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I have just gotten home from an MCAT Prep course this weekend in Toronto, Canada given by Dr. Ferdinand and it was awesome!!! I’d HIGHLY recommend any course this man offers that you can attend in preparation for your medical school career, he’s awesome!!! I am truly blessed to have been able to be a part of this session and he’s totally instilled my confidence to face my MCAT!

Well not so sure what I am supposed to be doing other than what I am doing. I am studying the best that I can while completing 2 summer courses, one of which, Mass Communication Law, is intense and a lot of work/effort. Of course I strive to get an A since it’s an upper level course my first semester at UCF and all, so it’s not something I can abandon. Life still moves forward too and I have to balance work and family out as well. Speaking of family - we were rained on for the 4th of July - then it dried up instantly right about the time the fireworks display down by the civic center in Sebring was ready to go off - so needless to say we had the privilege of enjoying a great show. The choreographed the fireworks to music and made it quite an enjoyable event for us. Ok back to some more studying then bed, I feel like my head is going to explode as it is. Oh on the brighter side - we were blessed to get high speed Wi-Fi service and we were able to ditch Hughesnet. We were with them for 5 years and had so many problems I can’t begin to say - that being said they were better than dial up and during the hurricanes of 2004 with the generator going we had communication at least because both local and cell phones were not working, so I can’t complain too much about Hughesnet - I’m just very happy I don’t have to worry about their FAP (fair access policy) anymore… now we pay less and get more - yeah!!!

Well as it turns out UCF (University of Central Florida, Orlando) offers a degree that both appealed to me and that I could complete at an accelerated pace too! I’m extremely excited that everything is going as if it were planned perfectly. I have decided to go for my baccalaureate degree in Interdisciplinary Studies. That means it’s a combined degree of dual minors in Mass Communications, and Health Sciences and studies in the Physical Sciences. I believe this will be a great choice to help keep me diversified and well rounded for medical school. I’m sure that medical school will be focused on sciences so taking these other courses undergrad will be enjoyable and just help complete me as a person. Mass communications interests me in that those courses are the same ones that journalists, radio and television, advertising and public relations undergraduate majors take; how exciting is that? I’ll be able to go into a career as a TV Medical Correspondent later on. Of course I’ve had some experience with TV as I was on Animal Planet’s “The Pet Psychic Show” once as well as included in a documentary for a film production crew from the UK.

I’m pretty excited that I was able to secure the Physics class I needed and the proper courses for the balance of my studies needed to progress me forward and secure my BS degree. Of course I will be taking no less than 19 - 20 credits these next two semesters - but that’s become my usual pace these days. Right now I am enrolled in a Health course as well as a Mass Communications course for Summer B, while I prepare for my MCAT. My ultimate goals; complete my BS degree (start to finish 2.5 years!) and gain entrance into medical college for Fall of 2009!

I’ve pushed up my MCAT testing date to August 5th so that I can take an “in-person” study course in Toronto, Canada. While up there I get to see my sister and brother-in-law which is going to be awesome. Even though I am a native New Yorker I’ve never really gone to upstate NY much - so it will be refreshing for me to go up there and see the area. Rochester area is supposed to be very pretty, and I don’t doubt it as upstate NY is gorgeous. It will be nice to get out of the summer heat Florida packs too. If I were rich I’d have a summer place somewhere milder than Florida - since I’m not my choice would be to stay here in Florida and enjoy the lack of snow, I’ve had enough snow to last me a lifetime - I seriously can live without ever seeing the white stuff again. I do however have fond memories as a child playing in it when it was over my head, I also recall having to shovel it too! One thing was certain my mom always had homemade hot chocolate waiting inside to warm us up, that and homemade vegetable beef soup too. 

