Why, it’s only February!

The 29th of February, to be precise. Still, I realized yesterday that the midterm date – the mid-point between the first and second halves of the semester – is next week. I was also forced to this reflection by my schedule telling me that I have five midterms (intermediary tests, of which there are one to three per semester in each subject) scheduled for this and next weeks, meaning one test from each subject.

The 29th of February, to be precise. Still, I realized yesterday that the midterm date – the mid-point between the first and second halves of the semester – is next week. I was also forced to this reflection by my schedule telling me that I have five midterms (intermediary tests, of which there are one to three per semester in each subject) scheduled for this and next weeks, meaning one test from each subject.

I took a biology lab exam yesterday, including a hands-on test and a written test. In the hands-on part, we were asked to identify, one by one, some one hundred and fifty structures on (and in) the pig fetus body (the size of a cat, roughly), alternately recognizing various tissues under a microscope. The time limit was forty-five minutes, giving you on average 18 seconds to recognize each structure and write it down. The written test contained several additional questions, including to enumerate all of the anatomic structures through which a molecule of nicotine (?!) passes after being inhaled by a pregnant sow, from its exterior nostril to the scapula of one of its 16 unborn piglets.

Today, for a change, it was a physics exam that tested my knowledge of static electric field and potential. And I’m in for a French test tomorrow – about a hundred words and some grammar, as usual.

Then the weekend starts when, in addition to 12 hours in a lab with rats, I will prepare for two more tests next week: one in biology, which will test my knowledge of genetic structures and their properties as well as certain cellular processes, and the other in philosophy, which will cover many essential works by authors such as Rousseau (the spelling is difficult and I hope this is correct) to Kant to the US Declaration of Independence. But I’m looking forward to Nietzsche (sometimes I wonder why they can’t have some normal names), Marx and Darwin, and most of all, Freud, of course. So diverse is the life of a pre-med student in America.

Aside from the aforementioned diversity, there is yet another thing that makes the local conditions amazing – the opportunity for research. As I have said several times, I currently work at a lab, spending up to fifteen paid hours there. I also enrolled in the SURF (Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship); I failed the admission procedure last year but succeeded this year, so I will spend the next summer in the Columbia University labs, working on my own research eight hours a day under the supervision of a professor, and topping it off with my own research paper. I am looking forward to this experience, as it will give me an opportunity to focus fully on my own research while being able to spend some more time getting to know New York and its vicinity, for which there usually is no time during the academic year.

That’s about it from me for now; I’ll get back to you at the beginning of holidays at the latest, and now excuse me as I plunge the depths of the knowledge that is up for grabs all around me.

Have a nice day.

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