Day In The Life + WIAW

This post could also be titled “If I Blogged Every Minute Of The Day” and I figured it would be a funny alternative type of post.  So here we go.  This is my WIAW post combined with a detailed look at a day in the life of busy genetic counseling student.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

5:40am - alarm goes off

5:41am - out of bed

5:48am - out the door, to the gym

5:57am - in the gym, on the elliptical, practicing my prenatal presentation

6:43am - back to the apartment

6:50am - shower time

7:00am - dry off, get dressed (realize my new tailored pants fit great), makeup and hair

7:20am - make breakfast (peanut butter honey yogurt with strawberries and chia)

7:32am - done with breakfast, eaten while watching last night’s Hell’s Kitchen

7:35am - out the door, to campus I go

7:45am - park the car

7:53am - arrive at the student room after a very long, very cold walk from the parking lot to our building

7:55am - log onto a classmate's computer because mine was taken by my first year deskmate

7:56am - begin the day by looking at recipes online...waste.of.time
(looks yummy –> http://www.ragu.com/recipes/detail/25121/1/1-2-3-cheddar-broccoli-casserole)

8:00am - switch to Facebook

8:05am - work on an outline for one of tomorrow's morning patients

8:30am - go to class

8:45am - be real tired in class

9:07am - get midterm

9:10am - realize everything is going to be fine

9:20am - bathroom break while people argued for points

9:30am - class resumes and continues to be not the most exciting thing in the world

10:00am - switch classes from molecular to population

11:15am - technology breakdown in class and we continue class from handouts rather than a projected presentation on the board

11:38am - back to the student room

11:40am - applied for a job in Arizona

12:00 noon - heat up lunch (pumpkin and black bean chili with tempeh and an unpictured apple on the side)

12:30pm - MFM presentation time

12:43pm - actually start my presentation

12:50pm - the majority of people noisily arrive

1:08pm - finished

2:30pm - set up for my thesis seminar practice presentation

2:32pm - find out some promising job news (hopefully more on that by the end of the week!)

2:50pm - finally give my thesis seminar practice presentation

3:30pm - finish my PowerPoint five minutes too early, dang it!

3:50pm - head to my old place of work for fried goodies made my an old co-worker

3:53pm - significantly improved mood

4:15pm - begin prep of Thursday patients

5:12pm - still working...

6:10pm - give up the ghost and go home

6:20pm - get home and change into more comfortable clothes

6:30pm - make dinner with veggies for a "fried food detox"

6:50pm - actually eat dinner (salad beast topped with bleu cheese and steak seasoned TVP and jalapeno hummus dressing) while watching How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days

7:30pm - get angry at my iPhone for being broken somehow and unable to be backed up or synced (grumble, grumble)

7:43pm - dessert in the form of Peeps as it is that time of year

8:01pm - finish this post and decide I really should be doing something academically productive

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Questions: What would your life look like if you blogged every moment?
Are you a fan of Peeps?

Salty/Sweet Sunday

Today was pretty bland.  And, really, this whole weekend has been fairly bland/lonely/[insert downer adjective here].  There are really times when I wish I didn’t live alone.  It’s hard to be by myself for days on end.  Makes me sort of look forward to class tomorrow, if only just to hang out with people, anyone/anything other than my television and laptop.

As for the day, I woke up around 9am and got up rather quickly because I had big breakfast plans: almond joy pancakes.  I used chocolate protein powder, whole grain flour, baking powder, almond extract, and vanilla almond milk.  I then added in some coconut flakes.  I cooked them up silver dollar style and loaded my plate.  The topping of the morning was almond butter mixed with maple syrup.

Some additional maple syrup was required in the end.  Seriously delicious breakfast though, really.  I honestly love pancakes and its been way too long since I’ve had some.  Well played, Sunday, well played.  Speaking of a certain first day of the week, I headed to church a little after 10:30.  Mass was nice.  We baptized a cute, little, very outspoken outcrying newborn girl.  It was kind of adorable.

After church I came home to more Vampire Diaries and thesis work.  I made some progress though it continually feels like it’s not enough.  The whole presentation needs to be something like 45 minutes and I don’t think what I have now will last that long.  But I also feel like I have said everything I can.  Hopefully my committee can help with the addition of new slides.  After working I got hungry.  My late afternoon lunch included some vegged-out quinoa and a halved chicken sausage dry-fried in a non-stick pan and topped with spicy brown mustard.  Orange on the side for some fruit goodness.

