It turns out that I will in fact be getting paid for my services to the lab. Dr. Z. was really happy with the work that I did and decided that she ought to pay me for everything, and I did a lot! I worked 40-hour weeks for starters, I lessened everyone else's workload, and I taught some co-workers how to do certain tasks and how to use the computer. I deserve the raise, that's for sure. I'm not going to get paid much, unfortunately, but considering I started off working as a volunteer, you know, a 40-hr a week volunteer, this isn't too shabby. At least now I'll have some cash to tide me over until I find another job. I can't work with NYU's Department of Environmental Medicine during the school year, so I'm looking for other options. I've been applying for some lab/hospital work in the city but who knows what my chances are of getting hired.

I finally got the schedule I wanted. I requested a long time ago to be placed in Honors Organic Chemistry (why, I don't know) by the head of the Chemistry Department, but I never heard back from her (I e-mailed her). I thought she just ignored my request and I was peeved. But I figured I would let it wait until I got back to school and talk to her then. Then just by happenstance, I was on Albert looking at my schedule, simply because I hadn't seen it in a while, and noticed I had a Chemistry recitation on Friday. I was surprised, considering I hadn't registered for any classes on Friday. Then I read the subject column and noticed that I had been put in the Friday morning recitation for Honors Orgo because I had a class during the only other time there was an Orgo Recitation - Wednesday afternoon. I really wanted to be in that class, but I already had a four-hour Expressive Cultures: Film lecture scheduled for that time. And not only was it a drag because it was a four-hour lecture, but I had to sign up for the recitation at 4:55 on Thursdays. That's just way too late for a class of mine to start (and finish at 6:10). So I decided to put myself on the waitlist for a French class (Conversation and Composition) at 8:00 in the morning; taking this class would allow me to complete a minor in French that would fulfill my Expressive Cultures requirement. When I found out that I had been placed in Convo & Comp, I dropped the Film class as quickly as possible and had Dr. Cutler (the Chemistry Head) place me in the Wednesday recitation. So now I've got a reasonable schedule where I am done with classes by 3:15 on both Wednesday and Thursday and have no Friday classes. Hallelujah.

But that's not it, of course. My schedule on Mondays completely sucks. I have class at 8, 9:30, 11, quick lunch, lab at 1:30 until 6, and then Honors Scholars meeting from 6:10 to 7:30. I'll be dorming at 13th Street and even THEN I won't be able to go back to my dorm any time during the day! An 11.5-hr day! Tuesday will be okay. I'll have class from 8:00-12:15 and then I'll volunteer with the Reach Out and Read program at Bellevue Hospital from 1:30-3:30, which means I won't get back to my dorm until 5:00pm because that's how messed up the NYU Buses are.

I will be a Welcome Week Leader this Fall and I'm really looking forward to it, even though none of my friends will be WW Leaders. I'll be going back to school on August 23rd. I knew during my own Welcome Week that I wanted to be a Leader, just because I thought it would be fun and I thought it would be a good way to make friends. I doubt that's going to happen because our schedules will be so hectic and I'm, well, I'm not anti-social, but it's difficult for me to make friends. At the very least, I'll have a nice activity to add to my resume - everyone's always looking for you to fill the "What leadership activities have you been involved in?" column. So here's a new answer to write. Which just goes to show how being Pre-Med really does make you work harder and get more involved than you ever would were you going for some other goal. I wouldn't go out and actually join half the clubs or volunteer for the half the programs I do if I wasn't Pre-Med, because I'm lazy and I wouldn't want to waste my time. That's what volunteering would be to me, a waste of time, as bad as that sounds. For instance, I had always been interested in volunteering with Habitat for Humanity, but I would never have actually taken the time and effort to go through with it unless I had done the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme where I was required to do community service and things of that sort. If it doesn't kill you, being Pre-Med isn't such a bad thing. It makes you tougher; makes you a better person.

