Biochemistry is Hard

Hi everyone!

Remember me? After one of the hardest semesters ever, I have returned to my blog and am inspired to keep you more updated on my life and stay more organized in this coming semester. This previous semester, I was really struggling with biochem, which is notoriously known to be one of the hardest classes for students in my major. After the first exam I realized I needed to step up my biochem game tremendously. It was definitely one of those classes where I learned so much but my grade really just did not reflect it. I would start to study 2-3 weeks before an exam, and still come out on the bottom of the class. I really cannot pinpoint why I struggled so much when I feel like I learned so much but its over now and my final grade was better than I expected, so I am moving forward.

This break has been pretty slow. We spent Christmas Eve at my Grandparents’ and Christmas Day at my house. New Years was spent watching How I Met Your Mother at home with my little brother. I’ve been spending a lot of time studying for my MCAT! I am registered to take it in the end of April, so I started with General Chemistry, since that was my lowest percentage score on my practice exam and I haven’t taken General Chemistry since my junior year of high school. Next I will move on to biology and biochemistry. That section I scored highest on my practice exam and I am not taking any intensive bio courses this coming semester so it seemed like the best decision. I haven’t really thought about what I am doing from there but I will keep you updated!

I also started Insanity on Monday! It has been a struggle, I haven’t been this sore since the first week of preseason when I played lacrosse in high school. Every time I have to walk up or down stairs a part of me dies inside. I spent 15 minutes with my legs up against the wall today and that helped a lot. Today I am on Day 3, Cardio & Power Resistance Work Out. Wish me luck!

I am probably going to do a lot of weight loss tracking and inch loss tracking for the next 57 days until I finish Insanity so I will keep you updated!

I am also trying to make a diet plan for the semester so I will post on that once I get more organized with that. I really just wanted to give you guys a quick update so that you know that I am returning to my blog!

Moving Stinks!

I have one week left of class and then I am New Jersey bound!

Of course, my apartment lease ends this Sunday, a week before I head home, so I need to move out. Luckily my friend is letting me stay at her apartment and leave all of my things there, so I don’t have to pay for storage or stay in a hotel for a week.

I’ve been spending the entire week packing. My roommate for next year came down Wednesday so I got about half of my stuff moved out then. My friend from class is helping me move the rest tomorrow morning, so I have been spending the whole day finishing up packing and cleaning. It is really stressful and I can’t wait for this move to be done.

Yesterday was a long day. We are collaborating with another lab for my experiment, so I went to observe in their lab with my PI. The lab is in The Beckman Institute on campus, it is a huge research center on the northern most part of campus, and it does a lot of really cutting edge engineering research. I left around 9:30 AM to walk over, it takes around 20 minutes for me to walk there and it was such a beautiful morning that I didn’t even dread the temperature.

the sky was so blue!

this building is amazing

I sat on the really comfy couches in the lobby and waited for my PI while eating cinnamon raisin bread.

yummy

the ceiling of the lobby

After observing the experiment, I walked the tumor samples back to my lab and ate some lunch. I actually packed a big lunch for the first time in a while so I felt great after I ate.

this orange was amazing!

After eating, I sectioned a few samples. It was really cool to section something that wasn’t a brain, the tumors were subcutaneous so it was interesting to see that type of tumor and to see tumors that were that big! (6mm)

While the slides were drying, I worked on some things for AMSA, checked the mouse rooms, and read a few journal articles about things we are doing for my experiment.

After the slides dried I put them in the freezer and I was really entertained about how 80 slides looked in the box.

I met my friends after at Starbucks to work on our last homework assignment for class and then we went out for dinner. My phone died so the only picture I have is the one that my friend took and I look pretty strange in.

We went to Jurassic Grill. We have been wanting to go all summer and have tried to go 4 times before this, but their hours are really strange and this is the first time it was open when we went! It was really good and i am disappointed that this was only the first time I had been when it has been open for a year.

After dinner, I headed home and started packing. I packed for the rest of the night and cleaned for a little.

