My school loans have come due. I haven't taken the time to fill out the forbearance paperwork. I'm more of an "economic hardship deferment" kinda guy, but apparently that won't work for these loans and, well, I just can't be bothered these days. So I've let that slide.

MCAT studying takes up all my time.

I owe a call to the kid I mentor (my "little brother"). That's bad. I should do that tomorrow.

What else? Another friend is pregnant. Such a cliche to say it seems like yesterday that we were gangly virgins obsessed with Cinema Paradiso. But it's true. A former boss's daughter is pregnant, too. I ran into her the other day and "congratulations" seemed to annoy her. She's a difficult person, and so maybe it was just a general scowl -- but in my heart I thought "I'd love to make a baby with my boyfriend, so accept that it's an amazing thing you've got here and don't you dare throw attitude at me for being kind enough to acknowledge it." Actually, I'm not even sure she did scowl; I anticipated it as the congratulations came out of my mouth but maybe it never actually materialized on her face.

MCAT stress. It can take so many nasty forms.

Like my school loans, my parking tickets have come due. If you don't pay those bitches they DOUBLE. Times two! (45+65)2 = $220. No way. I'll be paying those befor the due date.

Drew is in Mexico. I have to go to bed now. Full-length (8-hour) practice MCAT tomorrow morning. 8am-4pm. My score is destined to decline. Last week's ridiculously high number will be too hard to reproduce; it's okay. Take the pressure off yourself. Do what you know how to do and it'll all be fine.

 

As many of you know, in my former life I was a story editor at America's Next Top Model. If you're not already aware of it, the story department has gone on strike (find out more here from my friend Dan.)

Dan just sent out the following email:

"On Thursday, June 27 (that's now today), we are going to flood the president of the network -- Dawn Ostroff, formerly the head of UPN -- with calls asking why this strike is still going on. Unlike other "Save This Show" campaigns, this one is VERY MUCH on the network's radar, and they are running scared from the power of twelve very nice people with a few simple requests.

So tomorrow between 9 and 7 Pacific Time, pick up your phone and do
the following:

1) Dial the switchboard number for The CW at 310-575-7000.

2) Ask for Dawn Ostroff's's office.

3) When an assistant answers, state your name (or make one up, if
you're so inclined) and say something like the following: "Hi. I am a
fan of the show America's Next Top Model, and I am worried that the
current writer's strike will jeopardize the show's quality and even
its ability to make it on the air this fall. Can I leave word for Ms.
Ostroff making my concern very clear?"

4) If you get stonewalled and sent to a general voicemail box about
the show, LEAVE A MESSAGE.

Networks have cancelled entire shows after three calls from religious organizations, so I see no reason why hundreds of calls from concerned fans shouldn't help twelve people get a little health coverage."

If you've got a minute please consider giving the network a call on their behalf.

 

My sister moved to New Mexico last week.

Yesterday I drove past The Brewery in downtown L.A.. She lived there when she first moved to the city five years ago.

It was a strange feeling, driving past it. It's like she just got here and already she's gone. When she left I told her that if it doesn't work out with her boyfriend and if Drew won't move away for medical school we should share an apartment again. Which she agreed to in that awkward let's-keep-in-touch kind of way. It's ironic that I'm feeling this way now, because when my mom told me Amanda was moving to L.A. I was nervous that she would be a burden. Now I'm the needy one. How'd that happen?

I see her getting older and changing and it makes me scared for her and for myself. I had a nightmare last week that she got lost taking someone to the airport and ended up homeless on the streets. It seems funny now, but it was terrifying. I feel like she's this vulnerable kid who's in constant danger -- like I have to protect her. And I'm sure that says more about me than it does about her because she's always fine.

I wish she were still here, though. She told me weeks ago that she was moving, but it always seemed like some future plan that might fall through. And then suddenly everything was happening too quickly and I had no choice but to just accept that she wasn't going to change her mind. It's crazy, I know. We hadn't even seen each other that much this year. Boyfriends and school and work. But knowing she was there and now knowing she's not -- it changes everything.

I've been in denial the past few days, I think. But then on Monday we talked on the phone and she mentioned that it was dark in Taos. Standing in the middle of my sun-filled apartment I suddenly felt so lonesome. It's not right for her to be that far away from me.

