the poster is done!

ok, so i finally got this AED poster done, and it looks pretty good. its just going to be nice to get everything looking legit. plus the old signs had some drippy stains on them and tape residue. so anyway, i'm excited about it. they should be done on monday or tuesday and we can get them up to advertise the dean of admissions lecture from the med school that is on the 9th. i have a bio lab at that time so i can't go, which really bugs. i'm trying to see if we can work out a webcast or something. its on writing personal statements for your application, so i really want to see it. they'll do it next year, so i guess i won't die if i don't get to see it, but still...

i'm actually really enjoying my bio lab. at least the microscopy part. i want to get a microscope so i can show the kids what i've been looking at. i'll attach a picture of Volvox to this blog so everyone can see what i'm seeing, but it's pretty amazing. the part that sucks is drawing everything into our lab notebook. we have our first exam on tuesday, and there is only one more for the semester, so if we do bad on one, the whole semester is shot. we've looked at like 100 different organisms and can be tested on any of them, so its a little stressful, and is supposed to take like 2 or 3 hours. so i'll look forward to that.

i got done organizing the basement at the cancer center this week. it felt good to just throw away huge trash cans full of old junk and boxes. the problem is that i'm done now, so i'm on to the next assignment. so it looks like i'm going to be making some flags for an upcoming event. i guess i'm going to be learning to sew on wednesday so i can sew these flags together. so apparently i'm like a little elderly woman to them. whatever.

also, i feel like i'm venting a little, but what is up with the girls with all the makeup and hair and crazy clothes? i saw a girl in the computer lab at 7:30 fully done up. she had to have been awake by like 4:00 am to get all done and to school by that time. why oh why? just put on some sweats and a hat. they are trying so hard. or there are the guys that walk around in the middle of a snowstorm in shorts and a t-shirt. i'll still think you're tough if you put a coat on. i'm just so glad i'm 34 and married, and i just go to class and the library and study. i don't have to worry about all these other games that everyone else has to play. its kind of why i grow my beard out, so i can look like the crazy old guy who lives in a box and no one will talk to me. so far so good.

don't people have jobs?

i find myself getting very annoyed at different people. my patience for idiots is really in short supply these days. the group i will focus on now are the computer lab rats. i get so annoyed when i need to get on a computer and there are none available because everyone is on facebook or chatting with girls in singapore. anyway, there are 3 guys in the downstairs computer lab who are like 50 plus, and they seriously get there by like 7:30 in the morning and are there until like 6:30 at night and all they do is check email and watch tv shows and movies on the computer. ALL DAY LONG!!! the worst one is this guy, who actually brings a bag full of food and drinks and just camps out all the live long day. there is this cloud of smell like old cheese around him, and i just find myself getting mad every day that i see him.

human peacock

this almost makes me mad.

brain fry

why do i do this to myself. i will spend 3 hours on one problem, just so i don't miss something on homework. technically it doesn't count for much, but i guess i justify it because i'm trying to understand the concept. but when you're doing the 4th derivative of tanx and the answer is , and you're trying to enter that into the computer, it really makes me question my life. why can't my teacher just put problems on the homework that have to do with stuff that he's actually taught us. i mean he actually wants us to learn this stuff, and apply it, and take it to the next level? what's wrong with this guy. he's actually kind of funny. he's german, never combs his hair, wears 10 different color versions of the same sweatshirt, and says words like "exceedingly." but he also may be one of my favorite teachers. i never find myself looking at my watch in his class. spacibo herr alfeld.

today has just been frustrating, with feeling like i'm not getting calculus as much as i want to, to just being busy, to having more on my plate with AED (i get to design posters now that will be used to advertise special events), it's just whipped my little brain into a thick, creamy paste. then i take that frustration home with me and put it on my wife and kids. luckily they don't let me wallow in my self pity for long, and we end up having a gay old time, but still...lame. most of the time, i love school, but every once in a while, i have a day like this where the whole process just seems like it's never going to end. i'm such a baby, i need a glass of warm milk.

