English Midterm Mark

Remember my English midterm I was talking about a couple weeks ago? Well I got my mark back and I was pleasantly surprised that I got 80% on it. I was trying not to get my hopes up because I really wasn't sure how I did. Our midterm was an essay on a piece we read in class.

The weird thing is, my professor emailed a marking sheet with her criteria on it, and then at the bottom it says my mark which reads: "Grade: B+ 76%, 12/15" . The weight of our midterm was worth 15% so 12/15 is the raw score or weighting achieved for this evaluation. The thing is, 12/15 is 80% not 76%. So I guess there could be a small possibility that I got a weight of 11.4% but I don't think that's the case.

What I think is going on here is that the grade of a B+ vs an A- can be open to interpretation for an English professor, so maybe I was on the cusp of an A-, but because of the mistakes I made, she was forced to not give an "A-" grade but a "B+" instead. But I'm thinking despite my mistakes, the quality and effectiveness of the argument and piece of writing on the whole was so good that she didn't want to deduct too many marks from it. So the result is a B+ piece of writing by definition because of my mistakes, but the the high level of cohesiveness, unity and style meant I should be deserving an A- raw score. I know that English professors can be very principled when it comes to handing out grades in the "A" range for essays. I know that it isn't really a checklist of right and wrong, but more of a holistic evaluation of how "good" the writing is. I've always got this sense when speaking to English instructors about how to get an A (which I did with this particular professor as well). It is notorious that at UBC very very few people get high "A" marks in first year English. And I'm not at UBC for this English course, but the standards feel the exact same.

Anyways, in this example the 12/15 is very clearly the percentage of weighting that I achieved, so I'll go ahead and go with that when calculating my final mark. So far my marks are looking pretty good in this English class, which is making me look forward to writing the final exam in December and getting a final mark. But this week I've got a lot to do. I've got 2 assignments and one quiz to do by Monday morning, so another 16% of the course will be complete by Monday morning, about the same weighting as my midterm. Hopefully I can get much higher than 80% on these new tasks though. I always do better at the end of courses than the beginning too. Anyways talk soon and take care.

Premed Pre-reqs and Financial Boost

So I wrote an English midterm this week. Felt good to get it out of the way. But still not sure how I did. Luckily, the weighting is only 15% so it doesn't make or break my final English mark, per say. After the midterm is marked I believe I will have grades for about 40%-ish for the course.

I'm not doing bad in the course overall, so right now I'm looking forward to improving my writing over the next 7ish weeks, and hopefully getting my mark back before Christmas.

I spent a lot of time two weeks ago trying to decide which courses to complete after I'm done with my current courses of English, Bio II, and Orgo I. I'm thinking I'll continue with the basic science pre-reqs. Despite their difficulty, those courses will benefit me the most and help me prepare for the MCAT in 2017. I think around February 1st, I will decide which date I'm going to write my MCAT on. I need to finish the pre-requisites also because then I can register for biochem as well, and that course will be preparation for the MCAT too. I'd like to have all of bio I and II, chem I and II, orgo II and II all completed before I start biochemistry I. Which means I need to complete about 3.5 more courses. I'm also going to do calculus I and II and physics I and II at some point too. I'll get a better idea of when I'll be done lower level sciences after I finish Orgo I.

Also, my mom received a significant asset from a family member this week. I can't get into the details too much at this point but I can say that financially, we got a major boost with this news. So I have to decide what we're going to do with the money. But we did decide that we're going to invest the vast majority of the funds, so we just have to figure out what to invest in. But if I get my way, it will be in index funds. I'll also write a post about compounding at some point too by the way.

We're currently afloat just fine right now so we would rather put the money away and have it work for us instead of increasing our lifestyle at this point. Pretty interesting developments though. Talk soon and take care.

Good to be back in it

So this semester I'm also in an Englsh class and I've been working on that since I got back from New York. I've handed in a couple things and done a few quizzes and so far completed a portion of the class. The class is first year English and it is a paced online course (paced in that it has standard start and end dates with work to do progressively each week). I have 80% in the course so far, with one month down and two more to go. My progress in terms of my mark is marginally okay but my effort is all there. I just need to perform better and submit writing that is of higher quality. I have to write an essay this weekend and I'm hoping to hit it out of the park. If anyone who has excelled in English courses could comment any tips about writing high quality work - the type that gets you an A+, it would be much appreciated to myself and others who are struggling to get top marks in English. I'm actually going to google this exact thing this weekend as well. It's kind of funny I never looked it up. I've always had okay writing so I never bothered to improve it. But now I will need to so that I can get that 90% in my English course.

