Hands

This was on my hands!!

Specifically, it is bacteria from a colony which grew for a week in an incubator on nutrient agar, which I inoculated from swabbing my right index finger, in the crook under my nail.  Hot!  They're everywhere..

In other news, school continues along just fine.  Organic Chemistry is still the only class that is challenging to me. The rest continue to be very interesting to me.  I have a month left of this semester, and things will be extra busy till then.  Still working on the personal stuff.  I'm not an impenetrable rock yet, but I do feel I'm growing.

I'm nervously waiting on the edge of my seat right now for Mid-May to hear the admissions decision from nursing program I applied to.. to see if my one egg hatches.  :-/   

Pictures

I made a Picassa album for my new little "photography" hobby/mental therapy:

https://picasaweb.google.com/lsanmartin2

Bugs

Say hello to Micrococcus luteus. This is my (and my lab partner's) "pet bug" in Microbiology lab.  This obligate aerobe is the Gram-positive, not-so-tough bug that is responsible for body odor.  Even more impressive than all this is my awesome streak job-- resulting in isolated colonies in the 3rd, and even some 4th, quadrant.  

School is going along just fine.  I don't find out about the admissions decision for the nursing program I applied to until mid-May.  (Ugh).

There's a lot of personal stuff going on in my life right now, which I won't get into on a public Internet page.  I'll just say that I'm doing my best to learn some good self-management and "emotional-stability" skills, and making sure to focus on me and the little joys in my life.  These are some "grown-up" skills I'm sure will be useful in my future work as well.  I've only just very recently been experimenting with "photography" (more like just experimentally taking pictures) a little, which I really enjoy.  Pictures uploaded onto here don't do justice, but below are a couple anyway.  

In other news, it hit 72 here yesterday and will be 61 on Sunday.. and the dropzone is open this weekend and my gear is current.... :)

Long Beach, NY:

 Building where my Organic Chemistry lab is.  Middletown, NY:

Random location.  New Hampton, NY:

Stuff

I had three tests and two quizzes this past week, so spent a lot of time studying lately.  I'm happiest about doing well on my Organic Chemistry test, as that's my challenging course.  It doesn't get necessarily progressively harder at this point, so I'm "getting it" and have an idea of what to expect for the rest of the semester, which is good.

This weekend I caught up on some reading for school, played around on my father's drum-set (which was pretty hilarious), and also spent some quality time with some great friends, including more hiking.  I also picked up my rig from getting some maintenance done on it at the local dropzone.  If the weather happens to be nice one weekend, I'm ready to sneak in a jump.  I won't be able to afford to jump very much for a while, but I'm very much looking forward to doing a few here and there when it warms up, and also meeting some new friends.

DC

I finally got to visit Washington DC.  I've actually been there before- from one end of the metropolitan area to  the other via the subway, but not getting above ground in between.  A friend from CA is near the area for some work training, so I took a trip down.. via bus of course, so that I could get some studying done during the weekend.  Worked out great.  It was a "raw" and cold day, but we made the best of it.  I have a lot more traveling to do once I start working again.  Already making my list...

At the Smithsonian "Air and Space" museum:

Test and Polar Plunge

Friday I took the RN pre-admissions exam I've been prepping for.  I was more pressed for time during the test than I expected to be.  It was web-based (that's a first!), and so you get your results the same day.  And I did great- 99th percentile. !!!!  (And 100% on the Math..)  Even though it's not a particularly difficult test, this is better than I thought I would do, especially with how pressed I felt for time.  So, I was very, very, VERY pleased.  This test counts for half of the admission criteria, so it's a big deal.  

This Super Bowl Sunday, I celebrated by jumping into the Atlantic ocean in the middle of winter.  Yep.  They do it every year in my uncle's town.  I always thought it was a horrible and stupid idea.  But this year I decided it was a good idea.  (I suppose this may be what happens when a skydiver has not jumped from a plane in over a month...)  It was 37 degrees, very sunny, and very little wind.  So, it was a nice day to do it. I doubt I would/could have done it if it were a shitty day.  It was damn cold, but no where near as bad as I expected!!

Before, and scared:

Running back in after my dip:

Did it!

Lake Minnewaska

This weekend was a nice mix of schoolwork and social time.  Today leaned less on the schoolwork side though... I went hiking with my best friend from high school.  I've been wanting to do a winter hike, since it's been so mild here.

Hearts and germs

Today we dissected hearts!  (Cow and sheep).  Then, prepared slides of/checked out E. coli and Staph.  I love learning this stuff.  :) 

Spring Semester

I'm now a week into being a full-time student.  I was actually really happy about school starting again.  I'm very interested in all my of my classes, except Organic Chemistry, which is one of those things you just gotta do.  My first weekly homework assignment for O Chem took up 12 pages in my notebook.  Writing "pre-labs" also seems like it's going to be a major time sink.  Hopefully I'll get better at them-- It's been a decade since I've done Chemistry labs.  Seems like this class will be "fun".. (ugh).  I'm just so psyched to be in it at my local college, where I'm taking everything else!  I feel very lucky.  The professor said that this is the first time that he's seen O Chem 1 offered in the Spring semester (in addition to O Chem 2), and he's been there about 20 years.  WOW.  That kinda hit me...    I'm also taking: Anatomy & Physiology II (which I'm very excited about), Microbiology for Health Professionals (germs), and Developmental Psychology (across the lifespan).  I was very happy to see some friends I made last semester (who are also doing career changes to nursing) in my A&P lecture and lab. 

I had a great time skiing this past weekend at a mountain not very far from me.  I went with some great friends.  It was colder skiing there than any of the trips I've done in the Rockies.  We had a heck of a time getting there.. as it was snowing pretty bad and the roads weren't cleared yet.  We got about 4 inches.  It's back to being warm again, so it's all melting. 

Winter Interim

I'm about halfway through a 3-week stay with my family in Long Beach, NY, taking Intro to Statistics, which is so far proving to be the easiest college course I've probably ever taken.  My professor is a quite stereo-typical Long Island woman.  I don't expect people to act a certain way based on certain things, but I do find it pretty funny when they really do prove the stereotype.  It's adorable; I enjoy her.  I'm also still prepping for the pre-nursing standardized test next month.  My strength for Math is obvious, but I'm being reminded of my weakness in vocabulary.  Science is mostly a matter of brushing up on some basics from long ago.

This past week has actually felt like winter, but now it's back to warming up again.  

I often think of my "mental hiatus": not being a "contributing member of society"/ loafing off my family, and not knowing if I'll get a job, or where the job would be after this is done.  I keep focusing on one step at a time, knowing I'm doing this for the "right" reason.  The increased freedom in scheduling my time is the part I do like.