Supa Dupe PhD Candidate Panda

Hello, world! So much has happened since I last updated my blog. DEAL WITH IT. But the worst is over, so now I shall recap my saga.

SUPA DUPE updates:

1. I am officially a PhD candidate in biomedical engineering! Probably the biggest thing hindering updating my blog was stressing out/kind of studying for my QUALIFYING EXAM. Well, the worst of it is over. Our program has qualifying exams at the end of the graduate student's first year. It is a 90 minute oral examination held by a committee of three professors. I had heard mixed reviews from previous students who has passed the exam, even though the fail rate has been pretty low. So I did many a mock oral exam with my peers and older students in the program, blew through two  textbooks the weekend before my exam (not recommended...I just tend to focus better when I'm cramming). Anyway, long story short, I PASSED!! To commemorate the event, I even made business cards! They are so baller. Unfortunately, I have not been able to actually use them yet (except for when I just show them off to my friends); however  remain optimistic as I foresee many networking opportunities in the near future.

You wish your business card was as dope as mine.

2. My age is composed of two consecutive numbers! No, I'm not 12 or 34...I am 23 years old/young! It was a bit hectic as my birthday was May 10, and my qualifying exam was scheduled for May 14. Needless to say, I didn't celebrate until after my exam. The party  planning got a bit crazy as The Boyf was trying to plan a surprise party at the same time as I was trying to plan a dinner. Shit went down and the jig went up, but in the end we figured it out and I had a great night with my friends. The Boyf got me the NEW IPAD! I got a case and bluetooth keyboard for it, and am currently proposing this prose on the technology. Coming from someone who has always had Windows products, I may or may not be considering buying a Macbook!

Birthday cake from The Boyf and my transition from 22 to 23!

Post quals/birthday festivities at Cosmo-Lava lounge!

3. I no longer have cockroaches in my kitchen! Unfortunately, this took too long to fix, and the only way to rid myself of those pesky creatures was to move to a new apartment. Now I am happily residing in a 2bed/2bath apartment with Mr. McDonald, soon to be Dr. McDonald. He is planning on defending in July, and then The Boyf plans to move into my room and we shall have the extra room available for rent. Even though we drive each other crazy sometimes, I am glad we will soon be able to see each other every day, instead of every two months.

In short, life is good. I had stressed out since January about all these things happening, but then I remember all the times I had freaked out previously in my life for no good apparent reason, and somehow everything works out. God is good and takes care of everything. I took this personality test that examined my strengths, and Belief was one of my top 5. Which means that I believe fate has led me to become a panda. IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW!

Also, the stupid IRS has been freezing my bank account recently due to an ERRONEOUS sum of money from taxes back in 2009 that I failed to pay. The key word here is ERROR, aka WRONG, aka THE IRS ARE IMBECILES that have incestuous relations with each other that procure 6-fingered child monsters, who continue to inbreed disgustingly within the next generation, causing the organization to levy innocent (and normal phalangic) citizens in order to pay the high cost of surgical removal of the damned fingers, the procedure to which I MYSELF may or may not be contributing with my doctoral research.

I HATE THE IRS.

But speaking of incest, I read the book ''100 years of solitude'' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez on a whim last weekend, and it was absolutely fantastic! Probably one of the best, if not the best, books that I have read in my entire life. Not only that, but it was an English translation of a Spanish, which makes me sad that I did not keep up with Spanish long enough to be able to read the original version of the novel. But if you have never read it, READ IT. You won't regret it, I promise you. It's so crazy and insane in the membrane that you'll wonder if the author was brilliant or deranged, or BOTH. I support the latter. MY IDOL.

And speaking deranged, today we ordered the TRIPLE CORONARY BYPASS BURGER at the Vortex restaurant, which was a bit disappointing but nevertheless lead to a satisfactory bout of diarrhea. Just kidding. OR AM I. 

I was more excited about the $10 coupon from Google offers.

Like I said, deranged.

But anyway, now that summer has arrived and I am finally DONEZO with IBS and the Core graduate classes that also caused IBS, I should have more time to update! I would toast with some wine, but alcohol just makes my stomach itchy, so I'll stick with the flavored sparkling water. Here's to a fruitful summer, with lots of updates and  fun stuff...not to mention a lot of badass research.

