Famous Last Words: Week 8

This week I was planning to have a lot more free time than normal because of the injury last weekend to my knee. As it turns out, I spent a lot of this week in and out of several medical facilities. I had a meeting with the orthopedist Wednesday morning, another MRI early on Thursday morning, and I had to go in to talk about the results of the MRI and get bloodwork done before my surgery on Friday. As it turns out, no structural damage to any ligaments (i.e. MCL, ACL, LCL), but I did make the tear in my meniscus bigger. Surgery is on this upcoming Thursday.

Anyways, while I didn’t have as much time as I would’ve liked this week, I did get a good little bit of work done. I wrote the last three stories for my storybook (unofficially), so all I have to do is turn them in, revise them, and I’ll be done with all of that. One more thing I can cross off my checklist.

While I usually welcome the sight of some snow on campus, this week I was not so glad. I am currently unable to drive (my chauffeur takes me from location to location) because of the pain medication I’m on, and of course I can’t walk, so I’ve got a brace on my leg and am using crutches to move around. Just in general, crutching around campus sucks, but when it is snowing, it really sucks. That was probably the worst part of my week.

Also, after my surgery next Thursday, I am scheduled to have a Genetics exam on Friday, and a Physical Chemistry Exam the following Monday. It is going to be a busy few days that I am not looking forward to at all. Well, it has been a long day of doing Physical Chemistry Lab work, and now the couch is calling me, so I’d better go.

(Image Information: A personal photo from January 2015)

Famous Last Words: Week 7

Well… this week turned out to be unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. Monday-Thursday was quite normal: class, gym, sleep. But I spent most of the week looking forward to Friday. February 20th is a special day for me and my girlfriend. We celebrated our 7th anniversary. We don’t really like to go crazy and spend money on a lot though (college kids), so we went to Chili’s for dinner and then just watched a movie together in our apartment.

We don’t go out and do fun things a lot. We really just enjoy being in each other’s company so it doesn’t matter what were doing as long as we’re together.

Saturday I woke up and watched the Sooners basketball team play the Red Raiders of Texas Tech. The game was much closer than it should have been, and Tech actually rallied to force overtime, but the Sooners pulled out a win. Now they’re off until next saturday.

So what really made this week different was on Saturday afternoon I went to play a little basketball at the huff. I’ve had a slight tear in my meniscus since last November, and it has hurt, but it hasn’t been anything serious. Well while playing yesterday, I tore my knee up bad. I planted awkwardly, and my knee twisted awkwardly. I fell on the ground and immediately knew something was wrong. I drove home and tried to just lay down and take some anti-inflammatory stuff to help, but it was really bad, and I had a hard time sleeping that night. So Sunday morning my girlfriend drove me to the hospital and they gave me a brace and some pain meds (which are helping me write this post right now). That’s all I know right now, but maybe I’ll meow mention this more in next week’s post. Praying for a snow day tomorrow…

(Image Information: A personal photo from February 2012)

Famous Last Words: Week 6

Another week, another dollar. And by another dollar I mean another week closer to the end of the semester. This week I got through week 9 with the readings, but not the storybook. I read the eskimo folk tales which, once you get past all of the incredibly long names (see my reading diary for a few of them), is actually a good little collection of stories.

This semester I’m in physical chemistry II lab. For those of you who don’t know what that means, it means I spend about 10 hours a week or so doing the monster lab reports for the lab so it’s beginning to take up a lot more of my time. Good thing I got a head start in this class.

This weekend, besides being busy during the day, was very nice. My girlfriend and I watch a scary movie every Friday the 13th, so this Friday we finally watched the Blair Witch Project. It was pretty wild; we had a good time. Then, Saturday was Valentine’s Day. So, in the morning, I went to La Baugette to celebrate a birthday (the Post-Doc in my research lab turned 30), which was a nice way to start the day. Then, my girlfriend and I went to Logan’s Roadhouse for dinner and watched the new Endless Love afterwards (what?? friend’s listen to Endless Love in the dark...).

