Dinner was very fun. Casey's dad is super-nice and quite funny. And this unforgettable exchange:

Danielle: I don't really watch TV.
Waiter (overhearing): You don't watch TV???
Danielle: No...
Casey's Dad: It's un-American, isn't it?
Waiter: Go back to Canada. (walks away)

And then, "Fish don't have wings do they? They only have wings in Canada."

I'm sure those are very you-had-to-be-there moments, but they were great.

My roommate brought out the MCAT books today. That sucks, so badly. Having to retake it sucks. Then, when scores were released she had to see my celebration. I didn't fall facedown on the floor and weep with joy, as some people did. But there may have been some shouting involving the words "thirty," "six" and "bitches." And there were phone calls. And that shit-eating grin I mentioned in a previous entry. If I were her, I would have slapped me in the face.

The coming week is going to be amazingly productive. No it's not. I don't know why I even bother to say that anymore.

Kaniksha, Danielle, and I went to the Olive Garden tonight, to celebrate our victory against the MCAT. Those with good memories might remember that there was a trip to Olive Garden the evening of the MCAT, so it was like coming full circle. Back in April, we were happy that it was over, but uncertain of exactly how things would turn out. Tonight, we were happy about our scores, but...we still haven't gotten in anywhere yet. But that's a worry for later. MCAT night, I had shrimp and crab ravioli. I almost got the same thing tonight, but decided to be wild and crazy and go for something different. Mmmm, shrimp and crab cannelloni.

During dinner, the conversation turned to a topic that actually has me pretty excited. That is, the graduation hat toss. Baton Rouge High's graduation was all formal and stiff and "has been held in the same hallowed chamber for the past million years" blah. Obviously, I didn't get a hat toss then. I was okay with that, but I decided that when college ended, my cap was going to enter low earth orbit. Watching this year's ceremony, I saw a problem. Only a handful of hats got chucked into the air, from what I could see. That must change. And so, Operation Hat Toss begins. I'm not sure how exactly I'm going to get the entire class of 2006 to buy into this. But on May 15, 2006, the sky will darken with 1000+ flying hats. You heard it here first.

Soooo, I finally saw "Garden State" last night. (In fact, it was from in front of the TV that I sprinted when word came that scores were up.) I didn't really like it that much! Does that make me a bad Millennial? I certainly wouldn't call it the greatest movie ever. Of course, it probably suffered from what I call the "Finding Nemo" effect. I don't like going to movie theaters, so I hardly ever see movies until they've been out on DVD for a while. That means I've heard people raving about how wonderful the movie is for so long, I've built up an inflated idea of its greatness. Or it could just be that I have an odd taste in movies, I dunno. Anyway, Zach Braff staring blankly for two hours. "I'm numb, I've never felt anything." Whoop-de-doo. Apparently the appeal of the movie was how it was just "real" and "not really about anything." If I want real and not about anything, I've got my own life for that. I watch movies to be entertained.

Worst of all, the parts that were supposedly funny were too...stuck in there just for the gag. The wallpaper thing, the doctor with a diploma on the ceiling...that stuff would have been hilarious had it logically followed some sort of set up. The one part that made me actually laugh out loud was the clapper bit. Because it made sense in the context of what was going on at the time. (Maybe it's the stand-up comedian in me that makes me believe punch lines should have set ups.) Other than that, the single high point of the movie was hearing the opening whistling of "Caring is Creepy," which made me smile because I just really, really like that song.

Well, that's enough negativity for today. It's not even 10am (already in the lab, thank you very much!), and I have definitely surpassed my shit-eating-grin quota for the day. See my userpic? Imagine that, only less caught-while-laughing jubilance and more relieved smirk. Whooo! Now I've got to finish my AMCAS app for real, and seriously reexamine my list of schools. But not right now. For now, I do statistical thermodynamics.

My headphones started to die this morning, so I immediately went and got new ones. They are supposedly "urban" or "street style" or something. All I know is, they are ugly as sin. But they will have to do, because I must have my music. Right now the urban street style headphones are enabling me to enjoy the tunes of John Mellencamp. Awww yeah. I'm so hip.

