... it's summer! Well, it's summer in that my class has ended (passed with flying colors, thank you very much), summer classes have begun, the gym is only open from 11 am - 2 pm (as opposed to being completely closed last summer), and I have made it my goal to make a list of goals to accomplish by the end of summer. Yes, it is a time of great promise and a lot of work needed to be completed! I am excited and somewhat frightened at the same time, because I have a lot to get done before finishing graduate school, but the finish line is coming into view. As I said before, time to push!
That being said, and in the interest of giving a sort of summary before we start moving forward, here are this week's randoms, finishing up with a proposed direction for the blog (not that anyone minds, but I do happen to get enough attention to warrant letting you know "what's up" on occasion).
- As I mentioned, my Immunology class ended today with a final, which I passed with fair ease, considering the lack of attention I have paid to it over the past month or so. To be fair, we haven't had a lecture in nearly a month, and given my propensity to do other things instead of worrying about the class made it a little harder to keep everything straight. That being said, I still think I did pretty well! This now puts me in the position of being about 1/8 completed with medical school (I've finished up about half of the M1 classes, with another half to go). For the time-being, though, I will be focusing primarily on research and will leave classes aside. After I'm finished with the PhD, I will have an "abbreviated" year where I finish the rest of the M1 classes before moving on. I've already devised a system in which I will attend and study for the classes I've already taken (helping to study for boards, etc.) but I won't have to take the exams! Should be fun, whenever that is...
- My research continues to push forward... I'm not really privileged to divulge details, but in essence I'm working through synthesizing and testing derivatives of my conjugate molecules (the design of which is "essentially" here... I say essentially because this figure isn't completely up-to-date, but you get the idea). My hope is to get through a bunch of them this summer and have the relevant data to publish somewhere! I'm also thinking that I will help out a fellow lab mate on the synthesis of a few of her molecules, which should provide some additional opportunity to put some research out there.
- Running is... well, it's not happening. The shin has gotten progressively worse, and I'm still not entirely sure if it isn't actually a stress fracture. I've spent the last few days not running, instead doing biking and elliptical work, in addition to core work, push-ups, and so forth. I still have to goal of getting my weight down this year, and - as I'm not running - I need to focus especially on other activities and developing better eating habits. I need a lot of work on the second part... perhaps I need to take a page out of Suzi Storm's book...
- That being said about the running, I've found that wearing compression socks (I've been using Vitalsox) does seem to have a benefit on my shin... I'm thinking about wearing them under my jeans during the day just to see how I feel during the course of the day. I have also been thinking a lot about shoes, and about how the shin pain started when I started wearing my current pair of shoes, and have been exploring trying a different pair of shoes. I've done a handful of runs in the Vibram Five Fingers on the grass, and thinking that maybe a minimal shoe is better, I ordered a pair of New Balance MT101's (highly recommended on Runblogger and other places... cheap too!). I am hopeful that something good will come from wearing them and running mostly on the trails!
- Hey, it's American Craft Beer Week. If you have the opportunity, and like drinking beer, try out some craft breweries and stay away from those cheap beers. There is a lot of stuff out there!
Well, that's where I am. As far as the blog is concerned, I've got a few ideas, but I think I'm going to go back to a format of focusing on research techniques and topics that I come across as I get my research back on the foreground. I'm really interested in the medical topics I've been studying, so perhaps an occasional foray into medical topics would also be useful. I think I'm going to relegate running and athletic-related posts (aside from those with a scientific bent) to the weekends. Overall, I think it'll be a good opportunity to continue practice with my writing, as well as increasing my capacity to read, understand, and summarize scientific literature.
In the meantime, I'm going to take a break and read a book for a while.
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