It's spring break, I guess.

It's always saturday afternoon. Any time I have a few consecutive hours off, it must be Saturday afternoon, which means tomorrow is Sunday, and that means church. Naturally, today is tuesday, so no church tomorrow, but it's still saturday afternoon. I think that friday afternoon, I will realize that I've just had spring break, and that it's time to go back.

My genetics exam didn't go as well as I had hoped, which was frustrating. It's the one class I've come closest to honoring this year and getting a negative z-score isn't the best way to finish the block. I was surprised that genetics wasn't really very hard. My undergrad class was a lot more molecular biology and not as many diseases, which made it more challenging. Virology was just tons of rote memorizing. Which viruses have +RNA genomes? which ones have ssDNA? circular DNA? reverse transcriptase? what could possibly be causing these symptoms: fever, nausea, vomiting and malaise? that's right, ANYTHING!

Well that's done. Onward to pharmacology and pathology for 9 weeks, then I'm done with first year! It has literally flown by. School has definitely gotten easier. I don't know if it's because last block I had already had genetics so the material was easier or I'm just better at studying, or if I have gotten used to the idea that no matter how hard I try, I can do no better than pass my classes?

This summer's plans are somewhat nebulous at the moment. I wrote earlier that I'm going to be researching perfused rat hearts and lipids? well, I might be doing something slightly different. The fellowship program that I'm applying for is only granted on a one student per lab basis, for reasons that were poorly explained. Unfortunately, there is one other med student already in my lab, which means that I have to find another PI. My current PI is collaborating with an MD on a project, so what will likely happen is that PI #2 will be 'in charge' of me, while I work with PI #1 in his lab. I don't really know if I'll be working the perfused heart, or if I will in fact be studying the effects of a fast food diet on mice livers instead. Hopefully I can do the heart because that's what really is more interesting.