Conception.
Helloo. I'm back from my hiatus from the interweb. Sorta of.
I'm no stranger to the internet, but I've been trying to avoid social networking sites, especially Facebook, for quite some time now. I've disabled my Fb account three times. I was too enamored with Fb, as with everyone else. I realized this when I was taking classes during my semester at Catalina Island. Everyone was wired on Fb. It was all they did, even during lecture, break times, morning, afternoon, and night. I found it rather unattractive and unnecessary. Fb allowed people to become too self-absorbed with themselves, to which I found extremely comical on the island. I saw myself constantly checking updates and looking at pictures of myself and of my peers, wasting away precious time that I could used productively..like studying. I'm not saying Fb made my flunk my classes (far from it! Buahahaha), but made me lose sight of what was really important and needed prioritizing.
Granted, Fb is a very convenient tool to stay connected with people. But from what I've seen during my two or three years using Fb, Everyone's doing everything on it. Like, everything. Be it event planning, introducing other people, messaging/chatting, emailing (through Fb), wall-to-wall-ing, what have you. Sure, some of these features are amazingly handy, but others like wall-to-wall-ing and emailing and chatting are kinda...wtf? I have a phone number. I have an email address. Call me, text me, e-mail me. I dunno. I'm here. When I left Fb, I felt like I was so much out of the loop, it was ridonculous. I have a lot to rant about Fb, but all I can say for now is: I hate Facebook. :)
Anyhow, I'm back. I created this journal because it'll still allow me to interact with people and share my thoughts, minus the whole Fb aspect, haha.
Alot has happened since I graduated. Academically and personally.
I'm not applying to become a medical doctor anymore. Maybe sometime in the future, just not right now. I'm very into the health sciences, so I'm applying for a master's in cardiovascular/perfusion science. Coming from an Asian family, it was a pretty nice blow to my parents, who've always wanted me to be a doctor. They thought being a doctor was the way to be. The ONLY way to be happy and successful. Oh yeah? Well, you can suck it.
I finally realized that my parents have been pushing me to be a doctor. I never had the chance to explore other fields. I knew I had a sincere interest in the health sciences, but I realized that striving to be a medical doctor just wasn't right for me. Even though I knew the material, I also knew the amount of time, money, and utmost commitment I was going to get myself into, and that turned me off.
I hated some of the classes I took during college, and often questioned the purposes of the classes, like organic chemistry, molecular biology, and physics. As a doctor, will I really have to know the Lorentz force, heat shock proteins, the structure of hydrazine? Not really. Seriously, I was unhappy. I wanted to live life. I felt too restricted from having fun and experiencing life as I was held down by the claws of medicine. I wanted to move on with life. I don't want to be in school until I'm 35. That's just my personal preference.
Cardiovascular science? Gotcha. Perfusion science? Wtf? It's a really cool job where I can get to salvage blood and operate extracorporeal equipment (i.e. heart-lung machine) during vascular surgery and make sure my patients don't die on the operating table. Pretty neato, right? I'm really looking forward to a master's in cardiovascular science, as the heart is such a ridiculously awesome organ. It does a lot more than just pumping blood through your body. It's a two-year program, so once I graduate with the necessary amount of hours in clinical perfusion, I take a licensing exam and then go to work at a hospital, rubbing elbows with surgeons. [squeal] Two years. Such a deal. I'm so sick of school and the system. Hopefully, I'll get in. I haven't sent in my application yet, as I m waiting for my advisors to send their letters of recommendation for me. I have two advisors: one is my research advisor from USC who helped me lots during my research at Catalina Island. I asked her a month ago about the letter. She sent it yesterday. -.- My other advisor is a neurosurgeon at USC Keck whom I've shadowed during his clinic hours. Don't believe that I was given the chance to watch brain surgeries, because I didn't. The hospital had a new policy where no one other than the medical staff can sit in during a surgery. [shakes her fist] Damn you. But I got a letter out of him, so I'm happy. He's such a cool dorky guy. I gave him a website to upload his letters but he couldn't upload them so he sent them to my email...where I can read it. Wait, aren't letters of rec confidential? Most of the time, yes, especially in this case LOL. He wrote two letters for me; one for the masters program and one for osteopathic medicine. I read the letter for the masters program. It was a glowing review of my shadowing ahaha. It's kind of weird how someone can write a positive letter of rec for someone who just sat in your office and looked pretty and watched you talk to your patients. He and I talked in-between his patient visits. We talked about relationships, family, movies, music, school, and neurology stuff (of course). I guess he got to know me better that way. Yaay.
I'm hoping to send my completed application sometime in the middle of June. We'll see.
Anime Expo 2010. I'm going full-fledged this time. I'm pretty sure this will be my last AX, so this is my last hurrah. Beau and I will be cosplaying from Maka Albarn and Soul Eater Evans from Soul Eater. It was he who reintroduced me to anime. I had fallen out of the anime craze some years ago, but this series was actually interesting. Its humor reminded me of Trigun, one of my favorite anime series of all time. So yeah. The SPJA are being punks this year and are charging for everything. $15 to to go the masquerade and other venues? $10 for a day pass for the shuttles? I shake my fist IN DEFIANCE at you. We'll be staying at the Millennium Biltmore. Pretty snazzy looking for a hotel, but I snagged a good deal and ta-da. The Biltmore is ours, beetches!
And now, here's the boyfriend paragraph: I'm going to Phoenix tomorrow. It's Beau's 29th birthday this Saturday! Please hold the "he's ooold!" comments. -.-;;;;;;;;;
I'm sorry for being MIA for a lot of get-togethers because it always seemed that I was in Phoenix every time these gatherings take place.
He's awesome. We've been together for about 4.5 years. Some of my friends have asked me, "when's the wedding?" Ha. Not for at least another two or more years. We've talked about it, sure. He wanted me to finish school first before settling down. Isn't he awesome? :D Very practical. I feel that I am very lucky to have him as a part of my life. He is the maple syrup to my French toast or, more fittingly, the egg to my French toast, because you can't have French toast with the eggs, yo. We're doing okay, living our lives in our respective worlds. I might be moving in with Beau. The program is at Midwestern University in Glendale, Arizona. In fact, it is the -only- school out by the west coast that I know of that offers a masters in cardiovascular/perfusion science. I'm excited.
Hrm, I think I've talked about everything that was worth mentioning. K, bye.