Would it be too much to ask for a first-author paper by August?

Pirate Panda

 I tried to go for a run at Huffnagle Park this morning, but there were PEOPLE there (what do they think it is, a park?!) and I had to run around Quarryville instead. Which is worse, because then 100x more people can see me. Although I did find out that there are a lot of mini creeks and bridges in town, which is something I should have already known earlier. Quarryville is so quaint…I wish I had time to just walk around and see the…quarries?

Last night a customer (young, male, attractive? – who are you? Please come back!) deposited SIX DOLLARS in the Peking tip jar! That’s only a dollar less than the tip Hair and I gave to our waiter at Applebees the night before! It is also two dollars more than the black, leather, pointed-toe Nine West pumps I purchased at the consignment shop next door that are a size too small (it was just such a good deal; I’ll fit into them somehow!) I don’t think anyone has ever given six dollars as a one-time tip at Peking, so I am assuming he was drunk or extremely wealthy (young, male, attractive AND single?  The Boyf better get his game on). Padre says he kept raving about our chicken lo mein and dropping the Washingtons into the jar. So the moral of the story here is: ORDER THE CHICKEN LO MEIN! I’ve had the lo mein, too, and it’s good! 

Today was also egg roll frying and roast pork day! My favorite day of the week! Every Tuesday, Peking makes roast pork in the oven, and it is so delicious. I always cut myself a slice when it comes out of the oven. I wish more people knew that we make everything from scratch…I mean EVERYTHING! There is so much prep work that goes into the food, even/especially the fried foods. I kept telling Hair that we needed to advertise more, since business is terribly slow during the summer. I wanted to make t-shirts for us to wear and perhaps to sell (it works at Penn State, but then again the median age of Quarryville is probably 72, so t-shirts might not sell so well). Hair had an ingenious idea of putting himself on the tshirt, riding a horse, and marketing it as the Polo Ralph Lauren brand. He said that we would make so much money because people would love the great deal of buying a Polo shirt for only $10 that we could retire from the restaurant industry and live off tshirt profits alone! 

Our idea for a promotional Peking tshirt – you can’t even spot the difference! What are your thoughts? Maybe I’ll get some done for the holidays!

I came home in the afternoon in order to start reading chapter 9 (the last chapter!) for BLOCK 0, but instead got caught up with packing and making a cover of Adele’s “Someone Like You.” I repositioned the camera so it is further away from my face (so you don’t have to see me scrunching when I try and fail to hit the high notes) and I think it sounds better this way, although The Boyf thinks it still sounds the same. In my head when I’m singing, I think I sound great, but when I listen myself recorded, my voice is always so whiny and high-pitched. Sad panda. =(

Packing is almost done! I fit the clothes that I wanted to bring into two large suitcases, and a bunch of shoes into a carry-on roller. I’ll need another suitcase or large roller to fit my binders and books/laptop/other miscellaneous items. I’ve also been siphoning off some old clothing and stuff in my room to donate to the consignment shop. I ran across a bunch of old cards and letters from many years ago while I was cleaning out my room. Among them were a graduation card from the pastor of my old church, a thank-you card from my high school hall monitor, a 19^th birthday card from The Boyf’s little siblings, and tons of letters from my penpals B-dog and Mona Lewis. I’m also starting correspondence with a new penpal, Weather Ballin’, so I’ll be keeping busy!

I did read about 6 pages into chapter 9, so I’m not THAT far behind. I might read a little bit more tonight before I go to bed…I should at least make it to page 10. That leaves about 24 pages tomorrow, which will take 2 hours if I’m lucky (the text is so small! 10 pages per hour is so excruciating), and then I can start typing up the answers to the end-of-chapter problems. Also, I need to pop into the library to print out the (NOT coupons this time!) flight confirmations for Padre’s and my flight to Hotlanta on Saturday. 

Tonight I was also invited to my first party at graduate school! I am really looking forward to starting school now – it seems like a very social bunch of students. It is a PIRATE PARTY! I wonder if showing up as a pirate panda would be too overwhelming – I wouldn’t want anyone to call animal control on me the first week of grad school. Then how would I update this blog!?