Nomnom, gotta love the slight caramelization on the sausage with its hint of salt.  Sad, dreary day backlighting though.  It rained like crazy today, so much so that the temperature dropped like a rock and my windows fogged up.  I keep my apartment real warm.  =D  Through the late afternoon I continued to work and watch TV.  I also menu planned a bunch for this week.  I also did an inventory of leftovers in the fridge and started a running tab of how many servings I have left on my fridge’s whiteboard.  I figure this will give me an easy way to eat my extras in a timely manner.

Dinner came in the form of a salad.  They say to eat the rainbow and I’d say I certainly did.  I used a bed of romaine lettuce and chopped up some celery, carrots, yellow and red pepper, mushrooms, onion, grape tomatoes, cranberries, manchego cheese, and southwest ranch dressing.

I must say that manchego cheese on a salad is pretty darn awesome.  I loved how salty it was in contrast to the cranberries’ sweetness.  For a bit more sweetness, I had a little treat: vanilla cupcake pudding with a giant glob of almond butter. 

I could honestly probably eat this every day of my life.  Again, the salty AB and sweet pudding just makes a killer combo.  Mmmm, love.  And now, dear readers, I’m off for some one on one time with my visual aids.  I need to work up my new prenatal specific speeches.  Better to do it before than during a session in front of a patient, huh?  Yea, that’s what I thought.  See you all later!

Questions: What’s on your docket for this week?
What would be your ideal nut butter/pudding combo?

Thanksgiving Break 2012

[by iPhone and Instagram]

Question: How was your holiday weekend?

A Day In Bed

After a night of great music,

I awoke this morning to spend the whole day under the covers.  It was beyond lovely.

Well, almost the whole day though I am writing this from bed too.  I took minor breaks for sustenance…

…and to go and lift weights. I finished Stage Two of NROLFW today.  That means this upcoming week is a rest week before Stage Three.  Rest week = cardio week honestly.  I’m on a mission to drop a few pounds before the holiday season.  I know that sounds silly coming from a girl who just posted a picture of a lovely cup of froyo but I promise it was planned for and I had the room in my “diet” to do it.  Plus it was a well earned reward for putting the final touches on my final draft of my thesis.  That’s right, I am submitting my manuscript version early this coming week to my main mentor.  He is going to make any last minute tweaks he has and then we’re going to run it by the rest of my committee and other contributors.  After that, I and my manuscript are publication bound!

By the way, if you haven’t noticed lately a lot of my pictures are coming from my iPhone so they’re shaped differently and probably colored slightly harsher.  Some are also from Instagram so they’re already been processed through their filters.  I hope you all don’t mind, I figure the camera is good enough (its something like five megapixels) and usually I employ the “one less thing to carry” excuse.  I’ll admit that lately, any way to make it easier/quicker to snap pictures before I forget has been helpful.  This whole second year of genetic counseling graduate school is all about being swamped.  Anyways, I figure some pictures are better than no pictures.  =D

Finally, as almost an afterthought, because I’ve been watching so much Gossip Girl lately (mmm, call it a post embryo exam season five TV binge, haha) I honestly feel the need to pose this one single question: Holy smokes, is there really a place where this much drama exists?  The characters in the show jump to conclusions faster than toddlers fall off teeter-totters.  It is ridiculous.  I may have yelled at the screen several times urging the couples and families to just COMMUNICATE already.  Seriously, you can’t just go around assuming crap and handing out ultimatums and deals every three seconds.  Life doesn’t work that way.  Or maybe it does for those people raised in privilege, with tons of money, and little to worry about aside from social matters.  I realize that is a gross generalization and probably a far reach but you go and watch several episodes of Gossip Girl and tell me you don’t feel the same…

Questions: What TV series are you watching lately?
Do you prefer TV or books during a morning in bed?

I Am Not Dead

I promise I’m still around though my blogging time has taken a hit.

I’m just buried under my thesis on myotonic dystrophy.

Shout out to MasterChef for being a partner in the background.

Oh, and embryology reading isn’t helping the situation any.

Though my dinner of a summer squash, tomato, garlic, onion, krab, and Old Bay sauté worked wonders on my mood.

So, I’m sorry.  I’m a student.

I really do want to blog.  Trust me.  I promise to try a WIAW post tomorrow and then maybe some this weekend because we have a wedding and I know you all love pretty pictures of wedding cake the couple.

Question: What’s the first thing to go when you have a time crunch?

Out On A Limb

First, this is another What I Ate Wednesday post! Yay.