 

Why don't I post more often? Because I have absolutely nothing going on that's of any interest -- which you're about to discover for yourself. I'm going to post hourly updates this morning, chronicling my day of study. This might very well be the most boring entry I've ever done. Well... since that posting about writing my personal statement. That was pretty unreadable as well. It's completely selfish; I just need something to shame me out of surfing the internet and watching The View.

Here we go.

10:00 -- TASK: Finish reviewing the physics subject test I took last night (on which I answered 21 out of 40 questions correctly. Which is why I have to spend the day studying physics).

11:00 -- PREVIOUS TASK UPDATE: That went all right. I still have five left, but I have to move on. Clearly I don't understand projectile motion like I should. FYI, the time a projectile spends in the air depends only on the initial velocity in the vertical direction. Not the horizontal. What else... I need to draw free-body diagrams. I always think I can skip that part. When a block is sliding down an incline, there are two components: the force of gravity pulling the block along the plane of the incline and the force of friction pulling it in the other direction: m(a) = mg(sin of the angle) - (coefficient of kinetic friction)mg(cos of the angle). I just need to jump right to that point.

Here's a sample question (which I got wrong): A rifle bullet is fired horizontally off the top of an ocean based drill site. If air resistance is negligible and the vertical distsance to the water below is 100 feet, what additional information is needed to determine the time required for the bullet to hit the water? (g=32 ft/s^2).
A horizontal distance the bullet travels
B initial velocity of the bullet
C mass of the bullet
D no additional information
E none of the above

If anyone is actually reading this, I can give you the answer in the comments section.

NEW TASK: Read the next chapter for general chemistry. General chemistry is the other part of the physical sciences section (along with physics)... so hopefully I'll do better in g-chem and that'll take the pressure off of physics. Because physics isn't going so well....

1:00 -- PREVIOUS TASK UPDATE: Sadly, it took me two hours to do one hour of work. The other sixty minutes were filled with multiple phone calls (Katie, Jana, my mom) and lunch. General chemistry seems to be going fine, if a little too slowly. I have to speed things up if I'm going to finish all this prep work for tomorrow morning's class.

Unfortunately, I now have to leave for the lab so I can attempt to dazzle The Challenger. After that I'll go to the med school library and study until 7:00. That should at least bring me up to my bare minimum requirement for dailly study (4 hours)... although I'd really like to get that up to the 6-8 hour range.

NEW TASK: Finish reviewing last night's physics subject test. Go through the physics flashcards. Read the next three chapters of inorganic chemistry.

9:17 PREVIOUS TASK UPDATE: That went surprisingly well. The lab was, of course, a complete waste of time. The tears of frustration tried to make an appearance. Luckily I was able to stave them off. I'm sure it had more to do with MCAT pressure than anything. But I actually studied for three hours in the medical school library so I'm feeling okay. I still have a couple hours left to go, but for now I'm watching television and relaxing with Drew.

NEW TASK: Finish the last two chapters of inorganic chemistry. Finish reviewing last night's physics subject test (I didn't manage to get to that yet). Sleep?

11:22 PREVIOUS TASK UPDATE: One more chapter left to read, but I've gotta go do it in bed. I'm doing that thing now where I just read and reread and reread the same sentence -- so that doesn't really help things.

But I got another hour in, which is something to be proud of. So now I've done six good hours of studying today. That means six hours of actually working... not just fucking around. I feel like I'm not really retaining anything, and the more time I spend on content the more worried I get that my timing will be off; maybe I need more test-taking practice. But I've got time for that. Right now I need to try to re-soak my brain in all these laws and trends and all this jargon. I'm starting to feel overloaded, though. Hess's Law. 6.022x10^23. F=GMem/r^2. Anode/cathode. Epididymis.

Bedtime.

 

I volunteer in a lab at a cancer research hospital. That job sucks. It was stimulating for the first three weeks, but six months later it has become one of my least favorite things to do.

(I started typing out a description of this job, but then I got paranoid that it would require the use of too many keywords that could lead some random lab person to this page and then I'd be found out. Just rest assured that the job is fucking miserably boring and uninteresting.)

They spent a grand total of two hours training me back in January and I've had very minimal help and supervision since then. Because everyone else in the lab (except the woman who heads it) thinks this project is a waste of time. Along the way I have learned zilch, so this past weekend I decided to quit and focus my energies on studying for the MCAT. At the last second I had the brilliant idea to ask the head of the lab for a letter of recommendation, telling myself "If she says yes, then I'll stay and actually try to get something done."

