MCAT&ME

and math homework was due today

Went home today and got to catch up with my brother. He says my teachers still remember me.

I find this surprising (I was quiet, awkward, closeted, shy), but also fantastic. It made my night.

A weird thing about going to college in San Diego and being wrapped up with school/work/friends/life in the UCSD community is that my hometown, a place I was once determined to leave, suddenly seems so much more charming. I never felt so attached to the community of folks from my hometown as I do now. New grocery stores that open, who's been elected to the school board, park renovations. These things interest me now. It's a shame I'm roughly two stretches of highway away in San Diego with my head in a book.

It's 2 AM after a long day; I feel tremendously accomplished yet regrettably unproductive. I guess it all depends on what I count as "work".

Today I:

Missed my physical chemistry class - though at 8 am, it's hard for me to soak in anything substantial anyway, plus I learn a lot more from doing the homework.

Structural biochemistry lecture - way cool, yo: mechanism of serine protease catalysis and abzymes (one of the most fascinating things we've learned this quarter - I'll write about it more at the end if you want to read).  

Lab - amplified a plasmid vector (we were running low and our frozen stock of E. coli carriers somehow died). Talked to my supervisor about his patent application; he liked the feedback I gave him ("Some of your comments were spot on") so I felt good about myself.

Co-coordinator ("Co-co") meeting for SPACES. Planning for our Open House event (we decided on quesadillas), discussed future plans for expanding our physical space, updates on a few issues with some of our interns, and the more I type the more I realize the rest should be kept confidential. Lol. 

Math discussion - one hour before it was due, scrambled to start and finish math homework. Success. Also got my midterm back. Made some silly mistakes but still got an A. Success. 

1:1 with Brenda - "One-to-one" meetings are held between the SPACES Co-co's and the interns, used for things like personal support, counseling, and updates. Brenda is one of my favorite interns at SPACES to work with. I always enjoy our 1:1 meetings. :)

SPACES College Tour planning - This took up a major chunk of my day. Currently coordinating a college tour for high school students for winter break with my partner Joanna. Super excited. Stayed up until 1 am in the office finalizing the agenda, which will also be kept confidential. :)

I could have (should have?) studied for my midterms for Molecular Basis of Human Disease and Structural Biochemistry (both next Tuesday and I am so behind in both classes -.-). I'll regret it later when it's Sunday/Monday night and I'm realizing that there's no time to study for both exams. But whatever. For the moment, I'm super-excited that the college tour is going to happen!!! (I'm finding it so hilarious that barely anything I've written in this post, or this blog in general, pertains directly to the MCAT. This needs to change soon.)

My goals for this weekend:

Finalize line-item budget for SPACES college tour (Friday).

Make some flash cards for myself - I am so ashamed to admit that I haven't memorized my amino acids.

Go home! <3 (Items to bring from home: vitamins, winter clothes, charger for camera, cooked food because I have no time to cook).

8 hours at the hospital for CCE (if anyone wants to know more about the clinical care extender internship, just use the ask!). 

Skim lecture slides for Molecular Basis of Human Disease.

Review notes and slides for Structural Biochemistry.

For both classes - hopefully finish learning all the content and making up my missed lectures before Monday, which I will then have for review.

Why do I feel like this is unmanageable/impossible?

(And things I am still putting off: a committed MCAT study plan. :X)

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More on abzymes:

Enzymes are proteins that help speed up and facilitate many chemical reactions in biology. They work because they lower the activation energy and stabilize the transition state. For example, I am currently sitting in my chair, quite comfortable (or stable) as I type these words, but I also know I'd be a lot more comfortable lying in my underwear in bed. So why aren't I lying in bed? Aside from the fact that I somehow convinced myself to remain to committed to this blog, I'd have to get up off my ass and walk over. That's the greatest barrier, isn't it? The brief moment when my body is out of my chair represents an unstable transition state that I would need to go through in order to get to my bed. 

Similarly, chemical reactions are a transformation: A -> B. But to get from A to B, the molecules need to go through a brief, unstable, intermediate transition state that is often kind of difficult to get to: A -> (AB)* -> B.

 By analogy, this is parallel to Howard in chair -> (Howard getting up)* -> Howard in bed.

Enzymes function by making this transition state more stable, more energetically accessible to the molecules. Their unique structure binds to the molecules and makes their transition state more stable, less awkward, and less uncomfortable. Like if a cute and compatible guy offered to hold my hand while I made my way to the bed (though that might be more awkward/uncomfortable for me, so it's not the best example lol).

So what if we have a chemical reaction that we want to artificially speed up? If we know enough about the reaction, we can predict the structure of the transition state and synthesize another stable molecule, a transition state analog, that looks like the transition state of the reaction (the actual transition state is usually too unstable to work with directly - if I'm standing up, I'm immediately going to sit back down or fall into my bed). From the transition state analog, we can generate antibodies (proteins naturally produced by your immune system and, more recently, artificially synthesized by biochemists to bind to specific molecular structures - but antibodies can be very complicated... another lengthy blog post about them later) to bind to the transition state analog.

And here's the cool part: If the antibody binds to the analog, it probably can also binds to the actual transition state. And if it binds to the transition state, it does so in a way that stabilizes it. And if the antibody stabilizes the transition state, it can function as an enzyme (or an abzyme: antibody + enzyme all in one!) by speeding up your desired reaction!

