Organic Chemistry is overcome.

Posting from a much brighter and happier place than I was even last night.
Apparently the Organic Chem 2 grades have been posted, but I still have yet to see my grade on the internets, so I took a trip to Brooklyn College to look at my final exam and see if I could find out my score.
Luckily for me, I don't have to retake Organic Chem 2. I got an A on the final and an A- in the course, and I'm more than happy. Failing Organic Chem 1 back in 2008 was the final nail in the coffin for burying the idea of veterinary school in the ground, and now that I've tackled Orgo one, passed it, and now done the same with Organic Chem 2 (without having to fail it before passing it) I feel pretty damn good. All I need to do now is find Lenny and hug the crap out of him.

Sully...or should we say... Silvia?....or should we say...Cilantro

Every year, my alma mater hosts "Ag Field Day", a day of celebration for Cook College campus that involves animal shows, tasty food, vendors of unique items, and much more. Every year that I've attended, I've been particularly attracted to the bug "expo" the Entomology Department brings. I loved playing with the Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches and this year, I bought one. When I bought Sully, he was about the size of a small firefly and kind of puny looking. Recently, Sully had his first molt and turned into a pudgy little beetle-looking thing. This was him after he molted and went back to normal pigment:

Big chubby boy! He literally became THREE times the size he was when I got him. Since the molt, he started growing out a little bit, and got slightly more chunky.

Slightly more chunky bug!

But the last few days, he seems to have .... elongated. Somehow.

I feel like he's still the same width. 

However, someone on r/entomology has brought up that judging by the ventral plate (not to mention lack of the horns that male hissers get)....Sully might be a Silvia. So for now, as I was quite fond of the name Sully, and I'm not too sold on Silvia just yet, I'll be sticking to the gender neutral "Cilantro". 

Aside from getting longer and wider, Cilantro has gotten some spunk. I read that the warmer their environment, the more active (and sexually active) hissers get. And Cilantro has been running around like crazy the last few days. Usually, he's easy to handle, and kind of chills on the back of my hand while I type, but the last few days I can barely hold him without him running all about. Teenagers....jeez... 

Today is the greatest...

Today was my organic chemistry 2 final. It was...bittersweet.
I definitely learned a lot this semester, mostly thanks to Lenny (brilliant genius orgo group tutor man). It was an intense ride, this past year. And it's kind of rough talking about it. I started this blog so late and I didn't even get to talk about Michaels, Claisens, Aldols....All that good stuff.

But I anticipate much and more writings for Biochemistry, provided that I pass Organic Chem 2.

As I told Lenny earlier today, had someone in 2009 told me that I would have come this far in chemistry, that I had RETAKEN Orgo 1, passed it, and now (hopefully) passed orgo 2... I would have thought they were crazy. I would have said something like "only if Lenny teaches it".

That's funny. Lenny did teach it. Lenny taught me everything I learned. Brenner and Greer....they just grade my exams. They don't do much. So, instead of being overwhelmed, scared, or frustrated about now having to take two semesters of biochem (1&2), I'm almost kind of excited. Lenny is my professor not just for general chemistry (Summer 2008) but he has now been my professor for Organic Chem, and is going to be my professor for Biochem 1&2 through his group sessions. He might not be grading or writing my exams, but he's the professor behind the scenes.

Quickie for memorizing the Saturated and Unsaturated Fatty Acids

I knew this weeks ago, and somehow it left my brain, but came back fairly quickly, just like Lenny said it would. I sent Lenny the video that helped me with the Amino Acids and he was not impressed.

Lenny: " the problem with using other peoples memory tricks is that you wont have these tricks in med school and you need to develop your own tricks..."

And you know what? he's absolutely right. Brilliant genius man is always absolutely right. And he was right about this. So here's my trick for me to remember the Fatty Acids.

We have the Saturated fatty acids (the ones with no double bonds): Lauric, Myristic, Palmitic, Stearic, Arachidic
And we have the Unsaturated fatty acids (the ones with double bonds): Palmitoleic, Oleic, Linoleic, Linolenic, Arachidonic

Turns out, the Saturated Fatty Acids, when you take the first letters of all of them, you can say something like "Lenny Makes Public Service Announcements"

Since they all are lacking in double bonds, their "structure number thing" is # of Carbons:0

This is a weird ugly crooked photo but whatever. I just know that arachidic has 20 carbons, and I go bottom up, with even numbers, until I get to 12. So... 20:0, 18;0, etc etc.