This John Mellencamp CD is bringing me flashbacks of MCAT studying. Today was supposed to be the day, but it was switched to tomorrow. In honor of whenever the armageddon that is score releases actually happens, I would like to recognize a few of the songs that got me through some crazy long study sessions. These weren't the only songs I listened to, but I know I had each one of these on repeat for at least a whole day. That's a day each. I'm so obsessive. So here's to the songs I listened to for hours and hours and hours on end.

John Mellencamp: "Check it Out" and "Hurts so Good"
Taking Back Sunday: "Little Devotional" and "Great Romances of the 20th Century"
Matchbox Twenty: "The Difference," "Mad Season," and "Girl Like That"
The Shins: "Caring is Creepy"
U2: "Where the Streets Have No Name" and "Stuck in a Moment"
Collective Soul: "Run" and "Heavy"
Dave Matthews Band: "When the World Ends", "So Right"
Bush: "Glycerine"
K's Choice: "Live for Real"

And finally, ( don't click here! )

MCAT News
We hope to have scores in the Testing History (THx) system on Thursday, June 16th. If that date changes, we will announce it here.

Oooookay then. Good to know.

The other night I dreamt I got a 19. Last night I dreamt that I got a 53 (that's right, a 53 out of 45). Lying exactly between those two is the 36-37 area, which I'd gladly take. But if these scores don't come soon, I'm going to lose my mind.

I came in to the lab around 9. Apparently, default showing up time for all the grad students and postdocs is 11, or later. Of course, everybody will still be here around 8pm, so I guess that works out. I've been fairly productive, looking at some old data, analyzing graphs and such. And looking at this new code that allows rings to form in the system. That's super-exciting.

Mac and cheese for lunch today, kids. I ought to put the container right up against my chin and shovel the food in, making slurpy noises the whole time. That would be grand.

Yeah. So it's over, and I kinda feel like a part of my identity is gone. What am I, if I'm not someone who's taking the MCAT? Most importantly, I'm going to need a new excuse to use when I don't want to do something.

I felt pretty good yesterday. I read every passage of every section, and filled in every bubble with at least an educated guess. But the more I think about it, the worse I think I did. Or at least, the better I could have done. There were different forms, but the one I got? Was one big giant Chem test. The physical science section was mostly gen chem, and the biological science section had a ridiculous amount of organic. Four passages describing mechanisms. Four! If only I had studied more chem, and less bio and physics...sigh. Though I guess it could've been worse.

The essays were great fun. All the practice prompts I'd used were stupid philosophical quotes, about abstractions like freedom and power and hope and crap that nobody wants to write about. My biggest fear going into that section was that I wouldn't be able to come up with examples. Luckily, the actual prompts were about concrete things. It took about two seconds to come up with examples, so I could spend more time actually writing things of substance.

When the proctor finally told us we could leave...that was waaaay better than the last day of pchem. No comparison.

After it was over, I went back to Danielle and Kathryn's. A little bit of alcohol was consumed (see previous post). Then Casey came over to take us to get food. (We salute you, chauffeurs of drunken MCAT-takers!) Tried Maggiano's first, but it was prom night! Sucks. So, we went to an Olive Garden that was like, an hour away. There was eating, then there was more drinking back at the apartment. (No rainbow, unfortunately.)

The thing that sucks about post-MCATness, is that you really want to celebrate, but you've been up since the crack of dawn. And then you've spent the whole day taking this mentally-draining test. So celebrations end at like, 11:30. We were all asleep before midnight.

I'M FREEEEEEEEEEE!!!
IT'S OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!

(and I'm a little teeeny tiny bit drunk.)

I am never. Taking. That test. Again.

I'm quoting myself, from last night, just because it amused my roommate sooooo much:
"The MCAT is the day after tomorrow! That's the closest it's ever been!"

Of course, that was last night, and this is today. Which means it's tomorrow. Actually, by this time tomorrow it should be winding down. On the one hand, it'll be over, that's awesome. On the other hand, HOLY SHIT. I'm not worrying or trying desperately to learn any more material...too late for that. I'm just. I dunno. Scared out of my mind? Resigned to my fate? The nervousness keeps hitting me in waves. I was gonna go work out so I could sleep better tonight (bedtime = 9pm), but it's all I can do to move right now.