This morning I woke up early to finish up packing. I am pretty nervous that I have too much or it won’t all fit and I will have to go buy more boxes, so I keep repacking trying to fit more and more things inside of other things.

I’m going to go back to packing now! Sorry for the rushed post, I feel like it was really awkward – but I am looking forward to posting more about my last week of classes in a not awkward way! (:

Corinne (:

Blog Tour Award

Thank you to Oh, the places you’ll go (as a med student) for nominating me for the Blog Tour Award! I love reading your posts and hearing about your medical school journey, especially seeing it from the Canadian Medical School perspective!

The Blog Tour Award works by:

1) Pass the tour on to 4+ bloggers.

2) Give your nominees the rules and a specific Monday to post.

3) Answer four questions about your creative process which lets other bloggers and visitors know what inspires you to do what you do.

• How does my work differ from others in my genre?
• How does my writing/creative process work?
• Why do I write or create what I do?
• What I’m working on at the moment?

4) Compose a one-time post on a specific Monday (date given from your nominator)

So, here it goes!

1) My nominees *drumroll*

A Life in Scrubs

Barefoot Whispers

Erica House

Wonderland

2) So I guess I will say Monday, August 10 – but feel free to do August 3 if that is a better day for you!

3)

• How does my work differ from others in my genre?
  • Well, I suppose I would put myself into the Pre-Med/Med School blog section. I actually haven’t been very successful in finding very many Pre-Med blogs, so I would say that I am different because I am starting off in college and will be starting the application process next year. This was definitely part of the reason I started blogging too, because I wish I had a resource like a blog that I could follow through this process, but I can’t really find one, so I decided to be the person who starts one!
• How does my writing/creative process work?
  • I really just write about my day and things that are on my mind. I am not big on editing so I usually don’t edit my posts after they are done, it is more of an edit as I go situation. I have a lot of drafts lined up that I have been progressively working on. These are more about TV shows and books and things that can be posted at any time so if I am busy I can put them up and feel like I haven’t abandoned my blog.
• Why do I write or create what I do?
  • I really just wanted to put myself out there so I could help other people in the same process and situation as me, as well as learn more from other people. Starting a blog has led me to some other really great sites I probably would not have found out about if I hadn’t and has also inspired me to learn more about the pre-med process so that I can help people who are reading. I really just enjoy being able to share my life, it helps me stay motivated and on track, and I love the idea that maybe one day someone will come across my blog and feel like they can go to medical school because I (hopefully) did – just like I did the first time I read a med school blog.
• What am I working on at the moment?
  • Well, in my drafts folder there are a few posts. Here are some titles: “Grey’s Made Me Cry”, “The Best TV Shows, in my Humble Opinion”, and “Book List”. I also want to add a new page to my blog about my favorite blogs to read and add links with a little summary about why I like the blog. This actually inspired me to do it!

There you go! Now you know a little bit more about me. Thanks again to Oh, the places you’ll go (as a med student). Happy blogging!

Corinne (:

Inspiration Block is Over!

So I have been pretty MIA for the past 3 weeks or so, I have still been reading other blogs and keeping up but I have found it pretty hard to find some motivation to post for myself – until now!

Since I have been so MIA, I will tell you guys a little bit about me week:

Monday

Monday I was in lab for a long time. My PI counted cells and we found a correlation between our control and experimental mice for the amount of CD8 cells in their tumors! It was definitely exciting to see that something has worked for this experiment. Because we found this, we decided to do 2 more stains, so I did the stains for those slides and coverslipped them all. It usually doesn’t take too long to coverslip, but I had 40 slides to do so it took me probably over an hour to do all of the slides. The stains ended up working well, which I was happy about, and so I knew the rest of my week would be full of imaging slides, which is cool but not my favorite thing to do.

