Hi there! My name is Grace! This is my blog for documenting my genuine experience/feelings finishing undergrad, applying for MD/PhD programs, and navigating the coveted work-life balance. At the moment, I'm taking a summer class, writing my undergraduate honors thesis, and prepping to graduate in December!
AMA: Feel free to ask me for tips, tricks, or whatever sticks if the thought strikes you! Or just say hi if you'd like :)
🧪 Current Academic Interests...
Biology / Biomedical Science / Marine Biology
How global and local ecosystem health affects human health!!
Handwritten notes and color coding / sketching to learn!! / study techniques
East Asian Philosophy
📗 Hobbies and Other Interests
Classic Literature / Lord of the Rings / Stormlight Archive
The Pitt (!!! baby jane doe!)
Watercolor Painting
Perfecting the At-Home Matcha Latte
Anime! / One Piece / Frieren / Witch Hat Atelier / Demon Slayer...etc
told one of the techs at my clinical volunteering placement about how I'm rewatching the Pitt and she asked if she should start watching it, like yes ma'am please simp for Jack Abbot and Dr. Al-Hashimi with me
Made it to 1.2k words on my thesis! Started thinking through how I'll present! ✅
Read ~400 pages of Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson :O
Yet to do this week:
10.5 hours of my part-time job
3.5 hours of clinical volunteering
Also planning on going to a local festival after work!
If you'd like to study with me, you can find me on the Flora study app @saltycitations !! You'll be able to keep up with me studying and I think there'll be a real time study room update soon! Otherwise my DMs and/or asks are always open :)
today I officially checked a box stating I graduate with my bachelor's in cellular and molecular biology this fall!! it feels so surreal (and way too real at the same time)
one step closer to becoming grace in project hail mary lol
I just wanted to say I’ve been going back in forth with having no motivation to develop and post content, but you and your posts have truly inspired me to go back into this hobby .!
That is all (^_^)
Thank you so much! This is so sweet! I'm so honored. I can't wait to see what you've got coming :))
some of my recent views and a quick review for the first 7 days of july!
I ran my first ever 5k (43:38 minutes!!) and i'm very proud regardless of pace :)
this also marks 5 weeks since starting running!!!
completed a historical background and two paragraphs of intro for my thesis (up to 700 words!)
went on a 3 hour hike with a friend to see ladybugs and go bird watching
since it was a holiday weekend, I took a break from studying to spend time with family and friends, so I get to jump back into it!
also submitted a poem for a poetry magazine!
also it came to my attention that Forest, the app I use to track study time, no longer has a referral code feature. I'm gonna work it out, but if anyone is interested in studying in real time with me, or having a study group to do some parallel play, I've been looking into Flora! That way we can have a study group, track study time, and keep one another focused and accountable :)
anyway, gentle reminder that accomplishing something, no matter the time taken, will always be an achievement worth celebrating.
I want to be interdisciplinary!!! I want to understand the history, the cultural influences in classic literature (shout out Dracula for Stokers opinions on the late-Victorian feminism movement).
Discoveries cannot be understood through a single lens! Even biology has context in chemistry and physics, in historical change and policy, in literature and journalism shaping public views. We are multi-faceted individuals, our understanding should match
was working on my thesis (finally!) and came across a discovery in 2004 where the author had so much hope in the future of science. sometimes it's so visceral to see the past so clearly. Like you believed in us to fix the problem. From 22 years ago. I wonder if people will feel the same about us?
Alright everyone, it's officially time for the.... Drumroll please...
Also known as me being real about studying time, goals, and performance from when I started tracking (June 17) :P
Accounting for eating and sleeping, the average time left over from June 17 through June 30 is 195 hours. Let's see how that shook out:
It's looking like most of my time was free! Sweet! But for the time that wasn't, let's look at some of our top contenders:
Part-Time Job (41 hours total)
a girl's gotta work! 41 hours, mostly consisting of 9-10hour shifts during the weekends.
Summer Class (Physics II / 26 hours total)
This period included two tests among other homework and 18 hours of lecture + lab. Test scores were a nice middle of the road, averaging an 81%.
MCAT Studying (12 hours total)
Anki
Average Time Spent: 3minutes/day
Days Missed: 5
Longest time spent: 22.61 minutes on June 29 with 251 total flashcards reviewed.
2. Jack Westin
This was the first month of doing daily passages. Let's see how we did:
The TOTAL % Correct trendline came out to be y= 0.015x + 0.521 ! This means that overall, we saw a 1.5% improvement in performance doing Jack Westin daily MCAT passages each day.