Important therapeutics have been made in this way, including the development of abzymes that help degrade cocaine into smaller, nontoxic fragments.

My most liberating moments in every academic quarter include the few hours after a major exam. One of those moments is now (and I choose to spend it on Tumblr - laugh out loud).

Today I took my physical chemistry midterm. My gosh. It was really difficult to work through (but still fair), though strangely, I feel more accomplished and liberated (even stimulated!) than drained. I am reminded of those sadistic home exercise videos where a man with a moist, blue, sweatband tiara does endless repetitions of squats and hisses through a garish, maniacal smile: "oh yeah baby... feel the burn... feel the burn... oh yeah..."

Like Micah Bo kicking his way to a better body and loving it, I've managed to rewire the positive feedback mechanisms in my brain to trick myself into enjoying chemistry.

Still, beyond the insidious defense mechanisms that pre-meds construct for themselves, I'd like to believe there is something inherently beautiful about the mathematical unities that link the universe together. Seeing the Maxwell relations fall together out of exact differential relations, the deep interweavings of heat, energy, chaos manifesting in cryptic simplicity...

... anyway,  

it feels good to be writing on here again. I took a break for a few days to "study" for my midterm, and though I write as though I looooove to study, most of my time goes toward other things: my work at SPACES (huge part of my life - this blog will see me talk more about it as time goes on), research in the SysBio lab, text messaging, rethinking my 4(5?) year plan, and crucially, just idling. (I keep feeling guilty for wasting so much time just sitting and thinking and day dreaming and spacing out; but I keep discovering how much I love it & need it.)

I've yet to begin seriously studying for the MCAT. I have good friend who wakes up every day around 5 am and sleeps every day around 9 pm. I tell myself that starting next week, I'm going to try to fix myself on a similar schedule that includes committed times during the week to devote to studying PS/VR/BS (god bless those of you who understand those acronyms). Maybe I'll even look into downloading this app that one of my apartmentmates sent me ("Oh Howard - this is totally for you!"). 

But of course, this is something I've told myself many times, but never really followed through with. This time, however, I'm blogging about it. That changes everything, right? Well, maybe not, especially considering my midterms for structural biochemistry and molecular basis of human disease - both next week - that are likely to occupy more study time (and moping time - an important subset of idling time) than I had planned for.

Whatever.

For now things are just a lot of talk but not so much action, but hopefully by next week, I will publish a MCAT study schedule that I'll try to follow for the next few months (and anyone else is welcome and encouraged to study with me!).

It's nearly 1:30 AM, and if my goal is to wake up at 6:30 AM to have time to go jogging, have a healthy breakfast, pack lunch, shower, and get to school by 8, I should sleep now.

Tonight's parting words come from my beloved apartmentmate, who has offered me so, so, so much support and positivity:

Uh... so instead of actually studying for the MCAT, you're updating a blog about it?

One thing you (presently, no one reads this blog *yet* but I prefer to address some nameless "you") should know about me: I am a chronic procrastinator; I actively look for distractions and the creation of this blog may very well be one of them.

-

Hello, and welcome to my blog, MCAT&ME: Our Lives Together.

My name is Howard. I am a third year student at UCSD, majoring in Biochemistry and hoping to apply to medical school sometime soon.

To do this, I have to take what is called the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT), and hopefully score well.

And to do that, I guess I have to study, which isn't so dreadful actually. I'd like to say my academic career has helped me develop some study skills and my not-that-shotty GPA might suggest that I'm not that bad of a student. And to be honest, it's kinda fun studying and learning about the world. I not-so-secretly love it as a not-so-closeted nerd.

But still, studying for the MCAT is not a pleasant process and hopefully I can make this fun and enjoyable while remaining accountable to myself, this blog, and the people who chose to read it. I love an audience. It keeps me in check and it keeps things fun. Hopefully the maintenance of this blog will help me channel that into a favorable MCAT score. 

This blog will be about me, the MCAT, and the life that it allows me to have. I plan to write about the different subjects I'm studying, what fascinates/frustrates me, the challenge of balancing an MCAT study schedule with school, work, friends, and life, and other things. Crucially, I also hope this blog will encourage me to reflect on my process as I study and hopefully, I'm less likely to fall behind if I know I'll have to write about it on the Internet later.

Please feel free to comment, reblog, like, or criticize. Particularly, let me know if you relate. This process becomes so much more tolerable, and perhaps even fun, if I know that I am not alone. :)

Updates for this first post:

I've yet to start seriously studying for the MCAT. Making this blog was either a first step, or yet another thing I did to delay the first step.

I actually have an exam for a class in two days (not an MCAT class, but a class-class). And I suppose I should be worrying about that more than making a self-absorbed blog about how I'm (not) studying for the MCAT.

Coming up (aka a to-do list in disguise): 

A vaguely outlined but realistic study schedule for the next few months.

Possibly: more on why the hell I made this blog. (My guilty conscience makes me feel like I have to justify all the poor decisions I make in life).

Anyway, I hope I'm able to continue updating this blog and enjoy it. But for now, perhaps it is a good time to go to the library and start studying for midterms. :)