I went grocery shopping, which I was supposed to do over the weekend but I was being lazy, so I didn’t. I like going grocery shopping a lot, but I hate not having a roommate with a car here because then I have to walk two blocks back with all of my bags and it gets pretty heavy. Then again, it is only two blocks. (;

I also started watching Supernatural again over the weekend. I was on season 8, but took a bit of a hiatus because my boyfriend broke up with me, and we had started watching Supernatural together and would only watch together, so for a while I was decided on not watching it any more. Then, I decided that this was stupid and I needed a show on Netflix to watch since I have watched Grey’s Anatomy too many times. And so I gave in and watch Supernatural. It has 10 seasons and counting, I caught up to where it will begin in October in 4 days. I have a Netflix addiction.

I baked a chicken breast and rice for dinner, it was pretty good, but I found something online that said to brine the chicken breast in salt water before baking it. I did and to be honest, I thought my chicken was not as good as what I usually make and it made me so dehydrated my head was pounding all night. I would not suggest brining chicken before baking it.

Tuesday

Supernatural binges continue.

My friend wanted company at the grocery store and I was craving Chinese food like no other, so I went with her and bought some soy sauce and veggies. I used some leftover rice and a chicken breast and made chicken fried rice! I pan fried the chicken on some vegetable oil and then added broccoli, green onions, and half a bag of frozen peas, carrots, corn, and green beans, and cooked that until the veggies were soft. I added the leftover rice (cold) and maybe more oil and soy sauce until I liked what color it turned. Then I added a 3 egg omelet chopped up and mixed everything together off of the heat. It ended up tasting amazing and didn’t make me feel gross like I sometimes do after eating takeout. I have a ton of leftovers and am super excited to eat them!

Wednesday

Finished Supernatural up to the end of Season 10.

I packed a lunch worth taking a photo of and ate it in lab on Wednesday.

That Tupperware was the most amazing buy I have ever made. It has compartments and folds over itself and it makes packing a lunch super easy. I had veggie straws (my addiction), grapes, and turkey and swiss. It was really good and I was glad I finally had a big lunch I could eat while working on some things on the computer. I have locked in some general meetings and a suture clinic for AMSA in the fall! Also, some other directors have arranged blood drives, a barn dance, and other volunteer events that are going to be awesome next semester! I’m excited that everything is coming together and things seem to be working out really well for us so far – hopefully it lasts. (:

I imaged slides on Wednesday and then headed out a little early because my PI took over the imaging.

That night I was craving pancakes so I found a scratch recipe I could make without butter – since we had none – and they came decently.

ugly pancakes and a ton of fruit (:

They look really gross but they tasted okay. Also, I don’t own plates because I can’t find any to match my bowls so I eat off of paper plates – so college.

Since I finished Supernatural, I made a mistake  decided to start Parks & Rec. It is SO GOOD. I am addicted to P&R now and it is a problem. Currently I am on Season 6 Episode 10. That means that since Wednesday I have watched exactly 100 episodes. Each episode is 22 minutes so 2200 minutes spent watching which means I have spent 36 and 2/3 of an hour watching Netflix since Wednesday. I can’t tell if I am proud or ashamed, but honestly, I don’t care because it is such a great show and I have still been productive so it can’t be that bad, right? (; Plus I get to see Chris Pratt and that makes life better.

my love – Chris Pratt

Thursday

Too much Parks & Rec.

Was in a rush so packed a weird but healthy lunch in the morning.

When I got to lab i ate and then found out my PI and the grad student were at a seminar for another 2 hours. I cleaned up around lab, answered some emails, and then was still super hungry. I was really craving a bagel so I went to the basement of the Union and was going to go to Einstein Bro’s, but they had maybe 2 bagels left and they were weird flavors, so I resorted its neighbor, Qdoba

My burrito was mediocre. The meat was dry, the rice was bland, and the tortilla was a really weird texture. I will now stick to Chipotle.

I tried to image the last 4 slides, but the hard drive was full so I couldn’t do much until my PI and the grad student got back.

When they got back, we deleted some stuff off the computer, and took the last four photos. There was nothing else I could do since we couldn’t analyze the slides until we got a new hard drive, so I went home early. I ate the leftover chicken that dehydrated me from Monday with some pasta with pesto. 

