Busy Me



So...a lot has happened since I last wrote which isn't even THAT long ago. I went to Stanford this past weekend for the annual LMSA (Latino Medical Student Association) conference.....yes I know I'm not Latino but I have many friends who are. Besides, my roommate and her boyfriend are very involved in the program and I like to volunteer for LMSA from time to time. Long story short, when the opportunity to go to Stanford presented itself, I went and had a blast! I got to see Lilly for a few hows :) She was able to show me some of her beautiful campus. Then I attended a few lectures for LMSA followed by a banquet in which many Latinos recounted their struggles in our education system and their desire to succeed. I found that though I am not Latino, I connected with their stories. I think any immigrant going the medicine has somewhat different goals. For most of us, there is a desire to help our communities and people from our own ethnic backgrounds. We realize that not only will our success reflect our own hardwork but it also reflects the struggles of our parents, grandparents, communities, etc. We also realize that we are role models to other children who may think they are minorities and as the word implies..."less then". It was a privilege to have attended the LMSA conferance this year and I am thankful to have met so many inpirational people.

On another front...we won the B2B competition!!!! 15k!!!!! YAY!!!! I think we will move ahead and try for a full patent. The competition was super stressful but we did better then my wildest dreams. It was hilarious that we also got "Best Engineering" because our engineer literally finished 5min before the competition in the car!

Up next....Prelims :( I have one topic finished but in order to have your abstract meeting, you need two and both have to be on areas outside of your lab/thesis research. This means I have to become an expert in two different fields and write two abstracts within the next two month. Afterwards, my committee will select one abstract and I will then expand on that for my actual exam. I am super scared because a) I haven't had much time to work on it and b) many people fail. This literally is the Step 1 of grad school and I just feel unprepared. Sigh....However, I am going to Maui next Tuesday! YAY YAY YAY! One full week of sunbathing and hangning out. It's sad but I am excited to have uninterrupted time for reading papers/working on prelims. Part of the problem right now is I'm SO busy in lab...and not even busy with experiments! Most of the time I am delegating and making sure the ball doesn't drop. NO FUN!

Here are some pictures from my fun weekend!:



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