My New York trip was nothing short of incredible, so glad I went! I might post more about it later. But I'll definitely talk more later about what's on my mind right now, and that is my athletic pursuits and other courses! No outright excellent news - but rather just progress leading to me having more optimism. Talk soon and take care.

How to Save Money on MCAT Books and Prep

So I recently came across an excellent way to save money on MCAT prep. I got the idea from the user "kbinners" on the premed101 forums and the idea is to ask your family members/friends/significant other to buy you Amazon gift cards to be used towards buying MCAT books for Christmas and birthdays (and other holidays) rather than a traditional gift they would normally get you. Or alternatively the friend or family member could simply buy the MCAT book for you themselves if that's possible for them. But in my family our gifts are usually around $50 CAD in value so buying the books outright isn't really an option. Also if the relationship is appropriate, you can ask the person to give you cash and tell them you would be using it for MCAT books. This obviously works better if a student is on a very tight budget, and if the student is buying the books used from somebody. Also if you're taking a prep course you can ask for cash too and just tell them it's for an MCAT course next summer or whatever.

I know for me personally, I don't really care for my gifts as it is usually stuff I don't need like clothes or other wearables like small jewelry or shoes or gift cards to restaurants. So to me this idea really really makes sense to me. And I never even thought of doing this! But I will most definitely be asking all of my relatives to either give me cash or Amazon gift cards this holiday season and for my birthday. I've always liked practical gifts and if practical is your thing too then I think this is the ultimate practical gift for today's premed student. Talk soon and take care.

Promise to start posting grades again

So I haven't been able to finish any classes in the last year because of an emphasis on work and other activities. I realized it has been so long since I posted final grades in my courses. Some of these posts were my most viewed posts, so I can only assume that people love reading about this. I was planning on completing courses this fall anyways, but having a place to share my grades makes me feel really good, and if readers enjoy it as well then all the better. I can assure that I will have completed 7 courses by January 31st 2017. That is the deadline I'm working with. The reason is because I will forfeit an RESP payment if I don't complete 7 more courses by that deadline. I'll be finished biology 2 in 3 weeks and organic chem about 2.5 weeks after that. I would be done sooner but I'm heading on a trip to New York City next week for about 5 days, so that will slow me down because I won't be studying there. So I'm taking it one course at a time. As long as I'm finished 2 courses by early October, I'll be on track. I'm aware I've never worked at this pace successfully. But I know that I'm capable. I've been using a new study strategy I've learned about called Cornell Notes. I'll post about this method after I get my final mark in bio 2. It's been so far so good though. I'm definitely going to put in some serious work this weekend into my bio course. Think pre-final exam-type studying. Then I'll relax on Tuesday when I leave for NYC. But right now I'm just glad the weekend is here! Not sure how much I'll do today but Saturday and Sunday will be good days in terms of studying and completing bio 2. I'm hoping to be done 10% by Tuesday night, although this is just an estimate. I'll have a better idea by tomorrow night. For the North American readers working a 9-5 job, happy start of Labour Day weekend which is much needed!

Talk soon and take care.

Initial CARS Practice Results and Excellent Hospice Training Experience

So in my last post I mentioned I had a CARS tutoring session scheduled. Well me and my tutor weren't able to connect. But the bright side is I thought I did pretty well on the CARS practice! I didn't do a lot of practice at all, I only did 9 passages from EK's 101 Passages. And I actually ran out of time because I tried doing the same amount of CARS passages that would be on the MCAT in the prescribed time. So time was an issue, but the positive was I got a lot of questions right and I aced a few passages as well. I don't know what percentile I would've scored as I haven't calculated it yet but just knowing that for my practice so far, I'm able to answer most questions right, is very comforting to me because I was very concerned I would bomb any CARS practice because growing up I hated reading novels. I just couldn't understand them. I also reviewed the EK verbal book and it had so many good tips and made so much sense. And having the structure from the book was comforting too. But anyways I am VERY optimistic on CARS. I think I have the ability I just need to do less contemplating on questions and more "going with my gut". This will speed me up. I also have to do my best to understand the passages the first and hopefully only time I read them. Oh and before I marked my passages, I thought I bombed them. Like I had hardly any idea of what was right and wrong. My theory is that it feels that way because when we write science tests we feel so much certainty as to what is right or wrong, so something like CARS is much different, but not sure why haha.

Anyways, in sum, it appears I have a baseline level in CARS, but I still have to refine my CARS approach, finish reviewing the EK book, read a variety of things in the arts, and practice, practice, practice!

