Alone at the lab!
Today was my first real day alone at the lab (Thom's in Jamaica for the week). It was really cool to have tasks to do and to just carry them out, learning from my own actions what works best and what doesn't, and generally multitasking. Apart from the fact that I'm convinced the Sputter Coater is completely broken and fucked up (as partly evidenced by the MAC LISA style interface), I think it went quite well.
So I decided not to volunteer at MGH this summer, pushing it off til the fall. While I do feel that this is rather detrimental to my medical school application, I feel that it will be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Basically, I'd end up wildly overextended (like I usually am during the semester) at the expense of interpersonal relationships. I'm starting to think that I do it to myself to prove the rich people wrong; a poor kid certainly can do it. It's pretty much my motivation for most things, and now that I know I can, I feel like I need to offset the fact that I certainly couldn't swing it 3 years ago.
So yeah. When the admissions committees ask me why, I can explain it to them. It certainly wasn't out of laziness.
In other news. Alex's 16th Birthday is Friday and I'm SOOOO EXCITED. It's going to be so great! She's so awesome, and she's really growing up now!
Although I haven't talked to Annie in over a week, which is really abysmal, we've basically been talking via voicemails. She hit an F above high C in her voice lesson last week. Honestly, it's been 6 years that I've been singing at her side, and I still never cease to be amazed by her voice. In those 6 years, I can also say with absolute certainty (and she's taught me to be quite the voice critic) that I can still count on both hands the celebrities or people I've met that are better singers than her. Without a doubt. It always scares me so much that she might not make it as a musician; the music world would honestly be at such a huge loss without her.
Speaking of voices, I've been shocking myself quite a lot lately with my improved vocal dexterity, mostly in improv riffs, and with my facility using the upper reaches of my falsetto. It's a nice feeling to know how much your voice is still growing even when you're all done.
So I decided not to volunteer at MGH this summer, pushing it off til the fall. While I do feel that this is rather detrimental to my medical school application, I feel that it will be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Basically, I'd end up wildly overextended (like I usually am during the semester) at the expense of interpersonal relationships. I'm starting to think that I do it to myself to prove the rich people wrong; a poor kid certainly can do it. It's pretty much my motivation for most things, and now that I know I can, I feel like I need to offset the fact that I certainly couldn't swing it 3 years ago.
So yeah. When the admissions committees ask me why, I can explain it to them. It certainly wasn't out of laziness.
In other news. Alex's 16th Birthday is Friday and I'm SOOOO EXCITED. It's going to be so great! She's so awesome, and she's really growing up now!
Although I haven't talked to Annie in over a week, which is really abysmal, we've basically been talking via voicemails. She hit an F above high C in her voice lesson last week. Honestly, it's been 6 years that I've been singing at her side, and I still never cease to be amazed by her voice. In those 6 years, I can also say with absolute certainty (and she's taught me to be quite the voice critic) that I can still count on both hands the celebrities or people I've met that are better singers than her. Without a doubt. It always scares me so much that she might not make it as a musician; the music world would honestly be at such a huge loss without her.
Speaking of voices, I've been shocking myself quite a lot lately with my improved vocal dexterity, mostly in improv riffs, and with my facility using the upper reaches of my falsetto. It's a nice feeling to know how much your voice is still growing even when you're all done.