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.

After a break I'm looking to get back into it!

So the last few weeks I've been enjoying my summer and been taking some time off. I've still been doing errands and making an income from that but aside from that my school work has been minimal. I guess ever since I've decided I'm not writing the MCAT this summer and am thus not applying until 2017 I've just been at ease. It's been really nice actually.

I feel like this last year has been helter skelter ever since the end of last summer since my Psyc 304 Brain and Behavior class at UBC ended last August. I've been more focused on my income as I've been dealing with family businesses and family duties. Basically I get income from a rental property that we own but help out wherever need be, sort of like working as a property manager of sorts, with the help of my uncle. That's one thing. Another thing is that I have a family consulting business for which I do work for. While I don't do any consulting I still have a well defined role with the company. And as it is a small company I do a lot of leg work for that. Those two things are about it for family businesses, and the family duties include babysitting my nephew! It is not my brother's son but rather my cousin's son. But since my two cousins are very close with me and my brother, we are all considered uncles to my 'nephew'. Yeah and that about sums it up, oh yeah and I also did a bit of traveling with some friends. Sadly though, I've been unable to complete any classes during this time. All withdrawn. I'm past the upset phase and just in the phase to get back to it. I basically ended up taking a year off from school for myself. It's just that my priorities had effectively shifted based on my day to day life and my financial goals. I have much less stress in my life now than when I was in school simply because now at least I have money coming in. So the good news is I'm refreshed and have got the whole money thing sorted out. And even though my priorities shifted I still believe in this whole medicine thing 100%. The last few days I've been studying for my online biology class and I'm feeling really good and optimistic it. I think I'll be done that class in no time at all.

The best thing about this past year is that I sorted out my finances. By my projections, I can now go to school for the next two full calendar years and possibly beyond that. All I need is 20 classes to finish my degree. Now that money isn't an issue, I am free to pursue education stress free in that regard.

So I sort of tried this year, and may have failed again a little with the withdrawn courses, but at least they weren't failed courses and my GPA is unaffected. However, I strongly believe I can no longer withdraw a course barring some serious unexpected circumstances. I think I already have quite a few W's so no more for me and that's an almost certainty, unless I get hit by a car tomorrow and am in the hospital with a broken pelvis for a while or something like that. Luckily I don't play Pokemon Go so I think my risk is low, hah!

Also, my ECs are a lot better now after this year as well. And all my ideas are still similar. My target is UBC and I want to put my all into everything. I can't wait to finish my science prerequisites and put my all into the MCAT. Those are my next two goals.

If anyone has been reading my posts on premed101 on Trump, I hope you don't take it personally but I just reeeeaalllly like to debate. I guess I don't see things as crystal clear as someone who leans a bit one way or another does. For the record I'm socially liberal and fiscally conservative. I believe in a pragmatic approach as well. I feel I'm about as center as you can get because I have no devotion to any party. Anyways I think politics are both important and entertaining. But that's all I have to say on that for now.

Within one week from today I'm gonna post about how my first bio assignment went. Or I'll just post my mark. Either way I've already started so I'm looking forward to finishing it.

If anyone wants to share what they are up to this summer feel free! Summer can be such a great time of year so it's good to take it all in. Anyways chat soon ya'll!

Calculus Midterm #1

So I have a calculus midterm tomorrow and I haven't been this concerned for a test in a long time. I just feel a little nervous doing math. I did poorly on my first quiz but it was only worth 5%. I got 57% on it. It was only 3 questions and I got a lot of marks deducted for making silly mistakes. On one question I even had the right answer but I only got half marks for that question. Looking at my mistakes I could've easily gotten a higher mark.

I'm not guaranteeing a high mark for my midterm tomorrow, but I know I will finish this class strong with high marks in everything else after this midterm. If I got above 67% on the midterm tomorrow, then I can still get an A+ in the course. Thinking of it this way has helped me to lower my expectations and make me feel a bit better.

Anyways I will review the topics that I'm not quite comfortable with and try to master those. That will likely take up my time tonight after my class. Then I will get a little bit more practice by either going on Khan Academy or doing practice questions in my textbook. I'm leaning towards Khan Academy. Watching those videos will give me the skill-set to try to understand the material and be able to handle different types of questions. I will be doing this tonight if I have time and tomorrow morning before my test which starts at 1pm.