I had a blast in St. Croix this trip. Met two new CRNA’s and had some beach fun with another I met over Christmas holiday. Saw many interesting surgeries and more dynamics of the O.R. and made it even that much more clear to me that it’s 100% what I want to do. I think that every pre-med student should take the time to shadow a physician, it certainly gives you a wealth of information on many aspects of becoming a physician, and readies you for the challenges and the lifestyle ahead. In short, I’m extremely glad I put in the over 100 hours that I did in the Operating Room and I’d highly recommend any pre-med student do the same. Being that I am in the medical field via veterinary medicine I had some inkling of what to expect with regard to the surgery and medicine itself - but seeing and being part of it on the human side was a joy as well as an eye opener in many aspects. One thing it’s good for is to see if you can tolerate the view of surgery, you would find out real fast if you were squeamish and if the field was right for you. I was speaking with a young student the other day and she was explaining how she had thought she’d be a pre-med student but the site of blood made her ill and she realized early on she’d better go into the administration side of it - so she was going into marketing and business end of it. It just proves that you must be certain that in all aspects you are ready for medicine and that it is a good fit for you, and probably the best way to do that is to actually be there observing. Shadowing in my opinion is an invaluable tool, and I can see why medical schools like to see it on your application.

So I am getting a slight respite from school here on St. Croix while we work at the vet clinics and then head to the beach for some sun and fun. I’ve gotten a burn which is a first for me in a while too. While I am here I am studying for the upcoming MCAT test as well as doing my online course, Understanding U.S. Healthcare Systems - which to be honest is a fascinating course and an eye opener to say the least. I had no idea there were so many government agencies and that medicare & medicaid were developed in 1965, I suppose I presumed they were always here helping people. By the figures I’ve read almost one in three people, probably about 30% of the U.S. population is helped by those two agencies combined. Ok off to bed… just felt like dropping by and posting.

Well not sure if I’m nuts or not (time will surely tell) but I’ve made my appointment for the MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test) for July 18th. Now I am working on learning physics, and brushing up on studying everything else I know. I’ve purchased Audio Osmosis and have been using it to learn physics - which they certainly help make the concepts easy enough to understand - the question is will I remember the plethora of details they are teaching me and the equations! Well while I was at it I’ve also purchased a bunch of practice MCAT’s and flash cards. I’ve decided to go easy during summer session and only take 3 upper level credits toward my B.S. degree - so on top of going to St. Croix, shadowing in the hospital Operating Room, completing an online course in the upper division university level, I have to teach myself physics and brush up on all the other stuff I already know (General Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Biology) Surely this is not a light task I am undertaking and I am of course praying for, and expecting an excellent outcome! Wish me luck! My goal is to get into medical school in the fall of 2009, which of course means I will be doubling up and taking a lot of tough courses together this next year to complete my degree too. I’m debating between a liberal arts type degree and a biology/biomedical sciences degree ~ I’m sure once I get into the university I’ll talk to advisors and figure it out, right now I have to worry about the MCAT, it’s my most immediate dragon to slay.

Well it’s official - I have completed my first 2 years of college and received my Associates in Arts (A.A.) degree! I graduated Summa Cum Laude too - go figure! Now I am awaiting the transcript shuffle so that I can gain entrance into university to get into summer courses - the race is on to see if it will happen prior to class start date - which happens to be Monday…

Well I got an “A” on my project for ASL, we had to sign a children’s story as if we were telling it to a five year old, it was a lot of fun, I did “Three Little Pigs”. Now all I have left in that class is a final Thursday night. I plan to study hard for it right after my Biology Lab exam, and right before the class so retention is higher, although if I was spot tested at the moment I’m sure I’d do well. I have learned the info already but after my lab exam I’ll want a refresher, I’ll need it! I’ve completed 2 more class tests this week in General Chemistry and Organic Chemistry, both with 100%’s - I really LOVE chemistry, and my professor is awesome, all of my professors are actually, I’m going to dearly miss them!! I hope to have such wonderful professors when I move on to university. I have so much more testing still left to do with my Organic Lab final today, we get to figure out how to find the structure of a compound based upon the IR and HNMR graphs, yummy. It’s actually easy and fun - it’s like finding the missing pieces in a puzzle. I love puzzles! Then afterwards we’re supposed to watch the professor blow glass, that was my idea as last semester end we did some and he proved to be a glass-blowing expert, I said - wow can we do more and he promised at the end of this semester we will and he’s definitely a man of his word! This should be fun. In Organic Chemistry lab we’ve made nylon, rayon, acrylic, styrene, stilbene, methyl orange dye, distilled ethanol and so many other chemical compounds and such - it’s been fun! One of the more fun things is when you put two liquid chemicals in and they react instantaneously and create a solid; such as happened with nylon.