Last night I dreamt about the fucking MCAT. Gaaaah.

Yesterday we drove down to GA State to figure out where the school is, where the building is, where parking is, all that good stuff. Our first attempt went horribly, horribly awry. I'm looking at maps, and we could not possibly have been farther from State, while still in Atlanta. Took the wrong streets because they all had the same names as the streets we were looking for. Damn you, Atlanta, with your multiple Mariettas and Piedmonts and Peachtrees and Decaturs.

Now, Baton Rouge knows how to be creative with street names. We have so many names stored up, we've got to use multiple ones on the same street. Having to know that Sherwood Forest Boulevard becomes Siegen Lane becomes Burbank Drive is a lot easier than having to know that there are two freaking Marietta Drives, on opposite sides of the city. I shake my fist in the general direction of Atlanta.

I forgot to register for Independent Research again. Whoops. It doesn't look like I'll be getting that permission number in time. They really shouldn't have made class registration time right around the time I'd be sick of MCAT studying. Over the course of the day I have seriously considered dropping the whole MS/BS thing, as well as dropping the honors thing. Basically, the idea of doing a thesis just isn't doing anything for me at the moment. I don't want to even think about giving myself lots of work.

I'm beginning to think that being a PTA during the MCAT semester? Not such a great idea. It hasn't been so bad before now. But it's getting close to crunch time, and the little pledges are starting to pay attention to stuff. Meanwhile, I'm getting closer to my own crunch time, and worrying less and less about any other things. So I'm not being the best PTA I could be. I tried to avoid it, literally living up to the SPamburger name and pelting them with reminder emails. But people procrastinate. Too bad for my group that now is the worst possible time for me, ever.

Ithink I pissed one of my pledges off. I was told, "You need to plan that group fellowship within the next two weeks, because then I'm going to disappear." I was like, "Sucks for you that I'm going to disappear until two weeks from now." And the response was "Well I guess I just won't get that fellowship." I guess not, then. Should I feel bad? Because I don't. I already planned a thing (going to the softball game on Wednesday), been told that people would attend it, and then had nobody show up. And I'm supposed to be all sad now? The only thing that makes me sad is the fact that I've studied the muscular system five times and still don't know the stuff. The fact that I have an Analytical exam on Thursday that I might do an hour of studying for. The fact that the next step of my life could be determined in less than two fucking weeks.

Deep breaths.

Oh man, that practice MCAT was the time of my life. And by that I mean it felt like a lifetime. I felt pretty good about Physical Sciences and Verbal Reasoning, but the writing sample sucked. I really don't know how I'm going to prepare for that. Maybe I can just hope that my utter crap is as good as everybody else's sincere effort. Bio/Orgo was last, and it sucked, as expected. I just haven't studied as much for bio as I have for the other sciences. Maybe I should be studying a little now...

French paper? It's coming along okay. I've got a bunch of examples from two of the works we've read. I've just got to go through the third one. And then, hopefully, the writing of the paper part will come easily.

Presentation for Tuesday's group meeting?? Uhhh...it's not going to be anywhere near an hour long. But I have stuff. There's going to be an explanation of the simulation model, and the PDIRR algorithm (that's short for polydisperse insertion, removal, and resizing). I'm going to talk about this paper that shows experimental applications for the stuff I'm doing. And I have pretty, pretty pictures. Then, there has to be time for questions, right? I don't think Kindt'll count it against me if I still have a lot of info to present. I'm just concise. Plus, unlike every other graduate student in the group, I'm a native English speaker. So it shouldn't take me as long to express myself. I think I'll be fine. Putting together the powerpoint tomorrow...at some point.

M.S./B.S. program?? Alex, in her infinite wisdom, pointed out that if my honors thesis can't count as my Master's thesis, I should not do Honors and get the Masters anyway. Duh, me. Why didn't I think of that option? Yeah, I'm definitely capable of getting an advanced degree in chemistry. It's a wonder I remember how to feed myself! Oh wait...