All I need is around 70% for the chance at an A+, and I need a 43% for the chance at an A. So as long as I hammer out a good day today after my class as well as a good few hours tomorrow morning, then I should at least be able to get around 50-70%. Who knows if I'm feeling confident tomorrow I just might be able to get an 80% on the midterm tomorrow. But the range is so wide, I could get anywhere from 30-80% tomorrow and right now I do not know how I will exactly fare. The pace of the class snuck up on me and I've learned my lesson for summer courses and that is to be fully prepared and to put in the hours. I have a decent understanding of calculus but I just haven't had the practice to solidify my skills. So I will get the practice tonight and tomorrow morning and just try my best.

Volunteering Interviews

So with respect to my community volunteering, I have interviews coming up for both the hospice and the Alzheimer's society. I spoke with the coordinator of the Alzheimer's society and she said there is an opening for another volunteer to come on board. I was so happy and flattered that she thought of me when the opening came about. As I had posted earlier, the coordinator said there may be an opening coming up. However when I later inquired about it a few weeks later, she said there was no openning. So you can see how I was surprised to get a phone call from her last week about this new opening. The position is to be a fitness group social volunteer that helps with the proper functioning of the fitness class for Alzheimer's patients (I think they may be early onset patients). Hopefully I can do well in the interview and impress the coordinator because this is a position I would really want to be involved with. The interview isn't until after my calculus class is over because we decided that would be a good time to start. I'm very glad she is accommodating enough to work around my schedule.

As for the hospice, I had filled out the application form and submitted it along with my two references last week.

I used my best friend as a reference because they didn't require a work reference, and my best friend has a significant business job in my community. Needless to say he has done very well for himself. He is my age and we have known each other for a long time and we have been together on every step of the way. We always did homework together in grade school and we did everything together. Not to mention he is simply hilarious. I'm so happy and grateful to have a best friend like that.

The application took me over an hour to complete as there were a lot of questions and I was trying to give thoughtful responses. Two days later I received a phone call from a lady at the hospice about setting up an interview. I didn't actually talk to her but it went to my voicemail and I still need to get back to her about an interview time.

Hopefully I can do well in these interviews and things will shape up. I need those ECs to land an interview at UBC in 2017!

20K

I can't believe it's been over 5 weeks since my last post! I apologize to everyone who reads and follows my blog. Frankly I'm a bit embarrassed about my sporadic posting lately. I haven't forgot about posting but I've just been so busy. I started an in person calculus class this past week which is one city over from me and it's about a 40 minute drive from my house. Luckily there's not a great deal of traffic and it's a pretty straight path so it's quite a smooth drive. Anyways I will look to make posting on my blog a priority, because it's something I enjoy so much, and I've been so grateful for all of the people who have chosen to take the time to visit my blog. On that note, I should note that a few months ago my blog hit 20,000 views. I'm so happy that other people seem to like reading my blog. Of course my first post was in March of 2014 so we are just over 2 years old here. I honestly love my blog so much and all of the readers are a big reason why, so I promise I'll post more and I'm hoping it's good content as I really am just winging this whole blog stuff.

So what has been new with me? Well we all know I dropped out of the BCIT program after attending for the January semester. The reason for dropping it is because I'm putting all my eggs into one basket. With the end game being a degree and then medical school. Also I now have full support of my family to pursue medical school as best as I can, so that has really made me feel really good about everything. I am very strongly connected with my family which consists of my mom and my brother, as my dad died when I was around 4 or 5 years old. That made us so close. We are an extremely close family and I want to be as successful as I can so that I can make them proud of me and also to make a significant income to have a life that we could have never even dreamed of. We were very poor growing up. After I was born we had to move in with my grandparents and they supported my mom and us for years. I have an older brother who is doing quite well, but we all want more for ourselves. We love the idea of competition and doing great things. Competition just makes things fun. Not to mention there is a well documented correlation between health and income.