Unsaturated Fatty Acids

I don't have any fun mnemonic devices for them, but I do have a system for remembering how many carbons, how many double bonds, and where the double bonds start from.

This system goes back to my beliefs that good things (usually) come in threes. So, for Arachidonic, we have to remember that there are 20 carbons. The next there going bottom-up are 18's (good things come in threes), and then Palmitoleic has 16. The number of double bonds (going bottom up), you have to remember that arachidonic has four, then you count backwards with 3,2,1 and then you put a 1 for palmitoleic because we're in unsaturated land and everyone needs a double bond.

For remembering the carbon from which the double bonds start... Go bottom up from arachidonic (there are three sixes in a row because good things come in threes), and then 7 for oleic, and then 9 for palmitoleic because 9 is a backwards P. 

YOU'RE WELCOME.

**Edit**

I just realized, I should have been a bit more specific about what the last column means. Know how you read about omega-3, omega-6 etc etc fatty acids? That last column is the "omega" number. It tells you on which carbon in the chain the double bond falls on. So.. Arachidonic Acid is 20:4:omega-6, and so on.

**2nd Edit**

If you still don't understand what I'm talking about, it's because I didn't really explain what fatty acids are, or what their structure looks like, but there's no time. Here's what arachidonic acid looks like, briefly:

So much for this being a "quickie" 

A Step by Step Guide to Dropping the Base....or A Step by Step Guide to Drawing the Heterocyclic Aromatic Amine Bases

As I was drawing these out, I had a sudden urge to do this entire post in Pirate Speak. I will refrain from doing this. This post is entirely for the sake of my sanity in trying to memorize the heterocyclic aromatic amine bases (what your DNA is composed of).

We have the pyrimidine bases (Uracil, Cytosine, Thymine) and the purine bases (Adenine, Guanine). 

The way that you remember that the PYrimidine bases are U, C, and T is that you: "CUT PY". Cytosine, Uracil, Thymine, PYrimidine.

So.

PYRIMIDINE BASES:

Here's the first pyrimidine base. First we draw pyrimidine and then add a "U" shape for Uracil, fashioned out of the C=O groups. Give the Nitrogen's their H's and add the double bond to mimic pyrimidine's structure and there's uracil.

Next we have Cytosine. I'm going with: it has an -INE so there needs to be an extra amine in there SOMEWHERE so we replace the top carbonyl from Uracil with the NH2, add the double bonds where appropriate and there you have Cytosine.

Last pyrimidine base: Thymine. All we do, because we're AWESOME and already know the structure for Uracil, is we add a methyl group to uracil. Dat it.

PURINE BASES: 

I struggled for a while with memorizing the structure of purine, let alone its two bases. So, because we're in the animal world, lets think of purine as purrrrrrine. "I always landed on all fours...like a cat"

I'll make this photo slightly larger, to have everyone see that I actually forgot one of the double bonds on sadcat's head and drew it in with paint. But, this is a way to draw purine. Take your cat, let it outside where it can get FIV, FeLV and then HBC all in one day. They'll have to amputate its ears because they'll be giant hematomas, your cat will lose two legs, and his tail. Sad cat will be very sad.

Here's a slightly different way to draw purine if you don't like sad cats.

I supposed this is slightly less ridiculous. Okay. Now we know how to draw purine. Let's draw Adenine and Guanine. 

Take care to notice that I AGAIN forgot to put in a hydrogen. Let's NOT do that on my final exam (WHICH IS ON WEDNESDAY). Here's adenine. Just add the NH2 to purine to make it an additional INE. It'll be happy that way.

By reminds me of Avocado, I really meant reminds me of Guacamole... which is made of avocado..but I figure I would mention why Avocado. That's why. That's how. 

There we have them. Hopefully this isn't so abstract that I'll forget it. 

**Edit** 

In case anyone is wondering WHY....this is why:

Guys, this is what our DNA looks like. I have to be able to regurgitate this onto my final exam. Which is, again.... Too soon, too soon.