The design-your-own ritual for Stress Reduction? It's not happening. It has to happen, since it's due Monday, but I'm just not feeling it. I am not in a ritual-making place right now. But I think I'm going to force myself to do it after I shower. Because, who cares how cheesy and stupid it is? It's a design-your-own ritual! The stupidity and cheesiness are inherent to the assignment.

So that's what I'm gonna do. Maybe I'll think about APhiO at some point. But probably not.

French today was interesting. "Could the white of the snow represent the rhetorical structure of society??" Um...what? That doesn't even make sense to me. I might complain about being a chem major, but I'm more suited for that than I am for something involving literature analysis. Rhetorical structure of society. Honestly.

I talked to the Director of Graduate Studies today. He's going to give me some more info about the whole MS/BS thing. Kaufman told me I'd be able to use my honors thesis as my Masters' thesis, but Dr. Conticello said nobody has ever done that before, and he'd have to see if it was okay. If it's not okay...I guess that's two letters I won't have after my name. And I'll be able to take more of the history, art history, and poli sci classes that have captured my fancy. First choice is doing the Masters, though.

Today was absolutely gorgeous. I spent some time in the lab because I absolutely had to get some stuff done. At the first possible moment, I packed my stuff up and went to do homework in Lullwater. Good decision. I didn't get an incredible amount of stuff done, but it was better doing it outside than being cooped up in my room. Plus, I got to watch a group of guys take themselves entirely too seriously while playing football. I wanted to yell out, "Stop acting like you play well!" Oh, boys.

Mock MCAT tomorrow...here goes nothing! I feel much more comfortable with physics. Orgo should be fine, and it's only a small part. I'm hoping I can wing it on Gen Chem. Inorganic and Analytical seem to have prepared me fairly well for MCAT chem questions. Bio...bio...bio. I hate charts. Verbal Reasoning should be okay. The essay will suck, this I know. I'll get my results in a week.

Just as Danielle has begun to embrace the positives about the MCAT (like, there's still time, we can always take it again, etc.), I've entered full-on anxiety mode. Last night, I was about to go to quiz bowl practice, when I suddenly thought "Am I going to go waste two hours naming Keats poems by first line? I'm going to fail the freaking MCAT!" So I went to the library and I studied for three and a half hours straight. I gnawed at my fingernails until four of them bled, which I've never done in 20 years of nailbiting. Then I came back here and freaked out to Alex, trying not to cry. Ended up crying anyway. In other words, it was a happy fun time. Today went much better, though.

I spent the whole morning studying MCAT physics. Mostly E&M stuff. And then I reviewed Verbal Reasoning for like an hour. I hate the MCAT, and think it should die. Right now, it only serves the purpose of distracting me from all the work I'm going to have to do once I go back to school.

Moving on to happier obsessions, the play-in game is tonight. I'm calling Alabama A&M over Oakland, and the rest of my picks are behind the cut. This has the potential to go horribly horribly wrong, especially around the Sweet 16/Elite 8. But it could all work itself out by the time the Final Four rolls around.

( Cut for those who don't care )

We probably won't go to the Rock Hall today, since it closes at 5:30. What? 5:30? That's not rock and roll. The place should open at 11pm. And it should be drunk most of the time.

My MCAT admission ticket arrived in the mail today. That definitely makes the whole thing a lot less of a vague scary thing at some point in the future. Now, it's suddenly, a very real scary thing in a teeny bit over a month. I was assigned Georgia State as a test site, not Emory. At first I was upset about that, because now I've got to figure out how I'm going to get there by 8 that morning. And I'll have that much extra stress that day because I'll definitely worry about being late. But, looking on the bright side, at least Emory's wonderful post office didn't lose the ticket. And taking the MCAT in an unfamiliar location will be better than taking it in a building on campus, which is more likely to have memories and stuff attached to it. At least, that's what I'm telling myself.

Today LB and I conspired to change APhiO's "Overheards" conference, changing it to Overheards v2.0. Before, it was supposedly for funny quotes, but in the APhiO-verse the only funny quotes were those with "sexual" connotations. And by that I mean, any sentence with the words "balls," "stick," "pole," etc. You might smirk the first time you read one, but after a while you roll your eyes. Because it was barely funny the first time. For me, "after a while" came sometime during my pledge semester, and I really hadn't looked at Overheards much since then.

