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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!