Some key points:
The PSYCH/SOC % category had relatively low passage frequency, indicate by the breaks and dots in the hot pink line.
There were three 100s! Two for CARS and one in CHEM. Woohoo! 🎉🎉
The average performance over all counting all data points was approximately 61% correct. Plenty of room to improve!
How about Hobbies?
everything that was funky, fun, and most importantly, not academic!
Reading (26 hours total)
Books finished:
Mistborn: Book 1 of the Mistborn Trilogy ✅
The Well of Ascension: Book 2 of the Mistborn Trilogy ✅
Time with Friends (16 hours total)
played some DnD, some video games, or just simply hung out :)
Clinical Volunteering (7.5 hours total)
Went to volunteer orientation!
Began work at a sleep disorder lab to get my first clinical hours!
Lab Work (6 hours total)
Drafted, edited, finished, and submitted a final report for an independent, grant-funded research project I completed in May! (word count: 1053, figures: 3)
Running (3.5 hours total)
Starting a brand new hobby is always hard. But it's important to make time for progress!
total distance: 15.5 mi (25 km) 💨
Thank you guys for reading and joining me in studying, testing, and making a work-life balance possible in June! Look forward to the July Review too!
As always, make time for yourself to rest. Hang out with those you love every once in a while. Progress is progress no matter how small.
These are not the only people you'll ever love. There will be more. So many more. If you're moving, your favorite coffeeshop is all of them. Your favorite books will come with you and your best friends will always text you that they're thinking of you, even if it's been a while. By the time they visit, you'll be a local, taking them to meet the flowers and smell the coffee and tell them stories of all the love you've discovered while you've been away.
The new love can't wait to meet you and the old love can't wait to see you again.
please make sure that wherever you’re at in life, you don’t treat it like a transitory period. don’t waste your college years wishing to already be graduated & have a job. don’t waste your single years wishing for someone to be in love with. if/when those things come, they will come in due time and they will be good. but there is nothing like looking back and feeling empty because you wasted literal years ignoring what you had because you were hoping for something better. while it’s important to better yourself and reach for your goals, don’t neglect the present because that’s where you are now and it’s your now that determines your future.
(aka when I really really really don't feel like doing work and i'm immune to a lot of the normal ones, so this is what I cooked up)
also isn't little luffy so cute??? love him so much
1. "Luffy Would be Disappointed."
This one is actually a cheat code for me in like every aspect. Let's be real: we all have a dream. What else is a goal? Luffy works tirelessly for his dream to be the King of Pirates, for Nami's map, for Sanji's All Blue... how would he feel if we didn't give it our all? He'd be so disappointed!
This goes for everything. I don't feel like studying? I'm not fighting for my dream. I don't feel like running or being active despite knowing its a goal of mine? I'm not trying to improve to get my goal in reach. How can I be worthy of being Luffy's friend? By trying by best to get better in pursuit of my dream.
This can go for any character, really. Especially one who seems motivated even in the most daunting situations. Would they want to be friends with you? Or would they be disappointed at your lack of drive for your passions?
would you go with your dream into the very fires of Mordor? prove it.
2. "ANYTHING is better than a zero."
Literally anything. It beats nearly every excuse.
"Oh, I didn't study enough, I shouldn't go." Go. Get a 20/100. It's better than a 0.
"I really don't feel like doing my homework." Start it. Get a 1/10. It's better than a 0.
"The deadline is in 5 minutes and I haven't even started ye--" Do some. Get a terrible grade. Email the professor about it to see if you can have a second chance. Even if you don't get it, it's still better than a 0.
3. "What's my WHY?"
No, this isn't why I don't feel like doing it. This is WHY am I doing it at all?? It's hard. It can be so incredibly hard. Sometimes it just gets overwhelming. The important part is: WHY ARE YOU DOING WHAT YOU'RE DOING? To help people? To help the Earth? To explore other planets? To understand more about the mysteries of the universe or decode the writing systems of ancient civilizations?? To step into history through centuries' old stories and see the human soul refracted in poetry??
There is a reason you chose this. Every small effort is a something supporting that reason.
Your "why" can be in the past, in the present, in the future, physical or abstract or something else entirely. But ultimately it is yours and yours only.
Define it and fight for it. You're the only one who can.
Literally cannot believe I was ever scared of getting older like this is awesome. Learning so many new things about myself & reacting to things that used to get under my skin so differently. This is so sexy.