But then, last night one of my pledges (I mean literally one of mine) asked why people who posted non-"sexual," yet still funny, quotes on Overheards got reprimanded. Of course that instantly activated the mother-hen thing I've got going on, and I was like, "Well, that won't do." So the balls/shaft/completely-and-utterly-unfunny-because-we're-no-longer-12 stuff is still welcome, but so is everything else.

Because if you say something like..."Just because I'm from Miami doesn't mean I'll eat anything with cocaine on it," you deserve the recognition.

Now, I'm going to go peruse my quote collection from high school.

Today I:

Woke up in time to get to DUCbrunch before the stupid crowds.

Stuffed my face.

Read about 15 pages of French.

Wore my new fleece pullover.

Watched the new JibJab cartoon.

Read an incredibly technical article entitled "Mesoscale Modeling: Industrial Applications."

Typed up a brief summary of that article.

Watched Kansas get schooled by Villanova.

Read the latest recaps of 24 and TAR.

Watched bits of the following games:
Wake Forest at Cincinnati,
Tennessee at Louisville,
Memphis at UAB (they've got a player called, believe it or not, Squeaky Johnson),
VA Tech at GA Tech,
Duke at Florida State,
Pitt at UConn.

Wrote two practice essays for the MCAT.
Realized that if I run out of practice prompts, I can always go to quoteland.com, find the stupidest, cheesiest quotes they have, and use those.

Bit my fingernails.

Tried to write FOR FUN, but found that all the creativity had been sucked out of me by stupid essays on stupid cheesy pointless quotes.

Ran into Casey in the DUC.

Ate a sandwich and a muffin.

Listened to music.

Drank a lot of water.

Pondered my future.

"Now place your shoulder on your knee and hold that for thirty seconds..." Yeah, that was my first 'WTF?' moment of Stress Reduction and Flexibility. I'm actually pretty flexible; I just couldn't figure out the logistics of the shoulder-on-knee move. I got my shoulder next to my knee for a couple of seconds, but then I had balance issues and rolled right over. That was a fun time.

Right before French, my hands started trembling. I'm guessing my blood sugar dropped too low, because I hadn't really eaten a whole lot up to that point. I've got to stop these 16, 17-hour stretches between meals. Anyway, Alex gave me the world's weirdest granola bar, which had cranberries AND almonds AND a ton of chocolate chips. Thus, I broke my self-imposed restriction on chocolate consumption. Sigh.

French was fun. I actually volunteered information in the discussion. Yaaaay.

Then I was in Emerson for two and a half hours. Kindt saw me there, so he thinks I'm being productive, when I'm really, really not.

MCAT practice in my spare time. The essay part is gonna suck, because the prompts are all crap and they want essays of crap. It's hard to write when the whole time I'm thinking, "Man, this is crap. Who cares about this crap?" And...the physical science section is going to own me. You know what? It's all going to own me. There's no hope. There is no doctor in Moab.

I'm going to bed now, because I'm loopy.

Today was payday. I deposited a little less than half of my check and took the rest to the mall. Actually just to the bookstore, but to me that might as well be the whole mall. I got...an MCAT prep book that weighs more than I do...at least now I can feel like I'm preparing for the future. Whenever that is. Ender's Shadow, which I'll probably devour tonight. Some Dora the Explorer picture books, and stickers, and a birthday card, all for my goddaughter. Then I went to the music store for Taking Back Sunday's new CD. I'm not positive, but I think it's the first CD I've bought since November 19, 2002- the day More Than You Think You Are was released. I also got chicken quesadillas for lunch. Bye bye, money. I wish we could've gotten to know each other better.

Our neighbor, Miss Dottie, just came over so I could help her buy Christmas presents online. She's an early shopper; I usually wait until after my birthday to do Christmas shopping. Anyway, helping her out wasn't nearly as tedious as I thought it was going to be. I was expecting to hear the ten-minute story behind every item she was buying, but she wasn't too talkative. Yaaaaay.