Something tells me this isn't pertinent in college

"There are dozens of studies demonstrating that well dressed people
are perceived as being more attractive, more likeable, and more
organized. We would expect that. But, the studies also show that
well dressed people are rated more highly on a variety of other
completely unrelated traits like being more competent, more caring,
and more trustworthy."

-Dress for the Job You Want


G told me that at her interview for PHPCP, some people wore casual clothing or even jeans (gasp!). I had insisted--maybe even demanded--that she wear a black suit. Today at my colloquium we talked about interviews. The director of my program pointed out the importance of formal wear in situations where appearances make or break an applicant. Our colloquium classmates (many of whom are on the PHPCP interview and admissions committee) snickered at the misfortune of those with poor interview etiquette. I'm guessing they weren't admitted.


Even though I've passed my job interview test (yes, I wore a suit!), now I'm buying dress clothes for starting work.

Exciting changes

I thought that 2011 was full of changes, but it seems that 2012 has more!


For one, I'm starting work as a medical assistant next week. My first paid job in 4 years! Not including substitute Chinese school teaching that I do on the down low. I've not felt this pressure to perform in a long time--not even at the ED, where lives are in peril but my main duties only supplement the real life savers. Ah! What if they fire me? I am getting ahead of myself.


My postbac program ends in a few weeks. I'm jealous of all of the Cal kids whose FB statuses said something to the effect of "Whoo hoo! Last class ever!" because unlike them, I don't have a dead week. That's right baby, school until May 10! Also, my finals are during Cal graduations. So be grateful if I come to yours...haha just kidding. But not really.


I've been preparing my med school applications since the beginning of the semester. Sometimes that looks like thinking about potential essay/interview questions in the shower. Sometimes it means marking on my (private) Google calendar the times and dates that I'll be harassing professors for letters of rec. I've even started dreaming of these things...


I discovered the SFSU swimming pool the other day. It made me miss Hearst, big time. I'm not sure if it was just having an off day, but the water was murky and the smell of fish lingered in my nostrils for hours afterward. Oh well! It's been fun figuring out new ways to stay fit with no gym membership. No peer pressure = more self discipline.


I'm finally leaving the happy school bubble after 5 years, hopefully to return in another year. I'll let you know how it goes! Stay tuned.

Medical Microbiology and...me.

Taking medical microbiology through my Pre-Health Professions Certification Program has been an extremely interesting experience. It's so cool to be able to pull out my tube of Neosporin and know how the mechanism of its active ingredients work! I can examine my mom's prescription of amoxicillin (she is recovering from bronchitis) and imagine the microscopic peptidoglycan destruction. I can check the drugs in the IV poles in the ED and tsk-tsk in my head when I see that vancomycin, the so-called "drug of last resort" is being funneled almost nonchalantly into any and every patient's veins, thereby increasing risk of antibiotic-resistance....anyways. 


The drawback is that this knowledge has made me much more germaphobic, if that's even possible. There are people who when, in a public restroom, dispense paper towels prior to washing their hands so as to not touch the dispenser handle, and then use their wrists or elbows to turn off the water. And then there's me. Not only do I do that funny public restroom dance, in college, I carried around a travel-sized canister of Lysol and disinfected my pens after using them. I also routinely wiped down all contact surfaces in my apartment like door handles, light switches, computer keyboards, microwave buttons, and oven knobs. I'd sooner lean against a handrail on the bus than touch it with my hands, and I never, ever get under my clean bedsheets wearing my street clothes. That's just gross...Sorry if you do that (also sorry to your future spouse). 


Okay so I'm kind of a freak. Sigh. And I know it's not always possible to maintain proper personal hygiene in all scenarios in life. Just saying, it's an important life lesson that is worth learning. Especially in the healthcare field.


Although I take so many precautions in everyday life, learning about mechanisms of infection has seeded in me fears of rarer diseases like tetanus, necrotizing fasciitis (the "flesh-eating disease"), gas gangrene, and botulism. What if I'm unknowingly eating an improperly canned food, and the heat-labile botulism A-B neurotoxin causes in me respiratory failure? What if I get a deep cut when I'm cutting vegetables for dinner, and then C. perfringens invades my tissues, and then I'll have to get a limb amputated? These errant thoughts are kind of ridiculous, but I live under the mantra that anything can happen at any moment.


Okay, back to studying. My final is on Wednesday. It's nowhere near as intense as a Berkeley exam, but I need to study nonetheless.

A day in the life

7:30am--Alarm sounds. Leap out from under three covers for my morning regimen. It's top secret.

7:53am--Put fresh grounds and water in the coffee maker.

7:54am--Pop a scone in the oven. Brush with a little milk and sprinkle with a little sugar  first.

7:55am--Review Microbiology and ponder why the professor is out to get us when everyone has the same goal.

8:08am--Scone is ready! Ding! (imaginary)

8:12am--Eat scone. Drink coffee. Bask in contentedness.

8:43am--Head out the door with Professor Dad. We carpool now because parking at SFSU is a nightmare (one of my classmates drives to school at 6:30am just to get a spot! Our class starts at 11am! He sleeps in the car.)

8:54am--All parked. Prof Dad heads in one direction, and I take five flights of steps and a hop, skip, and jump down to the Library Annex. It's a temporary library (hence the 'annex') that looks like a warehouse.

9:00am--I set out my laptop. Its name is Comptutey. As in, comp-too-tee. Because it's my second laptop since Computey went out of commission. (Is anyone going to ask when I got so punny?)

9:02am--I read my emails.

9:10am--I crack open my Organic Chemistry review book. Man. This stuff doesn't come easily to me anymore.

9:15am--I need me some Pandora radio. My channel is a mix of Regina Spektor, Sara Bareilles, John Mayer, A Fine Frenzy, and Rachel Yamagata.

