I'm sure you're all wondering what Tom and I have been up to for the past two months, which I think is the last time that I blogged something...it's crazy how time flies sometimes! (there's a lot of text here, so if you're interested, read on, otherwise... you may want to skip this post :)
As we head into spring we've been eagerly anticipating the spring weather to follow. It was a long hard winter for me at least... lots of rain, lots of cold and lots of not getting into medical school. But the weather is starting to turn and so is my attitude toward things :). I am signed up for a Kaplan MCAT course right now that will be complete in August. I will then take the MCAT again in the first week of August and we'll see where it gets me. I am hopeful and excited. Some of you might wonder how or why after two attempts with no success I could possibly be hopeful or excited but I am here to tell you that I have never felt more passionate about my decision. It does not mean that I don't have a plan B rolling somewhere in the back of my if things don't go my way but I know that medicine is right for me. I'm shooting for medical school as I feel it will be the best fit for me and will provide me with the best opportunities. This time around I have more time, experience, maturity (not to mention money) to help me decide which schools to apply to and allow me to apply to the best schools for me (whether it be MD, DO or out-of-country). Stay tuned for updates but for now, know that I'm ready to take it on again and I've never been more certain. I was told by my professor just the other day when I first applied he had no doubts about my abilities and my success in medicine but he felt as though I was reaching for the gold ring just a bit before the carousel rounded the turn. Well folks, the carousel is rounding and I'm reaching for that ring!
In the mean time I am also applying for an internship through the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It's a year long program that I would start in the fall (hopefully). Basically it works like Monster.com in the fact that I post my resume on line and the research teams of PhD's, MD's, etc browse the site to look for candidates that they think will fit well in their labs/research projects. I can also email specific researchers that are involved in projects that I am interested in to prompt them to review my applicatin. The research centers are all over the US, ranging from Bethesda, MD; Tuscon, AZ; Hamilton, MT(of all places!), etc. I would be provided a stipend of $30,000 for the year and would have the opportunity to stay an additional year as a full time paid employee of NIH if all things went well. part of the stipulation of this internship is that you must be applying to graduate school in the medical field in order to be accepted, so they obviously work with you if you get into school before the year is up. So, I submitted my application and it is technically up on the website for one year and there's no way of knowing if I"ll ever get a "bite" so to speak. But, I think it would be an amazing opportunity, and so does Tom.
That might make you curious, what is Tom doing with all of this? Well, he's taking the LSAT on June 6th and working his butt off for BECU. He was recently delegated the "stats guy" or some fancy term that I don't know what it is. He runs all the numbers (and loves it). He was chosen because of his wizardry with Excel spreadsheets and rightly so (you should see his fantasy baseball spreadsheets...there are so many stats, all of which are automatically updated every minute..how does he do it? I don't know but that's part of the reason he got the job. Great, now he just has more of a reason to tell me that fantasy baseball is a worthwhile use of his time :) ) As far as the LSAT is concerned, he's looking to apply to law school in an effort to work towards his dream, not of being a trial lawyer, but of catching white collar criminals as he calls it. He hopes someday to work for the department of justice...but he has many other dreams too, so he's keeping his eyes and ears open for opportunities just like me. And he's the most wonderful, supportive husband I could ever ask for. We are a team, both working towards a future of life-long learning and we will see what falls in the laps of each of us, and go from there---this could get crazy!
In our free time we finally got the chance to go and trim our new apple tree for this season. It's a different tree than the one we adopted last year. It's a Gravenstein (sp?) instead of a McIntosh, which we're told ripens earlier than the Mac's so we're excited. Our camera broke so we only have one picture from Tom's cell phone and I'll admit that it's not very flattering but it gives you an idea of how big our tree is this year! we're excited and hopeful for a great crop.
Which reminds me, our garden is all planted and I'm anxiously awaiting the first blooms on our snap peas and beans. Bring it on summer (again, broken camera, so no pictures.)
Oh, and we had our first bbq of the year not to long ago, complete with Tom's famous pineapple burgers- a much needed taste of summer for me at least!
Comments
Post a Comment