(Image Information: a personal photo of my girlfriend and I at the Winter Classic in Washington D.C.)

This week in sports had it’s ups and downs. OU basketball got a huge win on monday night against Iowa State, but then came out flat yesterday (and didn’t get much help from the refs I might add) and lost their second game against Kansas State this season. That was a bummer. Also, today the Blackhawks beat the Penguins in a shootout. Tonight is the next new Walking Dead, which both my girlfriend and I are looking forward too.

Famous Last Words: Week 5

It seems like the semester just started last week. But now we’re really getting into it. I just had my first exam Friday, and I have another one on Monday. There has been a lot of studying this week.
Notable sports from the week, and for the week to come. OU men’s basketball had a big week. They crushed a nationally ranked West Virginia (in a revenge game in Norman) by 20 points. I got to go, and the atmosphere for the game was great. Normally, there are very few people who come to the basketball games. Norman is definitely a football town. But lately, as the Sooners have been getting more and more in the college basketball spotlight, more and more people have been coming out to the games. Tomorrow, Iowa State is coming to town, and the game will be on ESPN. Also, yesterday the Sooners beat TCU pretty comfortably.

This weekend I finished up the reading for my unit on Brer Rabbit. It was very relaxing to just listen to the audio version of the stories and follow along. I also wrote a pretty good cat storytelling this week (see Storytelling week 7) if I do say so myself. I am getting better at writing thanks to this class. And yes, going from a 3rd grade writing level to a 5th grade writing level is “getting better.”

Now I am watching the Blackhawks/Blues game, and the third period is about to start so I’m trying to finish this entry up. The game is tied, 2-2. Chicago has been up 1-0 and 2-1, but hasn’t been able to pull away; St. Louis just keeps hanging around. The game is just coming back on, so I need to go now so here are just a few more words meow.

(Image Information: Ryan Spangler, future Big XII player of the week; Web Source: Wikimedia)

Famous Last Words: Week 4

Another week in the books. It felt like a really long one, but maybe it was because the weather was so nice for the first half of the week. It was like it was mid-April outside. I am writing this week’s edition a little later than normal (it is monday Feb 2), but that is because I wanted to include the Super Bowl in my writing.

So here we go. Wow. Just wow. One of the craziest super bowls I have ever seen. I have been blessed to see so many great Super Bowls that have come down to the wire in my lifetime (i.e. Santonio Holmes in the corner of the endzone, David Tyree’s helmet catch, etc), and this year was no exception. It came right down to the wire, and just when you thought Seattle was going to win after a miraculous catch by Doug Baldwin, Malcolm Brown flew to the ball and made the game winning interception on the 1-yard line.

Most importantly, this game cemented Tom Brady’s status as the greatest quarterback to ever play the game. 4 Super Bowl wins, 3 Super Bowl MVPs, and he hadn’t won since 2005. The fact that he has been able to play at such a high level for such a long time makes him the greatest, no doubt.

I had a great time watching the game with my girlfriend; unfortunately for her, she was cheering for the Seahawks. I was going crazy after the interception because I had won the bet (neither of us were really big fans of either team, so we picked different sides to make it interesting).

Last but not least, the commercials were lacking this year. There were not as many funny ones as there had been in years before. That was a bummer.

(Image Information: My girlfriend, the
birthday girl; a personal photo from
November 2014)

Famous Last Words: Week 3

Second week of school out of the way, and as I had hoped, I am beginning to settle into the semester. Thankfully, I have had a chance to get ahead in this class, and now if I need to dedicate more time one week to another class, I can do that without worrying about falling behind here. I have now finished reading the fourth weeks reading (Ancient Egyptian Mythology), and just began to work on the introduction of my storybook.