My roommate was moving and took the silverware so I am now using plastic utensils. I now live like my guy friends – haha. I got really bored of studying for my exam Tuesday, so I decided to bake.

I used this recipe and made chocolate chip cinnamon muffins! I used whole wheat flour and a little bit more cinnamon than it called for, and they came out really well. They are really soft and yummy and it is dangerous that they are sitting in my kitchen right now because I want to eat them all! They don’t look pretty because I don’t own a muffin tin, but they were worth it!

fresh out of the oven

Friday

The hard drive got installed so I started counting cells on the slides I imaged. It takes a long time and your eyes feel weird after a while so after 11 slides I went home.

I ate some leftover pasta with pesto around 3 and my friend and I got some froyo around 7 so I wasn’t really hungry for dinner.

I facetimed with my friend from home for a little, we are going to his beach house the weekend I get home to celebrate my birthday with some friends so we talked about that for a while.

Then, I studied a little and then went to bed early (watched parks and rec until 2 AM).

Saturday

I woke up early and met my friends at Starbucks.

head was killing me so I splurged and got a venti. Also this coffee cake was AMAZING.

We did the homework for class and then I headed home to study. I decided I actually had to seriously study to catch up for the time I had wasted watching Netflix, and so I did exactly that (while concurrently watching Netflix). I did notes sheets on 4 out of the 8 topics for the exam and was very productive all day. I was really proud of myself.

I also have an assignment due for TAing today so I found all of my articles progressively through the week and then wrote all of my summaries yesterday.

I got a weird craving for breakfast food at 9 last night, so I made french toast and eggs. I also had half a pack of strawberries but got impatient waiting for everything else to cook and at them all before I could take a photo. ):

Sunday

I woke up late this morning and plan on studying all day again. I also need to work out since I haven’t since last Saturday. More frequent posts/updates are coming soon I promise (:

How do you stay on track and inspired when it comes to blogging?

How do I stop watching Netflix????

9 Days!

I haven’t posted in 9 days!

Illinois

Illinois weather has been really sucky the past 9 days. Rainy, cloudy, and cold. I don’t usually mind but it is the summer and I am at school with no one so it is pretty depressing to be stuck inside while it rains all day. Today, however, the sun came out and so I was very excited to take a good panoramic picture of the sunset from my balcony! (;

First real sunset in a while! They come and go so quick here!

12 minutes after the above picture!! The sky is amazing.

Class

It has been a busy 9 days! My second exam is tomorrow so I have been studying a lot. I think I slacked off a bit in paying attention during class for this material – mostly because I was so bored since it was a lot of “information dumps” (as my professor calls them) and memorizing. I’ve been forcing myself to study really hard for this exam. I feel like if I don’t do as well on this one as I did on the last one I am not only letting myself down, but also I am letting down my professor. I don’t know why I feel like that but it has really been motivating me to study hard for this exam now. I made some awesome study sheets and met with some friends at Starbucks to work on studying over the weekend, so hopefully that pays off!

Study sheet setup. I lived at my desk all weekend.

Saturday morning scone with homework (:

Research

I have been imagining slides in lab which is really cool. I have seen pictures in class of DAPI stains (binds to DNA so you can identify nuclei) and other protein stains, but I have never seen a stain for my own experiment, so I was pretty excited to look at the first brain. It takes a little while to go through and image all of them, so I have been moving pretty slowly – especially because of studying. I am hoping to pick up the pace after my exam.

Fitness

Don’t judge, but I have barely worked out these past 9 days! I think that blogging keeps me on schedule with working out because I don’t want to go on and seem lazy when I talk about my day, so I work out. However, since I haven’t been blogging my workouts have suffered. I did go down to the gym in my building and went on the elliptical for 40 minutes or so the other day, but other than that I have been quite lazy. As per the recommendation of MiniMD I am going to download a couch to 5k app and start running! Wish me luck!

