My favorite nation is....

Procrastination. And I must admit, I believe myself to be a prominent member of society in this nation. In fact, procrastinating has really been something I've done for a long long time now. I've put off doing work for years. Just ask my Mom, she admits that I would often just sit back and leave stuff undone until it either gets done by someone else, or I have to do it at the deadline. Now this isn't a recent occurence, I've done this since I was a kid. Anyway, what brings this thought about is my lack of motivation in getting stuff done down the stretch here at school. I put off revising papers and studying. I shouldn't, but it just comes so naturally for me. All I know is that if I were truly motivated, the things I could accomplish would be scary. Oh well, I'll keep it up and get my work done. It's been successful in the past.

If you have any motivation to spare, feel free to send it my way.

A weekend away form the norm

I guess in order to understand why this past weekend was quite a bit different than my normal weekend, you need to know my normal weekend. So here it is (please hold off laughter and judgement of my relatively non-existent life): rented movies and video games, sometimes with friends, most of the time without....there you have it... a real barrel of monkeys, huh?

Ok, so this weekend departed from the norm. On Friday, I had a dinner with the Dean (via Rho Chi). Prior to the start of dinner, the most impressive hail storm I have ever seen occurred. It was coming down like a hard rain would. The entire ground was covered white with hail when it was over. My car survived without much damage, so that was good. Anyway, back to the weekend. So I had dinner with the dean (which was neat), then just played video games and tried downloading some songs for dad. In the process of the attempted downloads, I was up late and recieved an IM from a friend from high school (Al Felton). He invited me to his birthday party at Purdue on Sat. evening. I go to bed unsure of whether I'll go or not. I wake up at 11:30 that morning. I wind up on campus and proceed to NOT study like I planned, but instead played on the computer and looked up more grad school info. Felton calls and asks me to come again, and I don't give a definite answer. I call around and try to get a friend to go with me (as a wing man, someone I can talk to in case all others are drunken PU students), but alas, noone is around to go. I end up going anyway. Got there at about 10 PM, and proceed to hangout with Al and his friends. I was about the only one not drinking (maybe a couple of others, but not many). It was still fun...too many guys and pretty much no girls. The party wrapped up at about 3:30 AM, we walked to Al's dorm room (he's an RA) to go to bed. I ended up sleeping on a 2 cushioned couch (about 4 feet long....I'm 6'4"). Got up at 11:30 that morning. Went to eat at PU's cafeteria, then back to his room to hangout. Then at 4, I left PU and headed back to my house for TV and video games.

Kinda a crazy weekend and certainly not something I do that often. May never happen again, who knows. That's all. Time to try and get some actual work done....maybe.

I finally did it

There are actually two things that I am referring to here. Let me start with what I deem the most important and exciting. This past weekend (16-17th), I went home to bowl in the Daviess Co. Shootout. On Saturday, I had games of 280-268-257-235 = 1040. What is most important is the first three games resulted in an 805 series. This is my second 800. Any good bowler will tell you that an 800 series is often the most difficult award score (short of 900) to accomplish. It really was nice to shoot another one (especially without having a 300 game). As a result, I did very well in the side pots and brackets and came out plus in the cash area. With the extra green, I went out and purchased Star Wars: Battlefront on Monday. Let's just say, I've already played it extensively, and have plans to continue playing it with regularity. I need to hone my skills so next time Sean and I play, I can give him a run for his money. It's a great game.

So to sum up: Bowled an 800 and then rewarded myself with Star Wars: Battlefront!! What a life.

Picking a grad school (a long post)

Right now, one of the largest things occupying my thoughts, are where would I like to go to grad school. I would like to narrow the list down to probably a top 5 by the end of the summer. This will narrow my focus and make it easier in the application process. If it didn't cost $50-$75, I would apply to alot of schools, but at the price, I'll probably shoot for 3-5 schools. Since most don't know what schools offer a PhD in pharmacology, here's the list:

Auburn, Boston U, Brown, Case West. Reserve U, Columbia, Cornell, Creighton, Dartmouth, Drexel, Duke, Duquesene, East Carolina, East Tenn. St., Emory U, Florida A&M, Georgetown, GW, Harvard, Howard U, Idaho St., IU, IUPUI, John Hopkins, Kent St., Loma linda U, Long Island U, Loyola-chi., mayo, Mich St., New York U, NC st., Northeastern, Northwestern, Nova SE U, Ohio St., Purdue, Rutgers, St. John's, St. Louis U, So.Ill., Stanford, Stony Brook, Temple, Tufts, Tulane, U of buffalo, UAB, Arizona, UC (davis, irvine, LA, SD, San Fran), Uchicago, U cincy, Uconn, Uflorida, U of GA, U hawaii, U of Houston, UIC, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, L-ville, Maryland, miami (FL), mich., minnesota, missippi, missouri, monatana, U Nevada -Reno, UNC, North Dakota, Penn., Pitt., Rhode Island, Rochester, So. ala., So. Dakota, So. CA, So. FL, Pacific, Toledo, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Wash., Wisconsin, Vanderbilt, Virginia, Wake Forest, Wash. St., Wayne St., W. VA, Wright State, Yale, Yeshiva

Here's the criteria as I see it that should weigh in on my decision (plus my personal wants).