Ninhydrin. Bitches.

When taking Organic Chem lab (first semester), you do a lot of BS'ing. Especially when you have a lab instructor that doesn't really give a crap about what you do. This semester, however, I had an AWESOME lab instructor (Alison) who was ridiculously helpful, so I actually understood (almost all of) the experiments we were doing, could visualize the mechanisms behind them, and actually thoroughly enjoyed lab this second semester. As it turns out, Alison is a awesome BADASS and used to do forensic science and all sorts of awesome shit like that. ALSO, she is a climber/hiker/photographer/explorer extraordinaire. And if I wasn't an awkward fucktard, I would have asked her to be my friend after the semester was over. She's THAT cool, that I actually had thought processes of wanting to make FRIENDS with someone.

That was a HUGE side note to what I actually wanted to talk about, and then what I wanted to talk about even more. In organic chem lab (second semester), you do a few experiments that hopefully turn out well, do a couple of lab reports, and then you're given three unknown substances (be they solid or liquid) to identify. Guiding you is your raw instinct, undying desire to go to veterinary school, and a lab manual that says things like "The acetyl chloride test is unreliable for alcohol compounds with six or more carbons", meanwhile, EVERY unknown we get IS a compound of more than six carbons. The lucky ones have "Secret Agent Lenny Man" on our side, who tells us things we should ALREADY know such as "cool that shit slowly, don't just shove it into a bucket of ice" and "none of those tests actually tell you ANYTHING" and "you are all morons, but after this semester, you're all going to be slightly different morons". It's great character building. Thanks to Alison's neverending patience with my "PLEASE SMELL THIS DOES THIS SMELL LIKE ORANGE BLOSSOM? DOES THIS SMELL LIKE PEPPERMINT? WHY DON'T MY DERIVATIVE TESTS GIVE ME A SOLID COMPOUND" and Lenny's kind words of advice, I got all three of my unknowns correct for this lab semester, which is AWESOME and EXCITING and makes me feel like I DO SCIENCE.

So as a celebratory activity, here's the mechanism for ninhydrin. This shit is pretty cool, just like everything else I talk about. When you've got a bunch of amino acids and you want to know what's in your shit, you throw them all into this "Gel Electrophoresis" thing, and then according to the pH in the thing and the isoelectric point (more on this below) of the amino acid, they'll migrate to and fro and end up somewhere (in a very exact spot) on this "piece of paper" depending on what the amino acid is. Ninhydrin is the reagent to see this shit moving, as delicately put by Lenny. And it has a mechanism, a way that this purple shit (orange for proline, i think) tells you what's good. And here's a (horribly ugly because my board isn't big enough) rendition of said mechanism:

A nice and BIG photo for all of you to admire. There's an assload of proton transfers that goes on, and the end result I don't even have on the board. Because there's no room. So if you're THAT curious about the end result, I recommend googling in.

I mentioned that I would talk a bit about isoelectric points. Lenny taught us an excellent technique and I'll try to explain it in my own way that helps me visualize it. By using the board. again. But not now. Maybe later. 

Good news everyone!

Last night I was playing with Sully (my Hissing Cockroach) and I noticed his shell was looking kind of odd and that he wasn't being his normal self...whatever that means for a cockroach. I figured maybe he was going to be molting soon, but wasn't really sure when.

I literally just came home from school, took Rem out to play in the park, came home, and looked in Sully's "tank" to make sure it was warm enough in there and as it turns out...he molted overnight or while I was in school! Look how white and ENORMOUS he looks!

what should we call this?

Tonight we're listening to: The Smiths: Strangeways, Here We Come

When I started college in 2006, the concept of veterinary school for me was much like the concept of being an adult to a toddler. Hell, it's like the concept of being an adult to me, still. It feels as if everyone else is getting there at a much faster rate, everyone is growing up, everyone is going to veterinary school, and I'm still sitting here trying to memorize the pKa's of the side chains of the amino acids.

That and I'm less than a month away from applying to veterinary schools. That's quite possibly the most terrifying part. Something that my entire life has been building up to is less than a month away and suddenly I feel like I need more time.