Unfortunately, she said yes. But she made it conditional on me actually getting something done. This definitely makes sense -- but I still found it annoying. I've been working on this stupid-ass project for MONTHS. But she says she hasn't seen much (because there isn't much to see because the whole thing's been a pretty miserable failure) and then she had the cajones to say this: "Impress me. How's that for a challenge?"

Impress you????? A challenge?????

Okay. Breathe. I'm starting to sweat at the thought of that email. It makes sense. It makes sense. She's definitely right to ask me to give her something to write about. But... I still can't get over the tone. The tone is too much.

She's a pusher. She pushes people. She makes shit happen, and that's one of the ways she does it. If you come to her with an interesting, provocative set of data she'll just come up with ten different things you should try to do with it instead of marveling at what you've accomplished. She'll push you.

I just don't feel like being pushed right now.

I couldn't back down, though. So today I went to the lab and cooked up a ptentially "impressive" project with a PhD student. Now I just have to see if I have time to make it work.

 

Since the end of this past semester, I have been (barely) living off of the remnants of my student loan and the $1000 Grandma gave me at Christmas. Drew pays the rent and supplies 99.99% of the food. I have a few bills (satellite tv, internet, phone, credit cards) that I'm responsible for. Unfortunately, a couple weeks ago the remnants ran out and I had to get creative.

Because I can't seem to schedule a part-time job around my MCAT classes and all the studying I have to do for this stupid test, I had to find a new way to make the minimum payment on my credit card (the other bills are all being charged to the card and my car insurance has been dropped because they wouldn't take a credit card payment). I've been working on this problem with the following 3-point strategy:

1. Getting reimbursed for the travel expenses for the Nat'l Healthcare for the Homeless Conference I went to last month. This is totally legitimate and should actually cover half of the July minimum payment.

2. Buying a plane ticket to my friend's wedding on my credit card and getting my mom to pay me back in cash. She offered. Honest. That should cover the August payment.

3. (This is where I start seeming more creepy than desperate and sad). I'm a mentor. Twice a month I take this 10yo boy out to a movie or to a museum. We were told we could go to one big event, and so last week I took him to Universal Studios. I paid with my credit card and will use my reimbursement to take care of the other half of the July payment.

#3 isn't totally creepy, because I'm not the one who suggested Universal Studios. I did feel a bit guilty, though, when the woman who runs the program sent me a friendly email asking me to calm down with the expenditures until their next grant comes through. I think it was actually the $50 for videogames and pizza three weeks ago that she objected to.

Whew. Okay. I feel a little less guilty now that I've told you that. You who probably won't read this for weeks since I'm such a sporadic poster. Hopefully by the time you're actually looking at this I will have taken the MCAT and will be working and paying bills like a regular adult person.

 

Last week Jana asked me how often Drew and I argue. I told her it was cyclical, but that lately we'd been fighting maybe once every 4-5 weeks. Not fights, really -- just arguments about little things.

This past weekend we had one about traffic lights. Drew claimed they are virtually all run on sensors and that when people don't pull up to the sensor the lights won't change as quickly. It's a big pet peeve of his; he's constantly berating other drivers for not stopping at the right spot. I'm from a rural, middle-of-nowhere, barely-any-stoplights kind of place. The lights we have all run on sensors, but it was my honest opinion that most urban lights are carefully timed; if there are sensors, I told him, I was sure they only worked on off-peak hours.

God that was even boring to type. Unbelievably, that argument lasted all day. It included all kinds of catty remarks and bullying -- most notably when Drew insisted on pointing out every sensor he saw and saying things like "It's like a whole new world for you, isn't it." To which I'm sure I said something nasty which I've now very conveniently forgotten.

We looked it up when we got home. Drew was right. Most of these lights are run on sensors. He claims they're also on timers, but I still don't understand that part of his argument because I quit listening once I realized I was wrong.

It was a release argument -- the kind you fight out just because you don't have anything significant to argue about. It was a good one, though, because it was so ridiculous and yet we were both so passionate about our points. It's healthy to have those kinds of fights, in my opinion. I'm all for fights that help sharpen your conflict resolution skills. I hate dating people who can't argue... those people who just get pissed and walk away or start crying as soon as I say something aggressive. Drew meets me head-on, which I really appreciate.

What I don't appreciate is that he has since tried to make this light sensors thing some kind of precedent. "Remember the traffic sensors" is his new favorite phrase. UGH.

To see why Drew was right, click here.