Food

Another disappointment. Stress eating all the time! I have been out to eat a lot with my friends from class and have been going through my leftover pasta so I have been quite unhealthy! I realized from this exam period that when I am not being healthy and working out and staying on schedule then I tend to not do as well with the material! I am really hoping this doesn’t make my exam grade suffer and I am really planning on getting back into a good schedule and NOT staying up until 2 AM watching Grey’s while stuffing my face with veggie straws.

Went out for Ramen with a friend from class

Ironically I only took pictures of my healthy food choices. I didn’t want you all to know (;

Tried my hand at overnight oats. They weren’t my favorite but I think that is because I didn’t add enough honey. PS I really don’t like my thumb in this picture.

Life

My best friend, Jake, came and visited with his girlfriend the other day, so it was really fun to actually hang out with someone and not be terribly lonely since campus is empty this summer! I spent the morning snap-chatting his girlfriend being very shocked by the fact that he was awake at 8 AM. I am so excited for the semester to start so that all of my friends are back on campus. College is more fun when people are here with you. I also ordered the book “Med School Confessions” after reading a post on A Life in Scrubs and I am really looking forward to reading it AFTER my exam is done!

I don’t know why I saved this picture before I wrote the word “early” Notice my hood because Illinois weather has been awful! 

I hope everyone has been having a great July and I am looking forward to getting back on a schedule, posting more, and hopefully doing well on my exam tomorrow!

How do you stay on schedule? Do you ever stop being healthy for a week or two? 

4th of July Fireworks x 10 (or more) and a Long Weekend Update!

Happy Fourth of July!

So, if you saw my post last night, I saw four different fireworks shows at the same time out of my window. Today, out of my window and on my balcony I saw over 10! I counted 13 at one point but it is hard to keep up with because the depth seems like it changes depending on how big or small the firework is. But, that being said I think it was one of the coolest and most “America” things I have ever seen. It made me really appreciate the midwest which I am glad for since I have been a little bit unappreciative in the past few weeks.

Classes were cancelled on Friday because of the holiday weekend, so I had a nice long weekend which was much needed after my exam and the amount of brains I have sectioned in the past 2 weeks.

Thursday was a pretty eventful day! After class we got our exams back and I was overwhelmingly pleased and surprised with my grade. I was not expecting to do as well as I did so I was ecstatic when the grades came out!

My face when I saw my grade

There wasn’t much for me to do in lab so I went and checked on the mice, just to make sure no new litters were born. I have to wear a lab coat in the mouse rooms so sometimes i like to pretend I am a doctor in my fancy white coat, but then it smells like mouse poop and I realize I am not a doctor yet. I decided to take a selfie in my white coat, despite my not being in med school and I felt pretty official, if I do say so myself.

I rock a lab coat, in my humble opinion (:

After checking on the mice, I decided to treat myself to Manolo’s, which is my favorite restaurant on campus, in celebration of my exam grade. I got three empanadas. They also have amazing pizza there as well but it was an empanada day.

This is the San Telmo Pollo, it is Chicken, Peppers, and Argentinean Spices.

This is a Chicken Inferno, it is sort of like buffalo chicken with mozzarella but better.

This is a San Telmo Carne which is the same as the San Telmo Pollo but with ground beef and also my favorite.

They have so many different types of empanadas. Some traditional (Corn and Beans) and some nontraditional (Turkey Dinner). Also, another personal favorite, the brownie empanada, which I describe as heaven wrapped in a pie crust and then dusted with powdered sugar. It is delicious. If you are ever in the Champaign-Urbana area, you have to check out Manolo’s.

I met some friends from class a little later that day to work on homework. We finished our After Lecture Questions and Weekly Homework which meant no homework for the holiday weekend! It felt really good to finish early. I went home, warmed up some leftovers and watched Netflix for the rest of the night.

In case you are concerned I do have friends at school I don’t just sit on Netflix all the time. It’s just the summer and so no one is here right now and I have no one to hang out with because of that besides my brand new friends from class – but they all went home for the holiday weekend. I clearly cannot fly to New Jersey for 2 days.