Since deciding to pursue the veterinary endeavor, I've given a lot of thought to what will happen if I don't get in. I'll try again. And then I'll try again. And if it doesn't work on that try, if my GRE scores expire and I'm truly ready to call it quits, I'll....what? That's the thing. There's no what. There's nothing on the other side of the "what if I don't get in fence". There's nothing else that I'm prepared to dedicate my life to, short of abandoning society, running away into the woods to live like a hermit in a wooden hut and eat dirt.

So let's consider where I'm applying...

Auburn University: Chances are, I couldn't point it out on a map, but a veterinarian I worked for in high school graduated from there and praised the school. Also, one of the interns that I work with now graduated from there.

Cornell University: Home sweet home, New York State. I know a couple of people that have gone here, including some of my Rutgers friends and several of the doctors I currently work with. This would be a dream.

Mississippi State University, University of Missouri, Ohio State University, : As far as Missou goes... I'll only be able to apply here on this round and after that my phenomenal GRE scores will expire.

University of Pennsylvania: If I suck it up and take both pre-calc AND calculus over the summer, maybe I'll apply here. Or maybe I'll take calc in spring semester with biochem 2. Still need to email them to ask if that is OK

Purdue University: This one follows what's up with UPenn. Gotta calc it up if I want nice things.

Tufts University: My dream school of dream schools. I did a summer program here in high school and fell in love with their campus. It was amazing there and their facilities were SO gorgeous. A little over a year ago, I was invited there as a guest speaker for their Animal Behavior Symposium and I had a great time meeting lots of people there. Hopefully, that could work to my benefit since I would LOVE to end up there.

Tuskegee University: I don't know a lot (okay, fine, I don't know ANYTHING about this school).

Washington State University: Alex would like it if I went to school in the Pacific Northwest. I have also heard INCREDIBLE things about this school.

University of Wisconsin: Don't know much about this school, either, it seems.

I still feel like an asshole that should narrow this down to a maximum of 8 schools, but we'll see. I would really like to keep my options open so I don't spend the rest of my life crying in public transit buses while looking at images taken by the Hubble telescope while little old ladies frown at me.

If what you wanted most in the whole world (second only to getting into veterinary school) is to be everywhere in the universe at the same time while hugging everything in the universe at the same time, and to be everywhere everywhere everywhere at once and be able to experience EVERYTHING simultaneously, images like this would make you cry, too.  

Steroid Hormones

In either Fall 2008 or Fall 2009 (memory really does fail me), I took Animal Reproduction at Rutgers. The Professor was Carol Bagnell (with Larry Katz, my adviser, as a guest lecturer for part of the course), a lovely lady who generated interest in the material spectacularly. Such that I decided to be a teacher's assistant for the course for the following year to make up quizzes for whoever was taking the class then.

Considering how obsessed I was with that class, I should have known the steroid hormones by heart (yes, even the structures, even if we didn't NEED to) back then. But I didn't.

So then, this was chapter 26 in my Organic Chem book, meaning I should have had them memorized three chapters ago. But I didn't. So tonight, that is the goal. Along with a bunch of other crap that I have yet to memorize.

Let's play a game of "How to remember how to draw the steroid hormones...or at least RECOGNIZE them"...

We begin with the Androgens - male sex hormones. They're synthesized in the testes and are responsible for the development of secondary sex characteristics.

What do steroids look like? Sort of like this ^^^

Testosterone. I've got this one memorized already. It's the easiest one.

Next is Androsterone. Apparently, it's a weak androgen with a potency 1/7th of Testosterone. Thanks, wikipedia. Let's see if we can use this to our advantage..

Never thought I would be trash-talking a steroid hormone. Usually I trash-talk women. Even though I am one. Speaking of women...

Estrogens are female sex hormones. Synthesized in ...that's right...the OVARIES... Responsible for development of female secondary sex characteristics & control the menstrual cycle. Which I appreciate having, since it means I'm not pregnant. BAM.

I think I need to change my marker... Here's progesterone. Going to make fun of women with this one. It's for my own good. This thing deals with the menstrual cycle and pregnancy support. I remember the corpus luteum is somehow involved here.. Maybe I'll do some light reading in my old repro textbook once finals are over... Hmm...

If my dear friend Rebecca ever reads this, she'll appreciate my FRIENDS reference here. Since it's a "female sex hormone", secreted in the ovaries and by adipose tissues. I'll be girly with this one. And I'll be proud of it!

