The Journey of a Lifetime

Tee Hee

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 03:04:26 GMT

I have to say, whoever did the 404 Error page for Livejournal definitely has a sense of humor. Here's a link to it in case you haven't seen it yet.

Broken Link

Edit: The page changes each time you click on it too. Very nice.

Daylight Savings Time

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 04:58:11 GMT

Really random question...

For people who work hourly jobs (like myself), how do they do wages over Daylight Savings Time? I mean, in the Spring, do people just lose an hour of work if they work the graveyard shift? And during the Fall, do they have to work an extra hour?

I Need Your Help!

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 23:35:51 GMT

As some of you may know, I've been volunteering with ProgressiveU for the last year and a half, first as a moderater and then as a director. ProgressiveU is a 501(c)4 non profit organization [501(c)3 status pending] that provides a place for students to discuss and debate issues ranging from poverty to the economy to the more controversial subjects (religion, abortion, etc). Over 50,000 students have signed on to make ProgressiveU one of the most diverse and dynamic student blogging communities on the web. But... that's not all ProgressiveU does.

Twice a year, ProgressiveU runs the Blogging for Progress Scholarship Competition in which students write about and discuss issues dealing with social welfare and public policy. At the end of the competition, the top bloggers are awarded scholarships towards higher education. To date, over 20 students have won thousands of dollars in scholarships to help them realize their educational goals.

We also provide a Service Learning Program, in which classrooms utilize the ProgressiveU services in order to teach students research, writing and debate skills. They're also able to connect with a larger and more diverse audience than they would otherwise have access too, allowing them to give and receive feedback on issues they might never otherwise have considered.

In addition, ProgressiveU runs a volunteer program in which high school and college students receive hands on training working with many different facets of non-profit management. To date, nearly 50 students have worked with ProgressiveU, learning everything from public relations skills to non-profit management to technical and editorial skills, all of which they have been able to take with them and put to use in their own careers.

In order for us to continue offering the services we have been able to offer for the last few years, we need your help now more than ever before. ProgressiveU, like most non-profits, relies on the support and contributions of people in the community. Without donations, we are unable to provide the services or offer the scholarships and other awards as we have done since 2005.

In this vein, we have created an online fundraiser to help raise funds to award student bloggers for their hard work and dedication, both to ProgressiveU as bloggers and to the wider communities that their ideas and input have benefited. Our preliminary goal is quite small. We would like to raise at least $200.00 to provide gift certificates to those students and we hope you can help. Anything raised over the $200.00 will be put on reserve for future Blogging for Progress scholarships.

We're asking that everyone who is able pledge at least $10.00 to the fund. If the $200.00 goal is not met by January 19, 2009, no one will be required to contribute anything. If, however, the goal is met, everyone that pledged will contribute their pledged amount to the organization and those gift certificates will be purchased and delivered to deserving students.

In order to do this, we have set up a collection page at Fundable. You can view it and make your pledge at: http://www.fundable.com/groupactions/groupaction.2008-12-29.8838634107

If you cannot afford $10.00 right now, there are other ways to help us out. We are registered (as ProgressiveU) on GoodSearch.com, which provides about 1.3 cents to non-profits for each search done. If only 100 people do two searches a day through GoodSearch, we can raise over $700 in the course of one year. It is powered by Yahoo, and functions the same as any other search engine. If you use Firefox or Internet Explorer, you can add toolbars to your browser to make it easier to use this tool. There is absolutely no cost to you, and we benefit from each and every search.

Please, even if you can't contribute yourself, pass along the information so we can reach as many people as possible.

If you have any questions, you may ask them here or you can email the ProgressiveU Directors (Naomi Leger, Art Morgan, Fallon Glenn and myself) at info@progressive.org.

Thanks in advance from all of us at ProgressiveU for your support!

Chelle
Director of Member Services
mvenus929@progressiveu.org

Reading

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:35:38 GMT

So, I want to be able to read a ton of books before I die, and there are quite a number of lists out there. Since I've kinda lost interest in one of the lists initially given to me, I figure using some of these lists, and keeping track of them here, might do me some good. Of course, I'm horrible with keeping up with my projects, so maybe this will motivate me a little more.

The bolded titles are those I've read.

First off, BBC Big Read.

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell Though, I should probably read it again...
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾, Sue Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Misérables, Victor Hugo
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt
130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
134. George's Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
144. It, Stephen King
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick O'Brian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
157. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
162. River God, Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches, Roald Dahl
170. Charlotte's Web, E. B. White
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
175. Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Grossmith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. LawrenceLife of Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews

Those in italics are some of those available on Read Print

Tally: 17/200

It should come as no surprise that most of those I've read were assigned for school.

I also want to do The 1001 books you should read before you die.