Friday I slept in because I didn’t have class in the morning. I went to lab at 1 to meet with the grad student in my lab who just returned from China. He brought me back these stunning bookmarks with characters on them and taught me what some of them meant. We have a lot of transgenic mice (around 35) that need to be screened and I can’t do it alone so we figured out a day to start the screen for those. The other grad student in our lab graduated in May and I am the only one who saw the whole screening process and did it in full, so I have to teach everyone in my lab how to do the screening now. I feel pretty important because this is one of the first big responsibilities I have since the senior in our lab also graduated.

We have to extract the DNA through ear punches, so we will be doing that on Monday. After the extraction and purification, I run PCR on the samples and we figure out which mice are the ones with the transgene. It should be about 50/50, but, last time I screened a litter, 5/6 mice were positive which is really rare.

After going into lab, I didn’t feel like eating any of my leftovers for lunch AND dinner so I stopped at Antonio’s Pizza on the way home. I was super unhealthy this weekend.

I got a slice of pesto tortellini and a slice of mac and cheese. Lucky for my calorie intake I only finished about half of both slices because they were big and pizza + pasta is a ton of food.

yum

After lunch I recorded my first vlog on how I study, which you can watch here! I was super awkward and nervous but proud of myself. Hopefully my next vlog will be better. Please leave me any tips you might have!

Friday night I watched some Netflix, facetimed my friend from home, and went to bed reasonably early. My roommate is also gone for the weekend so locked the doors to my apartment and my bedroom around 5 because I am paranoid. (and for good reason. But that is another story for another blog post)

This morning I woke up pretty early and went to the grocery store. I really wanted to make my Grandma’s sauce and I want to try out making granola bars so here is what I got:

• 1 pound of ground beef
• 1 gallon 1% milk
• 2 Cans Crushed Tomatoes
• 1 Can Tomato Paste
• 3 Bags Veggie Straws
• 2 Bags Dried Cranberries (one with Cherry juice infused)
• 3 lbs pasta (penne, spaghetti, angel hair)
• 1 head Boston lettuce
• 1 bushel fresh spinach
• 1 bushel flat leaf parsley
• Fresh Sweet Basil
• 18 eggs
• One container Grated Parmesan
• 8 oz Fresh Mozzarella
• 4 peaches
• 1 bag of Dark Brown Sugar

I had no intention of getting a lot of this stuff, but as I was getting the parsley for my meatballs, the lettuce, spinach, and peaches all looked so good I had to grab some! I had a salad for lunch with the Boston lettuce, some spinach, dried cranberries, and some chia seeds sprinkled on top. I just use a drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar for dressing. It was a pretty good salad.

While I ate I made my Grandma’s Tomato Sauce. The smell reminds me of home and it just put me in a great mood all day while I made it. I also made my meatballs, which are a variation of my Grandma’s recipe but it is not exactly the same.

smells like home (:

After the sauce and meatballs were done, I made baked ziti. I layered in a 13×9 pyrex: sauce, penne (coated in sauce), cheese (parmesan and fresh mozzarella), penne, meatballs, cheese, sauce. Cover the pan and put it in the oven at 350 F for an hour. After it is done it will come out gooey and cheesy and delicious and you will want to eat the whole pan.

delicious

After dinner I watched Netflix (typical) and then watched the fireworks out of my window and balcony.

I was a little sad today because I didn’t get to hang out with anyone. Every year for 4th of July my family goes to our close family friends’ beach house and it is so much fun. I was kind of bummed that I couldn’t be there, but I facetimed with my family a lot today so that helped. I was hoping some friends might be able to come down but they are all working, so it is hard for them to make the 3 hour trip down to Champaign.

I am probably heading to bed early tonight. I was considering working out but I have a migraine and so I don’t want to make it worse. Migraines are the worst and if you don’t get them you are lucky.

Tomorrow I am planning on reviewing the lectures from class this week and also going to run a few more errands.

