The VMCAS process...

I have started my VMCAS application. Actually, I started it the day it came out, but I just haven't had the desire to talk much about it, since it's making me really frustrated. I had to order another copy of my Rutgers transcript and still have yet to figure out the "prefixes" for the Rutgers classes that I have to list in addition to the actual names for the classes.

Summer classes have started. I'm taking pre-calculus over, since I got a C the first time I took it. I'll also be retaking calculus (got a D in that at Rutgers). Then there's biochem 1&2 and microbiology. This is going to be an interesting year.

In other news, I have purchased yet another orchid. This one came from Trader Joe's and Alex picked it out. I wasn't a big fan of it at first, but like any orchid I see now, I'm quite fond of it.

Pretty newbie orchid

This morning, after my first pre-calc exam, Rem and I went to the beach so he could swim and we were met with an interesting surprise.

That is a large group of dogs. This was a doggy daycare. The place is located somewhere in Manhattan and apparently, they have started bringing their daycare clients out to the beach. To Gerritsen beach. I'm not sure how I felt about this. On the one hand, the dogs were having a BLAST, being pretty obedient (for the most part), were all very friendly and polite, and only one of them had shitty recall. However, all it takes is only ONE dog to run away because it has no reliable recall, the dog could easily run into the woodsy area of the creek, and the daycare would be responsible for letting some poor person's dog go off leash in an area with no fencing. This made me wonder if they tell the owners where they bring these dogs and if they make them sign some kind of waiver that if the owners' dogs run off, they don't hold the daycare responsible. What kind of owner would sign something like that? It's pretty sketchy, to be honest, regardless of how much fun the dogs were having. Hopefully the owners are fully aware/informed of the nature of the area the dogs are being brought into.

There's my perfect angel. He loves the beach SO much. He could swim forever.

A few years ago, he had some kind of idiopathic issue with his hind leg which resolved on its own, but at the time we decided to get a ramp for him to get into the car with ease. We haven't used it since then but have recently had to start using it again. It's not beyond me, but is kind of a pain in the ass to lift nearly 100 pounds of German shepherd every time I want to put him into the car. He wasn't much of a fan of the ramp when we originally purchased it, but now he just runs right up. It's not an OLD DOG ramp, it's an ACTIVE DOG ramp!

Sully (or Cilantro..) and the Second Molt!

Pleased to announce that my hissing cockroach had his/her second molt today. I didn't get to see the clear exoskeleton phase this time, but when I opened the lid of the "tank", this bug was huge. Check it out!

Check out that bug. That's a big bug.

Almost as long as my two fingers are wide.

Orchid Fancy!

While this has nothing to do with either vet school or anything else of that nature, I've recently been fancying the idea of orchids. Alex and I bought his mother one for her birthday, a deep dark purple one that was absolutely gorgeous. For the last week I've been bugging my mom to come with me to the plant place to find an orchid. Today we found a really nice looking one.

I liked this orchid so much that I actually dug up my old camera to take photos of it. Haven't used that camera since about 2011, but luckily I managed to get a few crappy photos that do not do this flower any justice at all. Keep in mind that this flower is a million times prettier than anything any camera can depict.

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"