9:22am--Okay I'm going to get some real work done now, bye!

This is going to take some getting used to

Smallest lecture I ever took at Berkeley: Slavic 50. Enrollment of about forty students.
Smallest science lecture I ever took at Berkeley: Human Genetics IB 141, over the summer, with 141 students (see what the professor did there?).
Smallest non-summer science lecture I ever took at Berkeley: I don't know, they all had 300+ students. All of them.


Right now, my Medical Microbiology class is 18 students. Eighteen. 1-8. Six more than one dozen. Two less than twenty. This means a number of things!

Life lately has been decidedly homely and antisocial.

The instant my parents came back from their vacation in China, my housewife duties disappeared. I no longer wake up at 6:45am to drive my little brother to school. In fact, I no longer drive myself to school, or anywhere, actually. I am currently car-less, but car-shopping. Anyways, it's all very immobilizing and strange.

When I get home, I read blogs. I've recently started using Google Reader! I love it! I don't cook dinner. I watch So You Think You Can Dance and MasterChef. I don't do laundry. I take a nap. I don't drive Calvin to viola practice. It's like I have no responsibilities at all! Except studying. Ah, to be a proper student.

The antisocial part comes from me being a flake lately. Plenty of exciting, fun things have been happening, but I just haven't felt like going out for the last ten days. Is that okay? I think it will pass soon. I'm already starting to yearn for the outside world.

On that note, I usually have Thursdays completely free, and no one to call. All of my friends have jobs. If you are unemployed or feel like ditching something, please call me next Thursday. It's been a while since I've baked anything. You can come over to my home and we can bake together. Or I can bake and you can wash my dishes. Or you can bake and wash my dishes and I'll just browse a Macys catalogue.

Now, I will end with ten random things about me.

1. I've been sitting in this chair at this cafe table for almost two hours without getting up.
2. I hate mushy peaches. I'm eating one right now, unfortunately.
3. My bookmarks are gmail, Regen Sunday pocasts, Joy The Baker, this blog, and Multiplayer Set.
4. I'm kind of over Set, so I should probably take that last one off.
5. I've never driven faster than 65 mph, over any toll bridges, or farther than a 15-mile radius of my home.
6. I currently manage six email accounts--personal, school, and work. If I had a smart phone, I'd constantly be checking my email.
7. I like the smell of ball point pen ink.
8. I've been told I have a RBF. Look it up if you don't know what that means.
9. I like packaging things nicely, if I can help it. I went through a phase a few years ago where I spent more money on wrapping paper, ribbons, tissue paper, and stickers than on food.
10. I registered for a Princeton Review MCAT course. PRO: it's at SFSU. CONS: It's MTWTh every evening from Fall to Winter. Whee.

Lonely Summer

Every morning as soon as I get out of my car, I look forward to darting back into it eight hours later and driving home. I think about my comfy bed, my desk nook to spend hours on my computer, my yoga mat in the living room, my books next to my lamp. I think about cooking dinner and watching Good Eats with my little brother. I sit in lecture and later in lab, wishing I could be outside doing something else, not that a foggy summer in San Francisco is good for that kind of thing.

PHPCP just isn't like undergrad. There are 20 people in my program, and I'm sure that we'll get to know each other well over the course of the next year. But right now, I'm not here to make friends. I leave for the student center right after class, whip out my laptop from my heavy commuter backpack, and do things like, I don't know, blog. I munch on carrots and cucumbers and dried mangoes and drink coffee (yes, it's been the same everyday for the last week and a half). I have three hours in between lecture and lab, but I don't go home because I don't want to have to find parking twice in the same day. Then I head to lab and do experiments and try to be social with my lab partner. I get antsy around 4pm, and start thinking about all of those things I listed in the first paragraph of this blog. The last half hour is always the hardest to get through, because I'm usually done with the work, but our instructor keeps us there for the full 3 hours. Then I go home, change into comfy clothing, do homework, gchat, read books, and sometimes go on a run if it's not fifty degrees out. Repeat on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Tuesdays, I volunteer at The Hospital. Thursdays, I do nothing. Yes. Nothing.

Eight and a half weeks left.

I blame the fog, just kidding.

On my first day to PHPCP at SFSU (how's that for an acronym?) I definitely missed the street I was supposed to turn into.

So, I kept driving through some construction around campus. Lots of roads were blocked off, had signs up, or were re-routed. Great.

Then, I followed a long, windy, single-lane road through trees. I felt like I was on my way to Fall Con.

I'm pretty sure I ignored a sign that said "Authorized Vehicles Only" and kept driving.

More construction. People in hard hats stared. Nothing to see here, just a girl in a silver Accord.

Then, I came to a clearing next to some buildings, where the only outlet was blocked by metal poles. I could see cars a couple hedges over, and wondered how I managed to get so lost.

I backed up, merged right down a little lane, and drove between narrow hedges where a gardener looked at me suspiciously.

I rolled down my window, asked if there was any way I could get out. He said No, you aren't supposed to be here in any way, shape, or form.

Then, I apologized profusely, batted my eyelashes, and then he said, Let me take out the pole for you.

I followed him in my car, he took out the pole, I drove through, and all of a sudden I was on State Ave--the street I was supposed to turn into this whole time.

Then, I found a spot in the empty faculty parking lot because I have a permit for such (thanks, Dad).

I walked to class, sat down, and said to the girl next to me, "Man, finding parking is hard around here."

All before 7:00 AM.

The entire time, it never occurred to me to turn around. Not that one-lane roads really allow that kind of thing.

I've replayed this scenario in my head probably two dozen times during my first lecture. Thank you God for providing me with that nice gardener, who probably wondered how in the world I managed to get myself in that location. I'm still wondering myself.