Time for the Glucocorticoid Hormones. Synthesized in the adrenal cortex. They regulate metabolism of CHO's, deal with when your shit's all inflamed, and are involved with the stress response. So, hormones that my body is very familiar with.

Honestly, this couldn't get any easier for me to memorize if I TRIED. Ketone has the C=O, Alcohol has the -OH group. On ring C. Just need to remember the messy ordeal about ring D and the "normal structure" as I will refer to it on ring A.

Now all that I've got is Aldosterone, a mineralocorticoid hormone, synthesized in the adrenal cortex. This shit regulates blood pressure and volume by stimulating the kidneys to absorb Na/Cl anions and HCO3- (bicarbonate)

I highly doubt this last one will make sense when I look at it later. This probably won't help anyone but me to memorize this. Candy mountain charlie, candy mountain!

National Isoprene Appreciation Day .... "Great Things Come in Threes"

I remember in high school reading Shakespeare's Macbeth and noticing how things came in threes. This "things come in threes" trend showed up in his other books as well. 

May 12th (today) is a day when great things come in threes. 

Firstly, today is Mother's Day. I read that the holiday has warped from its original intention/meaning, but that's what things do. They warp. 

Secondly, today is exactly a year since Alex and I started dating, which is pretty crazy for me seeing as how I was convinced I was going to die alone with a thousands dogs. Maybe alone, but certainly not lonely. So much for that fruitless campaign against my own happiness. 

This is a photo from the first day we met. Our first date consisted of a bike ride to Ft. Tilden/Breezy Point/Rockaway (whatever all that space is called), then some exploring around Floyd Bennett Field, appreciating the fuck out of some Black Crowned Night Herons, and finally terminated in him meeting all of my parents' crazy friends at the same time and a lovely walk around Marine Park with Rem. This photo is from the overlook at Ft. Tilden where we happened to meet Luc, a dog who used to come to daycare at the place that I worked. This is back when I refused to make eye contact with anyone who wasn't a dog.

Thirdly, and as Lenny would have you believe, most importantly, I am declaring today National Isoprene Appreciation Day. So what IS Isoprene and why am I so giddy about it?

Terpenes are naturally occuring alkenes. It's a compound whose carbon skeleton is split up into two or more units of isoprene. 

Isoprene has head to tail connections as shown in the above photo. This is the lowest energy connection. 

My organic chem books says the following:

"A study of terpenes provides a glimpse of the wondrous diversity that nature can generate from a simple carbon skeleton. Terpenes also illustrate an important principle of the molecular logic of living systems, namely, that in building large molecules, small units are bonded together enzymatically...."

So just what the in the shit does this mean? The beautiful things we learn from Lenny:

Limonene  is a cyclic terpene - that is to say, it's made up of two isoprene units with head to tail connections, as shown in the above photo. According to Lenny, the R-enantiomer gives orange scent while the S-enantiomer gives lemon scent. I think it's used mostly in cosmetic syntheses to give things nice smells.

Geraniol (coming from ROSES) is used in floral oils and in making perfumes. Look at that fucking structure. Two isoprene units. Head to tail. Not awesome enough for you? Look at retinol. It's a form of Vitamin A and gets bound to the protein opsin. It's ONLY JUST the basis for animal vision. No big deal here, folks. But LOOK at that beautiful structure and those four isoprene units bound, head to tail. Remember, that's the lowest energy connection. We're not looking into breaking bonds there. 

Here's where it gets crazy (for me at least):

That is Beta-carotene. It's something like the primary source of Vitamin A. B-carotene is made up of all of those head to tail connections, and it's symmetrical...in the middle, there is an isoprene TAIL TO TAIL connection. This is a higher energy bond. 

This is what's up: Cleaving that C=C bond gives you vitamin A (Retinol). Retinol is then oxidized to retinal (trans), isomerized by an enzyme to the cis-version of it, which then forms an imine with an -NH2 from a lysine in the protein opsin. This formation gives you Rhodopsin (a pigment that's in the retina), which when it absorbs light, causes dissociation of the retinal from the opsin. Then the whole thing starts over again. 

