Tequilla... it does a body good!
This is my second flu bug of the semester, if you can believe that. I had full on chills and fever to enhance my Cell Bio Final Exam taking experience. It was not a fun test! My head was swimming in a room, spinning with G-proteins and kinases. Dilerius, I finished and went straight back to Houston Hall, at 9:30pm, to meet Taner so we could study for a few hours of Bio. Walking to my car around 12:30am or so, Emily called me and said she and Ryan had a present for me. I was walking nearby to them, so they met me in front of the library with a big giant strawberry margheritta! Oh sweet love... it was delightful. Granted I was quite sick at the time, it was still like nectar from the Ivy League gods. The next morning I woke healed. My sore throat was gone. My head didn't pound. I could think straight and I couldn't stop smiling. In fact, I was giddy and laughing while I drove to go study again at 7:30am, I was so happy! All that was left is a horrible hacking cough, sexy voice and sniffles.
Tequilla... it does a body good!
Finals week has officially begun!
You know it's finals week when guys at either the local coffee house or crepery are treating girls to either food-art or crepe-ice cream creations! Chris, who works at Houston Hall here at Penn, has befriended Em and me. Here he is dropping off a massive treat for the two of us to share, while we take a little break. Ahh... finals! One exam down and four more to go.
Beautiful! Rollerblading along Kelly Dr
Yesterday, I went for an 8-mile rollerblading study break. It has been gorgeous outdoors. Every evening I fire up the grill, cook outside, and study on the back porch. So delightful!
Easter weekend was fun. I've been spending a lot of time with the girls. Movie night with Amanda, work-out night with Emily, beer with Stef and Brad, cook-out and dancing with Amanda, study day with Stef and then Easter dinner with Stef, Amanda and Taner at Aspen. Lots of socializing. Lots of studying. Finals start in one week!
I've been offered more work at my job. Instead of teaching two courses: grammar and literature, I have also been offered to teach a class on introductory computer use and also an earth science course. This summer I will be studying Immunobiology. I haven't decided yet exactly what to do, but by the end of the day I will make a choice. It is sounding like a fun but busy summer!
Bar-b-que a la Casa Ogden
Here's my little gathering of the nerds! What a lovely day... wow... perfect weather. Good food. Great friends. It was fun! We must do more of it once the semester ends. Menu: chicken and veggie kabobs done up in Soy-Vey (if you haven't tried it, you must), grilled cajun catfish, Marlborough region Sauv Blanc (yum!), beer (of course) and fresh whipped cream with strawberries by Miss Amanda. Now, there's a girl you can always count on for dessert and good times! The most important qualities in a friend, right?
We had a few flake outs, as usual but there seems to be a general coallescence of people. I think this summer we'll be ready for
one hell of a party!
Biology professor drinks urine, in front of class!
Undoubtedly, this class has been the greatest source of entertainment for me. All during our Osmoregularity and Kidney lecture yesterday, there was a
mystery bottle sitting next to Dr. W's computer. Immediately, my fear was that she brought a bottle of urine to class with her. It was the right color. There was no label on the clear, plastic bottle. Asking my classmates around me, we all comforted one another with the hope that it was really apple juice that she brought to quench her throat during lecture. No such luck!
At the end of lecture, Dr. W shared a bet she made with her husband, that she would have their son potty-trained the Chinese way by age 1. He said it was impossible and she agreed that she would drink urine in front of her Biology students if she was wrong. Well, she lost the bet!
Dr W unscrewed the bottle and put it up to her lips. At this point I turned around to see everyone's facial expressions in the lecture hall. PRICELESS! I wish I had a camera. She took three little sips and explained that urine is non-toxic and drinking it is one method to keep yourself hydrated in the desert.
The rest of the day, students were discussing whether she made-up the whole potty-training story, just so she could trick us into thinking she drank urine for us. She is quirky, but not out to impress us by doing crazy things. We decided that if it was anyone other than Dr. W, it would probably be a prank. But, considering the stories we've heard all semester about catching frogs first thing in the morning to feed to the ducks, pulling leeches off their legs after harvesting rice, hanging frozen snakes in their windows as curtains during the winter and loads of other bizarre stories, I am pretty confident that she indeed stood in front of us and in fact,
drank urine.
WARNING: Arm wrestling causes blood presure to rise
Yeah... you thought I was kidding. There's me overlooking, as my TA Rich armwrestles Taner.
My midterm exam grade's are rolling in this week. First one is a 92.3% on my Visual Neuroscience exam. Nice! I decided to fax a page of the exam to Dr. B (the retina specialist I worked with), since the first 12pt question pertained to the retina... he sent me a text message today that said, "neurobio looks like med school level". We had a nice chat last night about life after med school. I told him how much I miss it out there in CA and that I am curious what is my best ticket to get back out there. For me, quality of life is not the size of my paycheck, but my satisfaction with
life itself. If you know me at all you know what the things are that I miss the most when I get too busy... hot springs, camping, rock climbing, exploring, photography, socializing, enjoying the world, etc. What if I were to consider OD school at Berkeley? His feedback was enthusiastically rooting for medical school and he successfully fired me up for it, even if it is on the East Coast.
Hey everybody! I haven't changed much...
My last round of midterms is complete. I think I did pretty well. Stress is low. Life is good. But as usual, my heart is aching for San Francisco. My Philly-friend is visiting SF now and he asked what he could bring back for me... I requested a sea lion and super chicken burrito from El Castilito on Church Street. We'll see what he finagles!
This week, my computer died. I mean D-I-E-D! It won't even go to the start-up page. Not even into Safe Mode. Someone from the geekforce is coming on Monday to fix it. Expensive! It will probably cost more than $100. Unfortunatly, I couldn't come up with any free options I trust, here in Philly. Another reason to miss SF! I felt very well connected there. But I am working on it.
Socially, I've been getting out a fair bit. Meeting a lot of new people. It must be the influence of spring time. The trees are in bloom here and they are really spectacular! I keep meaning to take pictues of them, but they're sort of better for looking at than photographing. Maybe with a polarizer and a deep blue sky behind!
Today, in our 6 hours of biology, we studied the digestive tract, muscle, we arm wrestled (yes, that's right), took each others' blood pressure and heart rate. Realizing that my heart rate is always much faster than everyone else's (100/bpm resting compared to 60/bpm for others), I can't help but wonder why. Last year, I had a chest xray because of mysterious, scary heart palpitations and the doctors asked me if I had an eating disorder (?! hardly), because my heart is on the small side. A small heart... me?! I was almost offended. ;) Daniel nicknamed me "Wee Heart" from then on. But I figured that is why my pulse is so much faster. Lastly, in class we dissected a sheep heart. After all that, I was compelled to go to the gym and vent a little bit. It was a long day!
I woke myself this morning, laughing in my sleep, again. I love that I do that! The dream was cryptic and didn't make any sense at all, but I found it very funny in my sleep. Usually, I don't catch myself doing this. People have told me about it before. I've never known anyone to laugh in their sleep!
in a hushed voice-- Though I have listened to friends complain bitterly about men in their sleep before! It has happened more than once (different people). I am not even kidding! I wasn't sure if I should wake them up and talk it out, or let them sort it out in their sleep. I figured it was best to leave that alone!
Tomorrow, I am having classmates over for a cook-out. It's just people from my bio class. We'll see how many people show. Generally these things have pretty poor turn outs! There's a physics exam people are prepping for. I don't envy them!