So I had a two day volunteer training session at the hospice this week. The experience was so awesome! I learned so much and the group was wonderful. It was so moving hearing everyone's stories as we all brought our own perspectives to the non traditional group learning format of the training. We had to schedule a "training exit interview" as well to determine where we want to volunteer, and I had mine today. I expressed my interest in joining the hospital team that visits palliatative patients there at the hospital, as there are lots of different role opportunities through this hospice society, but the hospital is what interests me the most. Well the coordinator agreed and though I can't remember her words she was clear that I would be excellent in that role. It was very nice to hear that because I could tell it was not just lip service, but rather she recognized that my skill set overlaps with what is required to be successful in that particular role in that hospital environment. (And I just realized now that I should mention that this hospice is offsite from the local hospital, so that is why there is a special hospital team that goes there. Most other volunteers volunteer away from the hospital at the hospice building itself). But anyways the hospice training experience overall so far was quite incredible and it will no doubt be a great piece to the puzzle.

But the training isn't over yet, as to work in 1on1 situations with the hospice it is required that a volunteer does further training to the tune of 1 day per week for seven weeks at 5 hours per day. Only then after that will I be able to start my clinical volunteering. That further training doesn't start until October but I am able to work in non clinical roles, such as reception, until my training is over. I may or may not do that. Haven't decided yet. But I will certainly do the further training and start doing clinical volunteering after.

All this positivity to report, and I haven't even mentioned the best part yet! I met the most incredible person at the hospice training. I can't go into more detail right now because I'm on my iPad in bed and I have way too much to write about her and I should be getting to sleep. I know what you might be thinking and no it is not a potential partner or a female I'm attracted to. It's something else. I'll devote a post to it later because it is just that special. Speaking of which, I forgot to ever write that post about my most favourite class ever that I was in last summer, Psyc 304 at UBC. I'll post on that too. But for now I'll hit the hay! Talk soon and take care.

Babysitting, Family Time, and Upcoming MCAT Tutoring Session

So, soon after my last post I got a call from my cousin-in-law asking me if I could babysit my nephew for 5 days while her and my cousin go on vacation. I said of course I could so I was busy with that a few days after I posted. I didn't get much homework done because my nephew is a handful to manage. He is extremely high energy and the way he acts makes it hard to look after him for extended periods of time. He turns 4 years old later this year. But what also makes it hard is that he is extremely attached to his mom, which means he gets upset and cries quite often at different points in the day. He is just not an easy kid to take care of.

But I see my nephew's hard-to-deal-with temperament as a blessing in disguise because taking care of him pushes me out of my comfort zone and allows me to use skills like thinking quick on my feet. Also, as someone who had no younger siblings, I also find babysitting as an incredibly eye opening experience to what life is like for parents. I think this perspective is valuable for me - to understand as much as possible what life is like for parents, so that I can understand the intricacies of their life so that this knowledge will help me to care for them in any medical speciality in which I will be working with these populations. I think working with different populations is so valuable for medicine.



A few days after I was finished babysitting, I spent time with my mom and brother because we were going to a wedding this past weekend. It was good seeing all of the family members that I hadn't seen in a while, and the wedding was good too. I didn't do any homework during the weekend of the wedding, because I mostly spent time with family. Also, my brother lives in a Vancouver hotel with a full concierge. We went to a farewell party for the senior concierge attendant who was moving to a different property owned by the company. Even though me and my mom don't live there, we always saw him and we knew each other. He was such a pleasant man that I will miss seeing him when we go visit my brother. The farewell party was in the lobby and it was a very delightful few hours that we spent there chatting with the other residents and employees of the building, as well as family of the man leaving his job at the hotel. The refreshments there were delicious as well. My first time trying tiramisu and french macaroons. Both tasted really good, especially the tiramisu!



With these happenings going on, I've only had a handful of days where I was at home studying. But I've still been slowly chipping away at my bio course. I also have an upcoming one-time tutoring session for the MCAT CARS section. So in preparation of that, I've got my hands on the ExamKrackers prep books, as well as the old 101 VR Passages, also by Examkrackers. I\m going to review the CARS prep book, as well as complete about 9 VR practice passages as well. I really have no idea how CARS is going to go. On the one hand I hated reading novels growing up in grade school, but on the other hand I have a keen interest in reading about general topics and articles in the news, economics, politics, history, ethics, and healthcare. And I would say I'm quite good at discussing these topics with friends. I also think my tutor will provide an excellent framework as he received a very high CARS score and is starting medical school this year too. My session is at 7am on Saturday so I have to be sure to finish an adequate amount of CARS prep before we begin so that I can have a context and better understanding as to what he is teaching me. I'll post on Saturday or before about my feelings on CARS so far.