I feel like I am starting to get a better feel  for this class, and it is becoming easier for me to do all of this reading and creative writing. Not that there is an overwhelming amount of work in this class, it is just that, as a biochemistry major, I do not spend much time in my classes reading stories or doing any creative writing activities. Actually, I find this class to be a nice break from my other scientific coursework.

This weekend, I am a little bummed out that there isn’t a home basketball game, but OU does play Baylor at Baylor at five o’clock today. It is another top 25 matchup for Oklahoma. It seems like that’s all they do now, but it is good preparation for March. My cats got a couple new toys this week, and they seemed very curious about them, but it did not take long for them to lose interest. Fortunately, their toys came in boxes. Annie, my not fat cat, is obsessed with these boxes. It seems like almost every single time I come home, she is sitting in one of the boxes.

It seems like this semester is going very quickly already. A week from wednesday I will have my first exam. It is for genetics, and I feel like we have hardly done anything in that class yet, so I am pretty nervous, but it’s still a little ways away I guess. Anyways, another week down.

(Image Information: Annie peeking out of a
suitcase; personal photo from January 2015)

Famous Last Words: Week 2

The first week of the Spring semester of 2015 is in the books, and it looks like it is going to be a busy one. While I’m taking classes that are rather commonplace and familiar to me (i.e. Genetics and Physical Chemistry II), I am also enrolled in an Honors Colloquium called “The Cognitive Science of Fiction”. This class seems like it will be very interesting, and while I will enjoy listening to the conversations in the class, everyone is supposed to contribute to class discussions. I do not like talking in front of people.

Anyways, the most novel part of this semester for me is actually this class. I have never taken an online class before, so all of this is very new and different to me. I have never used google as anything other than a search engine. I have never used pinterest. I have never even read a blog post before this class. All of that seems to be coming along pretty well though. What I’m struggling with is exactly how I am scheduling the time I spend on this class with other classes. A lot of that is probably just because I still don’t know how much time I need to devote to my other classes either. Hopefully by the end of next week I’ll be more comfortable in this situation. Change is hard.

I am looking forward to the three day weekend. I plan to relax, watch a ton of netflix, and maybe get a little further ahead in this class (but I can already hear netflix calling me, so maybe not). I also am looking forward to the Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma State basketball game tomorrow night and the NFC/AFC championship games on sunday. I really enjoy getting to go and watch the basketball games in the Lloyd Noble Center.

(Image Information: Inside the Lloyd Noble
Center Web Source: Sooner Sports)

Famous Last Words: Week 1

(image Information: Annie and I studying earlier in
the break for the PCAT; a personal photo from December
2014)

Although the Spring semester hasn't technically started, I have been busy. This break, starting with the week after finals, I bought a PCAT book from Kaplan in order to prepare for my PCAT (Pharmacy College Admission Test). I spent the the entire break studying, and then on January 7th I took the PCAT. After four hours I finished the test and got my preliminary test results. The results gave me a composite percentile ranking in the 94th percentile, so I was very happy about that; Since then, I have spent most of my time trying to get ahead for this class so that I don't feel overwhelmed once my lecture classes start. I am very appreciative that I get to take this class and spend time reading things that I will have an interest in.

While I have been hard at work this break, I have also had time to have some great experiences and spend time with family. I went to my mom’s mom’s house (she lives in Lone Oak, Texas) with my younger brother and sister and we spent a couple days out there just playing games and spending time together. Then, my dad, sister, and brother went up to Tulsa to be with my dad’s family. That is where we were for Christmas and everything there was great; we usually spend Christmas up there so it was nothing out of the ordinary for me. Then, after Christmas my dad took me on a trip to Washington so we could see the Winter Classic. We spent about a week out there and saw all kinds of cool museums and things. I was sad when we had to leave, but I was ready to come home. When we got back to Flower Mound, I packed up all my things and headed back for Norman, so I could finish preparing for the PCAT.

This break was great, but I wish I could have spent a little more time with some of my friends in Flower Mound and seen a couple more basketball games there.