What did you do for your long weekend? How do you usually spend Fourth of July? Any tips for good vlogs?

-Corinne (:

Four Fireworks Shows!

So I wasn’t planning on posting today since I just posted the vlog but, I am sitting in my room and I live on the 18th floor of a 24 story high rise. I hear some fireworks going off and I decided I would take a look out my window and see if I could see any!

Clear as day and pretty far away, there is a fireworks show going off and the fireworks and almost at the same level as my window and it was the coolest thing I have ever seen. i’ve only seen fireworks from the ground so seeing them this high in the air and that far away was a cool experience.

While watching in the distance 3 other shows were going on simultaneously. Because of how tall of a building I live in and how flat the Midwest is, I was, for a little while, watching FOUR shows at once! I don’t know why I thought this was so amazing but I figured I would share it with you all! I am also attaching some probably terrible pictures for you guys so you can see somewhat how cool the fireworks looked from my point of view!

My First Vlog!

Hey Everyone! I just made my first vlog on how I study for my biology exams! I am super awkward and nervous in it and I also say “um” more times than I am proud of but here it is!

Hope you learn a thing or two to add to your study regimen!

-Corinne (:

20 Brains Down 0 To Go!

Today I finally finished sectioning the 20 brains for my experiment! Between the Cryostat problems and the sheer volume of them, I am just so glad this ordeal is finally over (for now). Next step is to stain the slides, we’re looking for CD8 cells in particular and possibly a few others. Tomorrow and Friday I will be staining which is exciting because I have never seen the entire microscope stain process in full! I’m trying not to get my hopes up about this experiment but I feel like there is a chance it could have worked, judging by the visual tumor size as my PI and I sectioned, and I will be the happiest person in the entire world if it does work.

I don’t go into lab until after class at noon so lets rewind a few hours…

I woke up early enough to actually get ready and not just throw on a random outfit and put my hair in a bun so that was exciting!

#selfies for days

Silly elevator selfie

I thought I was forgetting something in my room and so I spent 10 minutes frantically searching my room and then when I gave up because I was going to be late and then I realized I forgot to print out the powerpoint again! I need to set a reminder in my phone like I have for the homework! I had 3 of my oatmeal muffins for breakfast during class, so yummy!

I’m that person who sits in the first row of a class so at the beginning of the summer when I was eating in class I felt awkward but now it just feels natural to me! After class I headed over to lab where I finished cutting the brains! I am so happy! I can’t wait to stain tomorrow! After cutting the brains and cleaning out the cryostat so it looked cleaner than when I started I had to get rid of the dry ice that I used to store the brains that were next up to be cut. Getting rid of dry ice is my favorite thing ever so I decided that I need to share it with you all!

dry ice in sink (usually we just leave it overnight and its gone by morning but I am a science nerd so…)

…run hot water onto dry ice…

…have a sink full of CO2 and make fun tornadoes with the gas because science! yay sublimation!

Clearly I am a huge geek but whatever, dry ice is awesome and if you don’t think so then you are lying.

I got home and ate leftover Chinese for lunch while doing some homework and reviewing the slide shows from earlier this week. I feel like I haven’t been super focused in class and fell behind a bit the past three days, so I want to catch up. I’m feeling a bit more comfortable with the material now.

Our post-class questions go up at 5 PM, so I did them at 5 and then made myself some dinner.

I’ve really been craving pasta and tomato sauce, and I am making it this weekend, but I had a pint of grape tomatoes that was starting to get old so I found this recipe. It was so yummy! It tasted like sun-dried tomatoes mixed in with pasta and that made me happy.

After I ate I got really bored and had nothing else to do for class. I could have reviewed but I just wasn’t in the mood so I decided I would test my eyesight. I went on this website and did all of the eyesight tests. Everything I did showed I have normal eyesight! I was so nervous that I was colorblind but then I realized I was reading the trichromatic results which is normal. It freaked me out for a second though!