Last week I had a talk with my brother on the phone. He called me because he may be breaking up with his girlfriend. I told him he will always have me and my mom, and he already knew that, but I think he was happy hearing it from me. I can't get over how close we are, I've never seen anything like it. How else could I have been in university for 6 years (1 year off) and been able to pay all of that tuition and be supported that whole time? Not to mention I still have another 2 years to go and I'm still getting some support from them despite that I just recently last month started paying for my own tuition.

Other new things include me going on a mini road trip to Washington state and Portland Ore, next weekend. And then I'm going camping sometime after my calculus class. Then I'm going to New York City with my mom in September! I am so excited about going to NYC but I will post more about that later.

My calculus class is my number one priority right now. Organic chem and biology can be finished after my calc class is over on June 16th. I was surprised with how much I remember from high school math, as our class did some precalc review this week. I'm feeling decent about it but I think my saving grace will truly be Khan Academy (https://www.khanacademy.org/). This is definitely the best resource for university/college that I've come across. I don't think they had this when I took first year calc in 2009. But boy am I grateful to have it now. I don't think I need a tutor but I was thinking of it. Another good resource is Chegg. If anyone else knows of any other good resources for learning calculus or science, please post in the comments! :)

Until next time, which hopefully won't be too long from now. And here is to another 20,000, 50,000 and 100,000 views! I want to post until I'm in residency and practicing. But I'll work on the fun part of getting in first :)

Confuddled

I don't think confuddled is a word, but I feel like it describes this situation. My EC schedule is in a bit of disarray right now. In the past few months I mentioned in a post or two that I'm trying to schedule my first shift with the pilot project clinic at the children's hospital one city over from me.

Long story short, there was a delay since January because they had temporarily put a hold on accepting volunteers into the pilot project. Well earlier today, my volunteer coordinator finally introduced me via email to my volunteer supervisor at the clinic and said I can get started anytime. Great news right? Well the problem lies within my schedule. I had told the volunteer coordinator that I am very flexible due to my courses being online. But since I hadn't heard back from the children's hospital, I went ahead and made some plans to do a calculus course in person, one city over from me this summer in May and June, but in the opposite direction of the children's hospital. So it would take me 1 hour and 35 minutes to get from the children's hospital to my calculus lecture. My calculus lecture is 4 days a week too. And the lecture is in the middle of the day too so I can't go to the children's hospital on on those days. So I'm only available on Fridays during the week and, on weekends.

Anyways I told the supervisor this through email and I said I would be willing to either start the volunteer position once my course is over at the end of June, or I could possibly drop the course if that is the only way of keeping the position. I would really prefer not to drop the course, and in fact I only said I would possibly drop the course, so I am still not sure if I am willing to do that yet. However I can't do anything more until she replies to my email.

The implications are that I would either have to do the calculus course online or do it next summer (as I'm not a fan of taking in-person courses during the busy times of year in the winter, although I suppose I could if I had to). I need to take both semesters of first year calculus as a part of my bachelor's of science degree. I can still get my tuition back for the summer calculus course, but it just means I would have to do the course later. It might not be the worst thing in the world because then I wouldn't have to do calculus and organic chemistry in the same semester.

All in all, I will make my decision once I get an email back.

Bad News-But-At-The-Same-Time-Good News

So I have decided not to apply to medical school this summer. I am going to wait until 2017 to apply. The main reason is that I am not ready for the MCAT. I am missing a significant amount of essential science courses that cover MCAT material, and I cannot complete them all by the summer and still have time to review for the MCAT itself.

I've only completed the first half of first year chem and bio, and I've taken cell bio, and I'm currently taking organic chem 1. I've also done first year psych plus more psych classes. Nonetheless that means I'm missing physics, 2nd semester of biology and chemistry, organic chem 2, biochem, and sociology. All in all, I would feel a lot better if I did the courses first, so that I can absolutely destroy the MCAT next summer.

Plus it's not that big of a deal because I had a very low chance of getting in anyways because of my low average. So now I feel a lot better about not rushing my application and applying in 2017 instead of 2016. I am feeling so optimistic and I am hoping I can maintain my momentum and keep up the consistent work ethic from now until 2017 and beyond.