Second, um, since when did The Weather Channel get a face lift?

I was more than surprise trying to fumble my way around the site this morning in a half-daze.  I just wanted to know what the temperature was and if it was going to rain.  Geeze, was that too much to ask?  Obviously I found what I was looking for but man, you never realize how much you’re used to one thing until it’s gone.  And yes, I know this is a rant about a weather website, so here, I’ll stop.  After all, how can one complain when there is this much sunshine around?

So, in other news, I woke up this morning feel utterly stuffed up.  Nothing was moving and it was the kind of sinus pressure that literally sends shooting pain into your skull every step you take.  I figured I would just have to roll with it because I had stuff to do at school so I put on presentable clothes and rewarmed my the oatmeal I made last night.  I stirred in some cottage cheese and dumped it into an old JIF jar.  OIAJ are really one of the greatest things ever.

Sadly when I got to the shuttle to take me to the medical center, I realized it was much much too hot out to be eating oatmeal that had just come off the stove.  I took a few bites, enough to keep me from getting sick because I had already taken my daily dose of vitamins, minerals, supplements, etc. and I tend to hurl if I don’t have food already in my stomach.  I then put it in my bag and let the whole jar cool for a bit until it was much less hot and I was already in the student room.  With this temperature issue rectified I demolished the whole thing and boy was it tasty.

I spent the majority of the morning studying/doing patient prep.  At eleven, I had a meeting with a biostatistician to talk about the effect size and power of my proposed thesis study.  After 50 minutes of bouncing ideas around and plugging in numbers it appears that in order to say anything worth saying I would have to collect 1000-1600 surveys.  Well, my friends, that is 100% out of the realm of possibilities so I’m a bit nervous.  I think this means I have to scrap the idea or really refine it somehow.  I have put this on the “to deal with after finals” list at this point.  I just don’t have the brain power right now. Cytogenetics is taking up all the room. 

Next up with Katie’s seminar.  She was the last of our second years to go and her talk was nice.  She did a case report so there was a lot of clinical info and lingo being thrown around.  We celebrated afterwards by going to a cool lunch spot downtown.  For my lunch I went out on a limb and ordered the Bleu Bliss sandwich with bleu cheese, almonds, honey, cranberries, black pepper, and Granny Smith apples.  I figured I like all those components separately so they should be alright together.  I was wrong, they weren’t just alright, they were stellar.

I secretly wanted my sandwich to be three times the size it came.  Nom.  Nom.  The sweet potato fries on the side had been talked up a bunch by my fellow classmates and they were okay but by the time the plates came out of the kitchen they were sort of mushy and cold.  I still ate them all mostly because I love sweet potato flavor but I couldn’t help but think that they had the same mouth feel as bagged sweet potato fries I could have in my freezer.  Oh well, the sandwich more than made up for it.

I walked home from the restaurant reveling in the sunshine thinking about all the possible awful things our professor could ask tomorrow on the exam.  I then thought that was much too depressing so I hooked up my iTouch and rocked out to Parachute for the remainder of the walk.  I only had about a half an hour once I got home before I needed to leave again and while I should have been studying, I didn’t.  I surfed the internet instead.  Then, on the way to my massage and chiropractic appointment, I sported an iced coffee I made from home.

Honestly I don’t normally drink iced coffee, in fact this was also way out on a limb for me but I was kind of craving one.  I think it had something to do with reading this article before heading out.

I had forgotten that my normal masseuse, Heather, was on a leave of absence.

So basically I was surprised for a brief moment to meet my new therapist.  Jacqui did really well.  I find it fascinating how different massages can be when they’re being done by people who have been trained the same way.  I had an adjustment after my massage and it took forever.  You could really tell that I hadn’t been thrown into whack in over a month!  Also, my chiropractor used the “thumper” on my sinuses to help decongest me.  It worked wonders.

I drove my super relaxed self home and got back to studying.  I did a bunch of work on reciprocal translocation segregation before heading to the gym.

I did some abs before doing the elliptical for 18 minutes and the stationary bike for another 18 minutes.  My notes were my workout partner.  When I came back to the apartment it was already super late so I made up some ranch cottage cheese with orange pepper and celery on the side and grapes too.

It was a nice little something before I had to get back to being a studious person.  In fact, I should get on that shouldn’t I?  Yea, alright.  Later group.  I’ll see you all after my final tomorrow.  I can’t wait to be done!

Questions: What’s your favorite way to eat cottage cheese?
How do you take your iced coffee?