This is a diagram straight out of the textbook. That big purple glob is the protein opsin. This whole pathway is the first response of the retina to a visual stimulus.

As a heads up, Vitamin E is ALSO made up of 4 isoprene units, in head to tail connections. Shocking stuff, right?

So...I think we should ALL celebrate and appreciate National Isoprene Appreciation Day. Apparently that shit is PRETTY DAMN IMPORTANT. 

As an aside, I now have full capabilities of making eye contact with Alex, not to mention acting like a normal human being. 

See? That's us at my dad's birthday. Like normal human beings. Being real!

:)

Isoprene....represent.

Why Amino Acids are your FRIENDS

Last night, just before bed, my darling friend Yelena sent me this link to help me memorize the 20 amino acids. I'm going go draw it out on my whiteboard and then post pictures of it as I go along. I figure if I do this a few times it'll help. I liked this video SO much that if I get into vet school, Yelena is getting a (kosher) Amino Acid cake and I will send the makers of this video a cake or pie of their choosing.

This process actually makes amino acids a lot less scary..

This covers Glycine (the easy EASY one) and Alanine (the easy one). Go GAGA for Glycine and Alanine!

They're both non-polar, BY THE WAY.

Three more non-polar side chain Amino Acids. We got Valine, Leucine, Isoleucine. 

VLI. Very little interest. JUST KIDDING LOTS OF INTEREST.

This next one is Methionine. This one, by default, is my BEST AMINO ACID FRIEND because MET is the first three letters of Lenny's (brilliant genius organic chemistry man) last name. So it has to be my BEST friend. The way the video explained it, you draw an M, turn the middle of the M into an S (which will end up having the methyl group attached) and then connect the S to the "backbone" with another carbon. Methionine. My best friend. As a side note, Methionine is ALSO non-polar. 3 more non-polar ones to go!

I like these next two a lot. For proline, the video said to draw a P and to remember it makes a 5 membered ring. I like those. So that's cool. ....For Phenylalanine, you draw an alanine. Then you attach a phenyl to that sucker. THAT'S IT. There's not way even I can fuck this up. Now for the last non-polar side chain...

Trypophan. The last non-polar side chain Amino Acid. This is the thing that we've always been told is the reason why you sleep for 3 days after thanksgiving (if you eat Turkey or some shit like that). Whatever. I'm going with W is Tryptophan's letter because WOW THAT'S A BIG BIRD ON THAT TABLE. I'm going to eat the whole thing and then kill myself. So in the video, you turn that W into two rings. That's cool. Then you take that bird, put it on a stick and stick it in the oven. That's how thanksgiving works, right?

These two are just me having fun. Like THAT ever happens. But seriously. This is where the POLAR side chains begin.  And we start off with S and T. And S comes before T in the alphabet. So it makes sense. Also, get some stereochemistry. Bitches love stereochemistry. Arrested Development fans, take note.

The next two polar side chains. Also, the last two polar side chains. So the four polar side chains actually spell out STAG. Like those deer. Male deer.  Except, Aspargine's letter is N. So it's more like STNG. Like, I got STNG by a bee and now I can't use vowels. So, both Aspargine and Glutamine have that carboxamide group stuck to them, but it's an extra carbon over in Glutamine. 

Now for the ACIDIC SIDE CHAINS of AMINO ACIDS.

There are four Amino Acids with Acidic side chains. Say that five times fast. I don't know what to do with these first two. I have no fun way of memorizing them. 

This is just me being really mean to myself with the last two, which are the last two Acidic Side Chains. Cysteine...meh I have nothing for that.

TYROSINE however. It's letter is Y. As in... Y ARENT YOU IN VET SCHOOL? Right, because you failed orgo the first time so now you have to fucking EAT IT. So, tyrosine is Phenylalanine with a hydroxyl group para to the rest of the chain on the benzene ring.

Now, the BASIC SIDE CHAINS

Whatever. These are the basic side chains.

Oh. And I almost forgot. The most IMPORTANT Amino Acid Friend of All - The AFICO ACID

This Amino (Afico) Acid is very important, and only a rare few have ever seen or synthesized it. It takes YEARS of training to understand it. Pay very close attention because I spelled stethoscope wrong the first time. Now I fixed it.