I haven't been online much during the summer and have therefore lost contact with a lot of my friends. Not only that, but my cell phone has been off because I get little to no reception where I live and my battery dies quickly as a result. After all, it spends more time looking for a signal than doing anything else, so I keep having to recharge it. And considering no one ever really calls me (that's not a sympathy plea, it's just reality) at home, there's no point in leaving it on. So it's pretty much been impossible to talk to me all summer, unless you e-mail me. No one's going to do that though, and I don't blame them.

Five other people joined my "IB Overachivers" Facebook group. That's very exciting to me. And what's even cooler is that there are 16 people that aren't me in Kristen and Derrick's Facebook group dedicated to their favorite Brown girl, me. :-D

I got accepted into Honors Scholars. I was a little hurt when I found out about it and I wasn't placed into straight out of high school, but I found out that the Scholars program is not only an academic program, but a scholarship program, and as a recipient of Tuition Remission, because my father works for the University, I am ineligible for any scholarship money from NYU. Which made me ineligible for the Scholars program as a matriculating Freshman. I think I would have been in it otherwise. Or at least I'll just keep telling myself that. None of that matters though; I don't need the money and I'm in it now, so I win. This spring break we get to go to a study abroad destination our choice and I chose Paris, France as my first choice (oui oui) and Prague, Czech Republic as my second choice (insert "yes" in Czech). I hope I get to go to Paris because this will pretty much be my only chance to go until I'm much older, and if I do the study abroad, I'll probably end up going to Prague since there are so many different courses offered, so there's no reason to waste my trip to Prague sophomore year.

I can't wait to get back to school. I will have no free time whatsoever, but I still can't wait to get back to the city and see what happens. See who I meet, what friends I make, see if maybe there's a little romance in there. I can't wait to go back to just living my life with some of my best friends.

I'm still here at the lab, trying to keep myself company. It's not too bad here. I have one task that is mine to take care of and that's weighing the litters of the mommy mice to measure their growth. That takes a good two hours. So, as long as someone gives me just one other task to do, I'm set for the day and I don't have much downtime, which I hate. And, as you might have noticed, I haven't been updating Live Journal much because I've had stuff to do, which is a good thing. I would much rather be kept busy than sit around and peruse the Internet. I don't need to drive an hour and a half round-trip to do that. But I figure since I've already been screwed over for the summer, I might as well just come here everyday (or maybe four days a week; we'll see what Judy has to say about that) and get experience (and a good recommendation) working in the lab, doing presentations, researching for projects, and writing papers. Yes, I will have to do all of these (or have done all of these) and it's a drag. But I figure if I'm going to have any chance of working in a lab for pay next summer somewhere far away from home (possibly in the city!), then I've got to grin and bare it here. We'll see what happens.

Something getting me through this week, though, is the Yanks-Sox series. Monday's game was the first time EVER that ESPN got the Blackout removed for Yankees games in New York, so I got to watch the game on ESPN rather than listen to it on the radio. Not that I don't love John Sterling, but watching is soo much better than simply listening. Unfortunately for ESPN, and Red Sox fans everywhere, New York scored 13 runs in the first three innings and cruised to a 13-5 victory, certainly not the classic pitchers' duel between Mike Mussina and Josh Beckett the network was looking for when it lobbied to have the blackout removed. But Yankees fans, such as myself, rejoiced, and though we should have been bored, it wasn't as if Boston made this an easy victory. An 8-run lead may seem colossal, but the Sox sure gave us a run for our money. But that's okay, considering the beautiful, classic pitchers' duel we saw on Tuesday. Chien-Ming Wang v. David Pauley was not supposed to be so great, and yet both teams were baffled by the opposing starting pitcher. Solo homeruns by David Ortiz and Bernie Williams accounted for the only runs of the game until the bottom of the seventh when Pauley loaded the bases and Seanez, his reliever, walked in what would be the winning run. Looking for an insurance run, Alex Rodriguez struck out, as he did so often last night, and we went on to the exciting top of the eighth where Melky Cabrera made a ridiculous catch to steal a homerun away from Manny Ramirez. Of the catch David Ortiz remarked, "That's why I hit mine 500 feet." When Mariano Rivera came in for the top of the ninth, I held my breath, as Boston has seen Mo way too much to not know how to hit him. After five pitches on bated breath, however, Mo was out of the inning and the game was over. The Yankees had won the game and now held their biggest lead over the AL East, a small but commanding 1.5 games.

