Tuesday, September 22, 2009

I'm a Double Major in Moleculr Biology and Biomechanics On a Pre-Med Track

Mouthful, isn't it?

I have one more day off, then back to class I go. Kinda excited, kinda nervous. Calculus has never been my thing, but it has to become so this quarter. I dropped that physics course and 3rd chem course due to my illness over the summer, and they are prerequisites to all of my fall classes. Most professors are forgiving, and are letting me slide. Except for my Genetics professor. She isn't very favorable to my staying in her course, but if one of my advisors has anything to do with it, I will remain in the course. (Yes, I said one of my advisors, as in I have 3: one for biomechanics, one for molecular biology, and one pre-professinal advisor who is going to help me get into med school. As if things weren't confusing enough...)

My feelings of "I am really doing this?" have turned into "Am I really going to do this?" The idea that I am on the track to accomplishing everything I have ever wanted in my life is so surreal. I envision myself graduating medical school, of reciting the Hippocratic Oath, of doing it, and in the back of my mind are these doubts that it will really happen. I've always been Andrea, the girl at the top of her game. But I haven't really been competing, thus far, with a slew of others at the top of their games as well. Is my "top" good enough to compete with theirs?

I've made up my short list of where I am going to apply. I should be starting that process later this year. So here it goes:

Universty of Michigan
Ohio State University
University of Kentucky
University of Louisville
University of Cincinnati
Indiana University
Wright State University
Vanderbilt University

Hopefully one will bite.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

It Started (Warning: Language)

How Odd

It seems so strange that we celebrate Evan's birthday in the same month as one of America's greatest tradgedies. But I remember holding my newborn son at home when my mother-in-law called to tell John and I to turn on the television, to see what was happening.

I was completely selfish that day. I remember instantly thinking that my husband, just three years out of the Marine Corps, would be going to war. A war I would ultimately end up watching on CNN and Fox News nightly while I did my housewife duties. I know so many people who have served in that war. And John was almost one of them. What would I have done? It's hard to imagine. I know I would have waited faithfully for his return home. But I could not imagine the constant fear that he wouldn't be coming home. And livng my life daily wthout him here with me.

So on the 8th anniversary of 9/11, I spent the day thinking about them. About the boys who fight for us, about their wives and kids who wait here at home in a world that does not stop for them because their husband or daddy is away. About all of our brothers and sisters we lost, whether directly or indirectly, because of that fateful day.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009