Isoprene, Part I

This is a post to remind myself to discuss the beauty of Organic Chemistry things.
In the next series, I will discuss

• The beauty of isoprene units, vitamin A, retinal, retinol, etc
• Why Amino Acids are FRIENDS
• Some other nonsense.

Chapter 19 and the F train wormhole

Tonight we're listening to: Sufjan Stevens: Greetings from Michigan, The Great Lake State

A shorthand rendering of the Robinson Annulation - basically a Michael addition followed by an Aldol and the dehydration at the end. Chapter 19 was the most beautifully brutal form of Organic punishment.

Three or four years ago (around this time of year) I was collecting dandelions by a creek near my house. After gathering two fistfuls, something in my brain backfired and I decided to take one deep inhale of my assortment. Immediately afterwards, breathing went from difficult to damn near impossible. That was my introduction to seasonal allergies. After about two years of unsuccessfully chasing down allergy doctors, my mother recommended acupuncture. Having been set up with new-age bullshit, holistic medicine, and the like by her before, I decided to go just to shut her up. 

By some grace of whatever happened, the acupuncture actually worked. In three weeks I was allergy free. We even managed to do away with a nasty sinus infection I had been harboring. It was grand. Every year when the spring comes, so do the allergies, but every year they're easier to deal with. Today was the first time this season I went to go get prodded with needles and it was fucking great. 10/10 would get poked again.

I am terrible with directions when it comes to Manhattan. North, South, East, West...they all somehow lose meaning to me, and Broadway runs from orange to shoe as far as I'm concerned. After my appointment, in looking for the Q train I somehow got completely turned around, came upon a street fair, bought some really tasty jam, and found the F train. I am not accustomed to this line past Red Hook, being much more familiar with my old friend the Q. On the train, I read my Orgo textbook and lose track of spacetime, looking up only every so often to see how many stops ago I missed my destination. Because the only train in my experience box is the Q, it's innate within my brain that it goes "Brooklyn, pretty bridge, Manhattan" so I assumed it was the same for the F. This resulted in the physical experience of being wormholed from Mahattanland to destination in what seemed like only half a section on phospholipids. 

Yesterday was an interesting day at work. Typically I use the word interesting very loosely, but today I MEAN it. Firstly, our dryer broke, so I decided to get creative.

Yep. Clotheslines. 

The general reaction was...

Susie: Just like we do back in Jamaica!
Dr. Gray: JUST like we did back in Grenada! 
Elsie: That's just how we did it in Puerto Rico!
Liliana: Wow, just like they do in Italy!

....also exactly what we did in Ukraine and what they do in all third world countries where dryers are not a given. 
In the hospital we had a poor sad beaglet who had ingested an OPEN safety pin. It was very cool looking at the x-rays of it in the colon. Hopefully the poor pup has pooped it out by now! There was also a very sad momma dog who had birthed five or six puppies. Listening to puppies suckle and cry awakens a strangeness within me. I start wanting to nest and cuddle and nurture something, somewhat like the urge I get to crochet myself a fuzzy nest when it gets cold out, which I never do... Creaturelove, I guess. 

Nighty night from the land of adorable happylove.

it begins

Tonight we're listening to The Smiths... The Queen is Dead album.

My name is Marina. Several years ago I graduated Rutgers University (Cook College, to be exact) with an independent major in Animal Behavior, Psychology Minor. Like 99.9% of Cook College students (minor exaggeration), I started out with a Pre-Vet concentration. By my junior year, I had changed my concentration from Pre-Vet to Lab Animal/Research, back to Pre-Vet and then back to Lab Animal once over. It was a frustrating time, 2008.

That fall saw two of the most important events in my life thus far. Firstly, I joined the Honors and Service Fraternity of Alpha Zeta...great friendships, leadership experience, and lots of other character building crap. More importantly, that fall I failed Organic Chemistry and decided that maybe veterinary school was not for me. Fast forward a couple of years.