Tally: 14/1001

And finally, the list of 30 British librarians suggest you read before you die.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Bible
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien
1984 by George Orwell
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
All Quite on the Western Front by E M Remarque
His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
Tess of the D'urbevilles by Thomas Hardy
Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Middlemarch by George Eliot
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzenhitsyn

Tally: 3/30

The Fate of my LJ

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 05:45:41 GMT

Well, while I originally started this journal (writing in it, anyway) as a way to discuss my application to medical school, I have made the decision to broaden it a little more. Especially considering I won't be going to medical school this next year, and won't be applying for another year. That'd be a very dead year if I just wrote about pre-med experiences.

So, while I probably won't use this for really intimate thoughts, I figure it might be a good place for me to just journal. Maybe better my writing style, or vent when it's not appropriate to blog on ProgressiveU.

Does that mean I'll update with more regularity? Probably not. But I'll certainly use it through the month of July as we approach my first attempt at JulNoWriMo. 50,000 words in 31 days. Can I do it? Probably not, but it won't be without trying.

I'm going to be writing a memoir; everything I can remember up until now will be written down. I'll probably focus on emotions more than actually events, since this is a memoir and not an autobiography. I probably won't attempt to publish it either. Maybe I'll get a bound copy made many years from now when I want to pass it on to someone, but now is not that time. For now, I just want to write it all down.

I still have about 15 minutes before I'm officially allowed to start, so this entry is mainly just a way to distract me until I can write it all out. Feel free to comment if you wish.

MCAT Done!

Sat, 12 May 2007 17:49:17 GMT

Well, I took the MCAT yesterday, after months of studying. It was difficult. The Physical Sciences section took forever, and I finished a whole minute before the timer ran down. I skipped my break and went straight on to the Verbal section, finishing that with 3 minutes remaining. It was tough, so I'm hoping I scored well enough on it. I took a little bit longer of a break... about a minute, before starting the writing section. I finished both writing samples with 10 minutes each to spare (you get 30 minutes per sample), and then took another short break before bouncing into the Biological Sciences section. It was more difficult than I was expecting, and was really light on Physiology, which disappointed me. I finished with about 10 minutes to spare. Total time in the testing room was about 4 hours. Not too bad.

I'll get my results around June 11th. I thought I'd put up all my practice scores and study techniques in case anyone was interested.

First, with the practice scores. I took a total of 15 tests on different dates, ranging from November 3, 2006 to May 9, 2007. For each test, I'll list the test that I took, the date I took the test, the total score and the score breakdown (in the following order: Physical Science-Verbal Reasoning-Biological Science). To recap, in each of the three sections, you can get a total scaled score of 15. To be a strong applicant, you need an average of 10 in each section. Less than 8 in the Verbal section typically means that you won't get into medical school.

Note: GS stands for Gold Standard. These tests can be found at mcat-prep.com. CBT tests are the shortened AAMC tests and can be found at e-mcat.com. The AAMC 3R is the free version of the long test.

AAMC 3R - November 3, 2006 - 31 (9-12-10)
GS 1 - February 3, 2007 - 27 (8-9-10)
GS 2 - February 17, 2007 - 25 (7-8-10)
GS 3 - March 10, 2007 - 26 (8-9-9)
Kaplan Diagnostic - March 17, 2007 - 26 (8-7-11)
GS 4 - April 6, 2007 - 26 (8-11-7)
Princeton Diagnostic - April 9, 2007 - 26 (10-7-10)
GS 5 - April 28, 2007 - 26 (9-8-9)
GS 6 - April 29, 2007 - 26 (8-9-9)
CBT 3 - April 30, 2007 - 33 (11-9-13)
GS 7 - May 1, 2007 - 25 (7-7-11)
GS 8 - May 2, 2007 - 25 (7-7-11)
GS 9 - May 5, 2007 - 26 (7-7-12)
GS 10 - May 7, 2007 - 27 (9-8-10)
CBT 10 - May 9, 2007 - 33 (11-9-13)

The GS tests were generally harder than the AAMC tests, and I think I was finally starting to make steady progress towards the end. Hopefully I made enough progress to score as high as I did on the CBTs.

As for my study techniques, as you can see by my testing dates, I didn't much care about it. I studied hard at the beginning of the semester, and slacked off as the semester went on. I would go through 1-2 lectures in the Exam Krackers books. Each would take me about an hour and a half to do. I did this Monday through Wednesday, and sometimes on Friday.

I was making progress on my lecture scores, so I must've been doing something right, but since my score on my GS tests weren't going up, I decided to try another tactic about 2-3 weeks before the test. I went through each test that I took after I took it and marked down the topics I was having trouble with, then used the Exam Krackers Audio Osmosis to cover those sections. It did help, and I did start to make progress. If only I had started doing that at the beginning of the semester.

My advice to anyone studying for the beast is to make a study schedule and STICK TO IT. Not sticking to mine cost me a lot, and I only hope I made up for it enough in the end to get a good score. Do not take it lightly. If you have any questions, feel free to comment.

UPDATE: I ended up getting a 36R on the actual test (12-11-13). Something must've paid off.