I did 30 minutes of yoga and then decided I would blog, which some netflix or maybe read a little, and then head to bed. I miss reading for pleasure so I’m thinking of starting “Bridget Jones’s Diary”. I bought it in May expecting to be done with it but I haven’t even opened it! I should get on that! I also miss having a nook. I let my mom use mine and it really was nice to be able to download books as I go, although I prefer actual books. I am an old soul when it comes to books.

I’m thinking of doing a weekly post similar to “Friday Favorites”, a few of the blogs I like to read have been doing them and I am thinking of jumping on the bandwagon. What do you think?

Are you doing research and looking forward to some good news? Do you like to hope for the best or expect the worst for research projects? Any book suggestions?

-Corinne (:

Exam 1: Done!

Well, I am officially a quarter of the way through my summer class! We had our first exam today!

I woke up and went to discussion at 10, we had a review for the exam. I had a clif bar while I walked across the street to lecture at 11. I am pretty addicted to clif bars recently, but they’re not the worst thing to be addicted to!

It was a lot of review of material from my previous class again, so I was pretty bored. After class I headed to lab and sectioned 2 brains before heading home. The stool in front of the cryostat honestly feels like my second home at this point since I have been spending so much time sectioning!

After getting home from lunch, I warmed up leftover sausage, peppers, and potatoes for lunch and watched a few episodes of friends while I ate. I honestly didn’t want to study anymore at that point but I knew I should do some last minute review and make sure I had all of the pathways down. My exam was at 5 and I am always paranoid that I’ll be late for exams, so even though its a 6 minute walk, I left at 4:30! I was feeling pretty confident but also a little nervous. My professor didn’t give us any practice exams so I didn’t really know what to expect.

There were a lot of trick questions and a lot of very specific things from the powerpoints that were only covered on a slide or two. I know next time to be more diligent on the slides I thought were less important. Despite those things I honestly felt pretty good about the exam!

I really can’t bring myself to be productive after an exam so I’ve just been de stressing since the exam.

I got home and had a 1 person dance party to some Taylor Swift. I really can’t get back from an exam without having a T.Swift dance party! Then I baked some yummy oatmeal muffins while eating leftover pasta for dinner! I don’t own a muffin tin but putting the wrappers in my pyrex worked out okay!

I followed this recipe. I used whole wheat flour, old fashioned oats, and no cinnamon. I also added 3 teaspoons of chia seeds and a handful of frozen raspberries and blueberries. After 15 minutes they were perfectly done.

c Sprinkled some Chia Seeds directly on top before going in the oven, noms.

They are so good! Not too sweet which I loved, but in my opinion the blueberry doesn’t pair that well with the oatmeal, then again I’m not the biggest fan of blueberry muffins in general, but the raspberries were great in them. I’m looking forward to these for breakfast tomorrow! It is a super versatile recipe and can be made so many different ways and with different add in’s! I’m excited to see what I have in my cabinet to add in next time I make them! (:

After that I did 30 minutes of yoga and then just hung out and watched friends. I’ll probably just end up reading some other blogs tonight and going to bed soon. Maybe I’ll do a post on some of my favorite blogs I like to read. Pretty much the reason I started a blog was because of some of these blogs so I think that would be a great way for me to almost show my thanks to the blogs that have really helped my find my way and helped me in this crazy journey I have ahead of me!

I hate not wearing a tank while doing yoga but all of mine are dirty! I need to get some more workout tanks! Also I promise I am wearing pants in this picture! #longshirtproblems

I guess my biggest piece of advice for tonight would be to make sure that you relax after exams! Obviously it is important to keep up with your work but after studying and working hard the week or so before an exam you deserve a break! So take the night off and binge watch netflix and make muffins and do yoga and prepare yourself for some more hard work and don’t stress over the exam you just took! Whats done is done and everything will work out!

This really hasn’t been that eventful of a post, I really want to post a vlog on exams and how I like to study sometime this week so hopefully that will be more interesting than this post!

What should I add to my next batch of muffins? How do you de-stress after an exam?

-Corinne (: