have to pick up post-lecture. Tomorrow's a commute day. Gotta pick up the old silver Avalon and listen to that sweet, sweet, Elliot in the Morning on the commute in. Parking is a killer at $15, so the faster I move in, the better.

Post-class, I feel confident that I understand most of the material and should be able to get up to speed with a few hours of studying. I did notice, since I read the materials beforehand, that one of the objectives by the lecturers was NEVER discussed in class. Something about blood volume calculations. Luckily, it is in the notes, and I was able to pick up on that.

Haven't purchased textbooks yet. They are apparently on reserve at the library so I might simply use Amazon Prime and get all the books. Recommendations not listed: Gray's Anatomy, Netter's by Mulroney and Myers.

The community is just as I remembered it. Pretty open, easy walk. I'm not sure if I want to bring my bike, but it's apparently a 5 minute drive down.

Oh well. Studying for an hour or two and then checking the new place out. Then home and more studying.

Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to think...

The science of water. It's been a while, but I still think I've got it. Orgo, on the other hand... ugh...

Amido?! Amido?! What's an amido?! Other than that, still on the housing search. Getting ready for Pathways at 3PM. Going home is bummer because I'll have to unpack my main computer to work again, and I still don't have Blackboard access or an ID.

I guess I should also buy the textbooks, but they're heavy and I don't have a place to keep them today :(

$4?!

Compass is checking in after lunch. Forms are done, didn't get my ID card though, because I was added so late :(

That being said, found the food court. Taco Bell :)

Unfortunately, the $2 Meal Deals are $4 here. Lecture #2 was pretty fun. I liked the lecture a lot, and got to see a lot of the med campus today. Prepping for Lecture #3 at 1PM. Lots of learning about osmosis/water pressure/hydrostatic effects.

Won't have Blackboard access till tomorrow, so the only way for me to "Gambatte!" is to read the syllabus carefully. Not sure if I'm going to have a roof over my head, because Pathways is at 3PM, and my housing check is at 2:30 and is a 15 minute walk from campus :(

A New Beginning

Just got enrolled into Georgetown SMP. Pretty exciting considering I was accepted at the last minute on Friday. This blog is going to be less self-righteous and more Compass-like. That means irate sarcasm and blunt attempts at bad humor. The adventure begins. The unfiltered thoughts of Compass, coming from class, home, and wherever else I decide to blather with my keyboard.

That being said, just finished with my first lecture. Learned about osmosis, solutes, concentrations, and so on. Lecture's starting, so I'll be back soon.