Before the series began, I predicted a series split, 2-2. I assumed Mussina would defeat Beckett easily, which was somewhat the case. I didn't think the score would be as obscene as what it turned out to be, but I'm not complaining. Besides, I got my pitchers' duel the next night when I assumed the rookie Pauley would lose horribly and Wang would cruise. Neither assumption was true, but the outcome was still the same. We won both games. After that, I figured the Red Sox would absolutely demoralize us. Who cares who we've got going Wednesday night? All I needed to see was Curt Schilling to know we would have a rough night, and the Sox fans would be rejoicing. So, there's one game lost. Thursday night I noticed Randy Johnson was pitching, and while he's been better lately, Boston will push him back to his earlier state of confusion on the mound. And with Wakefield dazzling the Yankees with that unhittable knuckleball, there is no way we can win that game either. So unfortunately for us, we'll probably go back to being a half a game behind the Red Sox in the division, but hey, with all these injuries, we could have been further than we are. And behind that game face, you could see Derek Jeter was aching to get back out there on the field. The next two games will be difficult so maybe a little spark will do just the trick, so I'll be looking out for Jeter and the Baby Bombers (got melky?).

I should be a sports columnist... or maybe not. Either way, I'll definitely keep you posted on what's going on with the Yankees whenever I can.

So I just got an e-mail yesterday confirming my status as a member of the 2006 Welcome Week Leader Staff. I'm so excited! Even when I was a Freshmen in Welcome Week I knew I wanted to be a Leader. I'll get to do activities, lead workshops, help kids find their classes, walk around the buildings. This can only be a good thing. Unfortunately, I don't have any friends that wanted to do Welcome Week, so I'll be kinda lonely for a few days, but hopefully I can meet some new people (and have them like me!). That was also one of the reasons I wanted to do this. Just to meet new people again that I would have something in common with (other than that we take Chemistry or something) and make friends. And if that doesn't happen, well, at least I'll have gotten to move out of the house early and come back to the City. No one around here seems to like the idea of living in the city ("It's dirty" "There's too many people"), but I absolutely love it, if you couldn't tell. Hopefully after all of this ranting and raving for the city, I don't go back, get mugged, and wish I had never moved there in the first place. But so far so good (knock on wood).

Well, I've got quite a day ahead of me. Weighing babies, preparing syringes... it all keeps me focused and busy, which I like.

I went to bed at 8:30 last night. It was still light out too! I got no sleep Sunday night, so my sleep cycle is all messed up. I didn't want to come in to work today, so I feigned being sick, but I realized I really had to come in since they were going to teach me how to handle the mice. I'm working with mice :-) I think that's a good thing, at least. I took them out of their cages and weighed them to see if they were gaining weight and/or if they are pregnant. They're gonna kill them once they give birth ("sacrificing" or "sac-ing" as they like to call it). It's killing nonetheless. I "got to" witness this yesterday. They put these happy jumpy mice in a carbon dioxide chamber and pretty soon, they're not so jumpy. They breathe in so much CO2 that their body shuts down and sooner or later, they just die. But before they can actually die, you have to get 1mL of blood from them. I tried to do that, but I always got air. I never poked them right. Luckily, these particular mice were no longer needed for experimentation anyway, so I just got to practice on them. I felt so bad for the mice! The guy just dropped them in the chamber 3, 4, 5 at a time like it was nothing.

I finally registered to vote a few days ago. I remember being really annoyed during last year's November elections because I couldn't vote in the NYC mayoral election (or whatever that adjective is) because I had forgotten to register. And I had always told myself that as soon as I'm old enough to vote, I'll register right away too! So I was doubly annoyed that I had forgotten this. And there was a post office on 4th and 11th where I could have registered!