1 - Research area --> most schools offer similar research areas and this should be a major factor, but again this doesn't narrow the list a bunch (personal preference: toxicology, molecular pharmacology, genetics, receptor binding)

2 - Location --> again a major factor (personally, out of the midwest (esp. IN), someplace reasonably warm, NOT cold....the Carolinas and AZ/NM/CO are leading in my own head)

3 - Benefits --> this one is relatively null, each school that I've looked at, offers relatively similar benefits for acceptance: stipend ($18,000-$22,000), full tuition and books, health insurance are commonly included

4 - Cost of living --> somewhat important and related to location (personally I would like someplace comparable to Indianapolis...not someplace ridiculously expensive...ie Hawaii is probably out)

Those are the major factors as I currently see them. Let me know if you can think of others, or have a personal opinion.

Other consistencies across the board: 4-5 years (2 of class work, 2-3 of research/dissertation), lots of research, oppurtunities for fellowships and research/teaching assistants.

Wherever I end up, I would plan to get licensed in that state and work a very limited schedule as a floater pharmacists at a retail chain. I would also bowl whenever possible and save 1 weekend in March/April to bowl the ABC. Those are givens.

That's all. Let me know if you have any thoughts.

Speak English!!!!

Ok, I'll admit, this is a bit of a soapbox and a major pet peeve of mine. First, let me say that I truly believe all people have the right to live, work, drive, and vote in this country. But just because this is a free country, does not mean you can continue and NOT speak english. It drives me nuts that so much time and money is spent to make double copies, print double signs, take extra time to figure out translations, just to appease those people who do NOT ever learn to speak English. I know this is a difficult language, and if you are brand spanking new to the country, then I'll give you some leeway in learning. It is the people who have lived here for 5+ years that still have no idea how to speak the language that absolutely drive me looney. Here's all I know. If I were to move to Spain to live, I would need to learn to speak Spanish (I may be able to get around on English a bit, but to be productive I'd have to learn the language). Same applies for any other American who wants to live in France, Germany, Russia, etc. etc. etc. If you want to live and work in the United States, jump through the hoops for a green card or visa or whatever documentation is needed, pay your taxes, and learn to speak the frickin' language. If you want to speak your native language to friends, family, that's fine, but learn the language to order food, read signs and directions, pick up medicines, etc.. It kills me that people feel they should be catered to, just because this is America and is land of the free.

That's all. Just learn some English!

If I could post...

every time I had a thought, then this would be a very busy and full blog. I'll just be sitting around thinking, or have something happen, and then I work out a nice little post in my head. But I'm not at a computer at the time, and by the time I get to one, I don't really feel so strongly about my post as I did at the time. This has happened on numerous occasions. So, I will attempt to be more frequent, maybe even climb a soapbox or two, in the near future. I know I have promised more frequent updates before, but this time I mean it....well, we'll see.

I have finished my last cluster exam today!!! Clusters are no more!! In fact, only finals remain before my time in the classroom is completed (for this degree). There you have it. I'm nearing the end of my pharmacy classroom learning. In a few short weeks, I will enter into my experiential learning....aka rotations. Should be fun, interesting, tiring, and a wee bit scary all at the same time.

That's all for now. I will return.

For the sake of posting

I really don't have much to say right now. Nothing is burning to get off my chest. There is always something I could say, some opinions I could voice, but the truth is, I don't have anything I feel the desire to rant about right now. There really is nothing new going on with me, so that avenue is relatively uneventful. I'm just plugging along. Clusters this weekend, video gaming, bowling, and working. That's about it. No more college basketball to watch (boo). So I guess I'll continue on with my life, as is, without complaint.

Maybe I'll be more fun to read next time. At least you can hope.

The end of a long run

I'm here to report some sad sad news. My winning streak has come to an end. 115 games in a row I was victorious. Then in the Championship game of the NCAA tournament I fell by 4 to the Kentucky Wildcats (makes the loss hurt that much more). My team could not buy a bucket...on the season I shot about 55%, but in this game I shot 30%. Anyway, it kinda sucked. I followed this loss up with another. My first game of the next season against Arizona, and I lost by 3. This one hurt because I was up by 12 at one point and proceeded to blow the lead and lose. I came back and beat Duke in my next game (had a big lead and blew it before finishing the game down the stretch). Not sure what's happening, but let's hope I get things turned around. My non-conference schedule includes only ranked (at least pre-season) teams, so my life won't get any easier. Here's what really irks me: I never, repeat never, attained number 1 ranking in the country. I won 115 games in a row and never was ranked higher than 3rd. I won back-to-back national championships. I've never failed to win the regular season crown of my conference. I had 3 straight undefeated regular seasons. But despite all of this, I've never been ranked number 1. In other words, I still am motivated to win all my games.