public transportation

ok, so i actually spend about 3 hours a day on public transportation. it's just another place for me to study, but i am constantly reminded that other peoples lives are very different from my own. i have interesting experiences almost daily. here are a few:

one of my bus drivers must have been a gymnast in his younger years. he is about 65 years old, and everyday, before the bus leaves, he starts hanging from the hand bars on the ceiling. after a minute, he'll slowly rotate around until he's upside down. then he'll slowly rotate one way, and then back the other way, do a full dismount, and then sit in his chair and we drive away. he doesn't even crack a smile.

one guy pulled out a fiddle and played three songs.

a drunk guy, last night, got mad at me because i wouldn't go hunt sasquatch with him

there is a guy from africa, who just sits on his cell phone and laughs for an hour straight. every time i see him.

there is a massive guy who smells funny, who is always on my bus. one day his coat touched my lip. i dry heaved and spent the next 45 minutes on the bus with my lips stuck out until i could wash them.

i noticed a guy get on and asked myself why someone would dress the way he does. really awkward. so i kept my eye on this guy, and saw him watching a girl across the way from him. after about 5 minutes, he proceeded to pull out his cell phone and inconspicuously (so he thought), take pictures of the girl so he could take them home with him and put in his serial killer scrapbook.

a guy got on with this funky bike that has a hinge on it so that it can fold in half for storage. he was so proud of it and kept talking to this guy about it. instead of just keeping it on two wheels, he insisted on taking advantage of the folding mechanism, which results in it only resting on one wheel. he couldn't balance it and it kept falling over. finally he got to his stop, but couldn't get his stupid bike hinged back up and ended up missing his stop.

there are countless others, in addition to the standard drunks, stoners, shower-o-phobes, hot and heavy teenage couples, people who don't understand personal space, people who don't understand that other people don't want to hear their loud conversations about their favorite dish at chuck-o-rama, and all the other colors of the rainbow that i see on a daily basis. i'll keep you updated.

I need sleep

okay, so just a disclaimer: for those not in the know, i don't capitalize or use a lot of punctuation, and i don't intend to start now.

so i've decided to start a blog to catalog the adventures (or misadventures) of a non-traditional, mid-thirties premed student, with a wife and four kids. this is something that doesn't happen to most people, and something i actually feel very privileged to be a part of. at 34, soon to be 35, who gets the opportunity to learn biology, and chemistry, and calculus. i used to worry about when my kids would bring home math homework, about not being able to help them. i don't worry about that anymore. instead i worry about being home to help them with it. and that is the hardest part about what i'm doing. i miss my family. i used to be in my underwear, all day, with my kids coming down and bugging me in my office, and hearing them jump from the kitchen counter and having the lights shake in my office as they would crash on to the floor. now, i'm settling for conversations via skype in the morning and at night, on particularly long days.

just for the record, this is my general schedule:

wake up: 5:20am

catch bus: 6:07am

study on bus: 6:07am-7:15am

study at library: 7:30am-9:30am

classes and study: 9:30am-6:45pm (or 9:30am-8:45pm tuesday and wednesday)

catch train and study all the way home: 6:45pm-8:30pm (or 8:45pm-10:30pm T and W)

when i get home, its like a little vacation every night. if the kids are up, i play with them and hear countless stories about all the important things in their days. we read scriptures and say family prayers, and they are off to bed. if they are already asleep, the best i get is a half-conscious "hey dad" and a not great smelling kiss. but i'll take it. then my wife and i get some time together. finally. the late night meals are not ideal, but its all we can do. that is my prized time, just laying on the couch, watching our favorite shows, pausing every five minutes to analyze "survivor" strategy, or for me to tell her some uninteresting story about school, that i can tell is making her eyes glaze over. she's got plenty of those same stories too. sometimes we pretend we're interested, sometimes we don't. we're honest like that. but that's what all this time away gives me: an appreciation of what i have.