I have a lab meeting at 2:30 today which I think it's so cool that I'm invited. Well, I suppose technically I should go, because I am part of the lab, but it's still pretty cool that I'm part of the lab and I get to go to the meeting and actually understand what people are saying. And we're getting food because it was someone's birthday recently. I just can't remember who's. My boss, by the way, is Professor Judith T. Zelikoff, PhD. Well, that's how she'd like to be introduced. She's just "Judy" or "Dr. Z" to the rest of us. I usually call her Dr. Z though, because I doubt she'd like it if I called her by her first name.

The Yankees lost last night, AGAIN, and this time, to the Red Sox. They're driving me crazy. They lost the series to the Mets this weekend, and now they're stinking it up against Boston. This is the last thing I need. Like there's any hope of them winning the next two games against the Red Sox and taking the series now!

I fell asleep today in the library. Well, more like, this morning. Remember when I said I feigned an illness? Well, I wasn't completely feigning. I fell asleep on top of my readings on and off for a good two hours. It was embarrassing, but I really just didn't care much. So I stayed at it, until about 10 to 11 when I decided I should probably go find Judy or Alice, a PhD student, and learn how to weigh the mice. Not my finest moment, there in the library, but at least I'm up and kicking now. Let's see how long THAT lasts.

Today is my first official day working at the lab. And it still isn't really official because I'm not actually starting on my project. I'm supposed to be working with some kid in high school. He won't get out of school until June (obviously), so I will start "his" project for him. And then when he goes away for the summer in August, I am supposed to take on the project as my own. I'm a little confused as to who's wearing the pants here. I know it's his idea, but umm... he's a kid, and he won't be here for half of the experimentation. I suppose whoever ends up writing the paper from this project will get the credit for it, and you can bet it'll be me. But silly me! I forgot to tell you what I'm assigned to do.

They're exposing mice (dams/P1 generation) to cigarette smoke during their pregnancy. Then they're going to test the F1 generation's reaction to allergens and the like. Then these mice will breed and give an F2 generation. This is where I come in, apparently. I will compare the effects of cigarette smoke on the second generation (F2) in terms of breast cancer susceptibility and even before then, I'm going to see the effects of the smoke on their gestation period - meaning, looking to determine what effect smoke has on premature delivery. It's all pretty cool, but all really confusing. And the fact that some kid is supposed to head this operation is kind of annoying, but whatever, I suppose. What sucks though, is that we have to give these mice cancer. They get injected with a chemical that is supposed to induce tumor production and we examine who got cancer and how quickly. And unfortunately, we do end up "sacrificing" mice, or in other words, killing them. It's all pretty humane, but it's still pretty awful. I don't mind dissections and drawing blood and all that jazz, but it's hard to actually have to be the one to kill it. What's scary is that the lab technicians really have no problem doing it either. It's all very easy and they do it like it's just another thing that needs to happen. Which it is, but still.

So I have spent the whole of the day researching this topic. Well, these topics, I should say. I love being able to access all these databases from the NYU computers that I can't from home. Makes me feel special. I've printed a bunch of reports and papers that give some background on the subject, so I'll have quite a bit of reading to do for the rest of the week.

In case you're wondering, the only reason I'm writing this much is because I have so much downtime. I've been ready to go home since 3, but my dad still needs to do work, and I come in with him because 1) I can't drive and 2) it saves gas anyway. So I am basically going to be wasting away here in the Sterling Forest Labs while the rest of you get to either sleep in or make money this summer. You suck, but hopefully I'll get something good out of this. Like, a published paper, or a brownie. With chocolate chips on top. Hold the nuts.

For anyone who's been living under a rock - read The DaVinci Code. It's an unbelievably suspenseful novel about the hidden truths behind our most well-known stories and masterpieces. Whether the novel is based in fact or not is irrelevant - it's simply a great murder mystery, drawing you in just from the prologue.