For a little over a year I had been working at a doggy daycare/boarding/rescue in Brooklyn. I came on board after graduating with the impression that I was going to be the rescue dog trainer. Though I did gain much experience working with different breeds, ages, and behavioral issues, ultimately I was more of a "front desk bitch/slave". Mostly checking dogs in and out of daycare and boarding, cleaning up lots of dog shit (not complaining about this one, as I never really mind fecal matter as long as it's not human), and running the photo-blog. At the time I was still very "into" photography, and taking photos of playing dogs allowed me to release some of the frustration I felt about not being able to work with  dogs that had behavioral issues that actually needed to be worked on. So, mostly photos of shit like this:

As a side note, these three dogs are playing. They look like they're killing each other, but most of the photos I took were about half teeth and half fur. 

Last year, right after new years, my boss's wife (who was NOT my boss) fired me and one of the other front desk "managers" (lovely Agnes) who I had gotten to be great friends with. You can't really make a long story short, here. The rescue had taken on three or four dogs from the AC&C that were in pretty awful shape. One in particular was extremely emaciated and could barely walk. This group of dogs lived in a bunch of cages in the basement of the rescue until they got over the kennel cough that every dog coming out of the AC&C carries. So...maybe a week. Maybe less. It was pretty clear that one of the dogs, Dexter, was not really improving. As it turns out, Dexter had thyroid cancer and some other awful crap. I say this very loosely. 

Ultimately, what lead to us getting fired was that we had voiced out to one of the newer employees (who was good friends with the boss's wife) that we believed that certain dogs (that were either critically ill and in pain or so aggressive towards people that they were obviously never going to get any type of rehabilitation) were probably better off being humanely euthanized. I'm not a person who takes euthanasia lightly but I do understand that sometimes it's the kinder option when it comes to quality of life issues. The boss's wife did not take this very well and Agnes and I were sat down in the back room, fed a bunch of lies about how all the other employees hated us and that we were not wanted there. We were also delicately told that we would have been fired before the holidays but that they knew that they would not be able to run the place without us, as, over the holidays we had upwards of 100 dogs that boarded with us. 

While joining AZ and failing Organic Chem had been two very critical step stones, I believe that being fired from that place was quite possibly the best thing that had ever happened to me. It was an almost instant 180 degree turn to investing all my resources and energy into getting in veterinary school. Within a few weeks of being fired, I was hired at two jobs: a GP veterinary hospital and the emergency/specialty hospital that I still work at today. I stayed at the GP from about February to September. When I re-enrolled in classes I could only realistically hold one job so I decided to stay with the emergency hospital as it is a five minute bike ride from my house. Onto some lighter notes before I get back to studying for tonight.

Big tongue. Bigger ears.

This is Rem. Remmy. Remington. Booger. Dogface. Fuckface. He has a lot of nicknames based on whether he is barking at the poodle down the block, eating fistfuls (pawfuls?) of goose shit, or being a perfect angel who can do no wrong. He is the light of my life. An almost 12-year old German shepherd with the heart of a whale and the emotional stability of a hormonal teenager. Terrified of firewords (this should say fireworks, but thanks to Alex, I'm leaving it as firewords because...who wouldn't be scared of firewords)  and thunderstorms. Loves people, kids, dogs, cats, and above all else, the water hose. It loves to get the hose again.

Very puny bug.

 This is Sully. Year after year of attending Cook College's "Ag Field Day" and pouring over their hissing cockroach tanks, I did what every vet and vet tech alike judge people for doing...I made an impulse buy. In my defense, Sully only cost me a dollar and the instant I arrived home I did hours of research on how to care for hissing cockroaches. When telling my friends and co-workers about my newest addition, I received a unanimous response of "...why"

The only way he looks at the camera is if I hold the ball just above it.

What you'll get from this blog: 

• A start to finish process of application to veterinary school
• Maybe some laughs, but probably not as I'm not that funny
• No good photos: I don't have a working camera and I use my iphone, exclusively
• No cute drawings like on Hyperbole and a Half - though I adore that blog I myself have no artistic talents
• Lots of insight into the world of Organic Chemistry. Since failing Ochem1 I've made a turn around, did awessomely in retaking Ochem1 and now am trying to get through Ochem2 with the help of a brilliant genius man named Lenny. The man is a brilliant genius who could single-handedly (is that even a word) cure cancer and any other ailment if he put his mind to it. God's gift to organic chemistry and biochemistry. This one is NOT an exaggeration 
• Whatever you make of it.

I think that's enough venting for one night.