so here's what i have: an eight year old minivan, and a '64 chevy impala. we love our cars, and don't need anything more. our '08 gmc yukon xl, is a distant memory (even the black rims). why did we need all that? who knows. we spilled a can of paint in the back of the minivan and didn't even blink an eye. its just a funny, thick, black, messy memory. we live in a basement of my parents second home in highland. somehow we crammed all of our stuff in this tiny space. and it fit. it's our home. and again, why did we ever need anything more. of course, anyone takes a dump, and we all feel it. and we're never far enough away when grandma starts cooking broccoli, but its all part of the experience. brooke, the other day, asked grandma if she could bring her up some dinner, to which she replied, "only if it's healthy and nutritious." sometimes i get flashes of the movie "duplex" in my head with her (you'll have to see the movie), and then she does things like sew up my 40 year old coat that i stole from my dad, and that softens me up again. but she keeps us laughing.

so most of the time i'll just write a quick review of what's been going on in my day, but for now i'm trying to play a little catch up. so quick catch up: last semester was my first semester, and i took biology, chem prep, college algebra and trig. i ended up with a 4.0, including highest in my class in algebra and trig. who knew i'd be good at math. i was really nervous. but school is the easy part. the hard part is all of the extracurricular stuff that you are expected to do as a premed. you need community service, patient care experience, research, leadership, and physician shadowing. so last semester i began working at the ER. its pretty trivial work. i pass out blankets to the patients and take patients to and from scans. but it exposes me to life in the hospital, and it's really interesting. i try to keep busy, so i've invented a lot of things to do there, and have got to peek in on a couple of traumas. it seems like an eternity until i'll actually be doing this kind of stuff. but if i ever get down on myself, a warm blanket is always close by to comfort me. at the end of the semester, i discovered the cancer wellness house, where i'm now doing community service. mostly handyman stuff and organizing. they need it. but i get to kind of be alone with my thoughts and make things better than i found them, so i love it. plus its about a five block walk down through some old homes, so i enjoy the time away from campus. campus is beautiful, by the way, with lots of trees and old buildings.

so this semester, i'm in biology evolution, gen chem I, and calculus. so far things are going well, i got 100 percent on all of my first exams, so i'm well on my way to my next 4.0. if i don't pass out from exhaustion first. yesterday, i went to an interview for a research opportunity at the huntsman cancer institute. my friend dustin referred me to one of his buddies from grad school. he was hesitant at first, about hiring an undergrad, with little to know lab experience. but we started talking and he found out that i had paid attention in my classes, and started to warm up. he told me he was starting some research on MS, which is obviously close to my heart, and when i told him my dad has MS, he got really interested. he wants someone he can train and then set loose to do his own work. thats exactly what i want. i don't want to be someone's lab rat, i want to do my own project, discover things, get published. i felt really good about this meeting, and can't wait to get started. i was talking to myself, laughing, punching the air...all the way to the bus stop. great meeting. of course this means more time out of my schedule. i'm probably going to have to start studying on saturdays now. but this is what i have to do. but i'll be doing that probably 8 to 10 hours a week, with ER 4 hours a week, and cancer wellness house 2 hours a week. i'll probably be a TA next semester which is another 8 hours a week. in addition to that, i'm becoming involved in AED, the premed honors society, and am the new VP of public relations. designing flyers, posters, recruiting, events... lots of extra work, and the student advisor wants me to run for Vice President of the charter at the end of the semester and then be president the next year. its good for the resume, so i'm sure i'll do it. i don't know how i'll fit it all in and still have time to study and be with my family, but as i'm discovering, a way always presents itself.

so anyway, as this blog title suggests, i'm tired. i almost passed out on the bus earlier this week. i don't know what that was, but i'm sure sleep played a factor. brookie and i stayed up too late last night (11:45), so 5:20 came way too soon. but the weekend is upon me. only a couple classes and a few dozen warm blankets stands in the way of me and my family for a two day mini-vacation. can't wait.