Another book I highly recommend is Memoirs of a Geisha. Yes, of course I only started reading it because of the movie, but that's beside the point. And by the way, it's so much better than the movie version (naturally). The novel is a beautifully written, haunting tale of the slow demise of Japanese traditional culture, resulting from World War II, as seen through the decline of the geisha culture. After all, a culture's traditions are always seen through its women, and the dwindling prominence of the geisha represents the loss of Japanese culture as a whole.

A book that I plan on reading this summer is called The Life of Pi. Mr. Cartisano gave it to me as a graduation gift almost a year ago. It's been collecting dust for long enough now, so I'm thinking I should actually open it and give it a shot. He said he felt it was the perfect read for me because it was about finding your way when you're being pulled in a different direction. This, he felt, applied to my life because my parents never allowed me to think about doing anything else with my life except become a physician, when there were other things I would have preferred to do with my life. I'm still not sure what I want to do, or how I would tell my parents, more so, my mother, this, but I think The Life of Pi might help me.

Other readings for my list include Dune, by Frank Herbert, and Digital Fortress, by Dan Brown. Perhaps I didn't make this clear, but I highly recommend ALL of Dan Brown's books. Reading his work doesn't make you some uneducated pop culture junkie, okay? Just because you read his work doesn't mean you are automatically not a serious and well-educated reader. Granted, his novels are not quite as majestic as the works of John Steinbeck or Stephen Crane, but this is because they are plot-driven. And it is this quality that makes them so entertaining and such great reads. Same goes for Harry Potter - no, the characters are not quite as well-developed as in, for example, the Wheel of Time series, but the plot and Harry himself are as greatly excavated as any of the best works.

The Dune series interested me because it was a fantasy novel. Fantasy is a genre I've always enjoyed, but not something I could always relate to (I wonder why...). It was sometimes difficult for me to understand Fantasy, but I figured if so many people can read and enjoy the series, I should give it a shot.

Oh, and for those of you suffering from Potter withdrawal, I suggest some of Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl to get you out of your rut. A magical world inside a non-magical one. How much closer to Harry Potter can you get? Well, much closer, considering Fowl isn't that great next to HP, but it'll definitely keep you entertained until Book 7 comes out.

So what have we learned today? Summer Reading = lot's of fun and raised blood pressure, especially if you're reading Dan Brown. It gets too hot to go outside anyway so if you've actually woken up before dinnertime, then I suggest sitting next to the window on your favorite loveseat cozying up to one of these novels.

Soooo, I'm finally home from NYU and I can't stand it. There is NOTHING in Scotchtown for me and I'm bored out of my mind. My dad found me some work in his lab over the summer, but I'm pretty skeptical I'll get paid. Which means I'll be working 40 hours every week (I'll just go in for work with my dad) for "volunteering experience." I did IB, I don't need anymore volutunteering hours; I need cash. And of course it's a little weird to ask to be compensated, considering I didn't actually apply, and she wasn't looking for summer students anyway. I'm basically screwed, which is the story of my life.

I would much rather be back at school, as odd as that sounds. I literally have no freedom at home. It's funny how the 'rents claim they let me do whatever I want, considering that rule only applies when I'm in the house, and I want to watch TV until three o'clock in the morning. Wow, thanks.

NYU was a blast. I suppose a lot of people complain that there's no campus, and therefore, it's not really college life. But college life to me was getting out of this place, being more adult, living on my own, and just learning to take on more responsibilities. I did that! I probably took better care of myself at college than I did at home. I would run errands, set up appointments, and hang out - all of my own volition. I could go anywhere I wanted, do anything I wanted, and all I needed was a little cash on me.

Which brings me to another thing. For any of you out there who whines that you miss home and go home every weekend (or for any of you graduating Seniors reading this - don't be like that), I say, shut up. Could you learn to enjoy college a little bit? As naive as this may sound, home will always be there. You're always a phone call, a bus ride, a plane ticket away from home. But how long are you in college? This experience doesn't last long - enjoy it while you can! At least, that's what I'm trying to do.