It’s official. I’ve finished my third year in college.
I’ve been spending a lot of time lately thinking about my experiences thus far, perhaps because most of my friends will be graduating in just two days from now. I came to Fontbonne leery of the thought of taking on a major as challenging as biology, and, I’ll admit it, I’ve really considered changing majors many times ever since (although oddly, I’ve never quite made it over to the registrar to pick up the correct form for that- call me lazy). Just three years ago, I was staring wide-eyed at my first general biology I assignment, which was on mimicry in the snake world. I didn’t understand the words. I was put into a group with seniors who, for some strange reasons, needed to retake general biology and who had already taken crazy 300- and 400-level biology courses. I had no idea what I was doing in that class.
And look at me now. I’ve finished my chemistry minor. I’m practically finished with my biotechnology concentration, and I already finished the physiology concentration. I’ve even taken an additional independent study human anatomy class (neuroanatomy) for fun. I technically only need to take one more biology class, immunology, and then I will have finished all of the departmental requirements for my degree.
So what have I learned in three years? Mostly, I’ve learned to never quit, even though I say “I quit” on what’s practically a daily basis. I’m scared about what lies ahead as far as GREs and internships and jobs and graduate admissions go, but I think that’s what’s the most exciting thing of all.
But, with school having just ended, I’d like to take some time to just reflect on the memories. The memories of Wednesday Cinema, our rather-new tradition of sitting in the biology seminar room and watching movies while doing homework all day. The memories of taking Molecular Techniques with Dillon and Tim all semester and telling each other to not tell Dr. Paine-Saunders that we spilled buffer all over or that we dropped our Western blot membranes in the sink. The memories of sleepless nights before organic chem tests and of waking up at 2 in the morning before a biochem test only to lie in bed and go through equations and problems over and over again in my head until it was time to get up and ready to go at 5:30am. These and countless other memories will continue to haunt me as I realize that many of my friends will not be back on campus in class with me next fall. But those memories, those bittersweet memories, will in time turn out to be some of the best I’ve ever had.
~ With Two of the Best Friends I’ll Ever Have ~
Tagged as:
Biology,
Friends,
Graduation,
internships,
neuroanatomy
Good afternoon!
I hope everyone had a nice, relaxing weekend. One of my favorite things to do is spending time with family. During my childhood, my uncle was always taking all of us out for fun. What I mean by “us” is our group which includes me, my twin sister Mary, our brother Anthony, and our cousins, Lena, Amy, and Long. It was always the six of us with our dear uncle, Loi. Things changed dramatically for us in the past 5 or more years. Last night was one event that brought us all together again.
Now, we all live in St. Louis, but Long and his family moved to Illinois a few years ago. Every now and then, he would drive back to visit us. I guess you could say we all became a little distant, but when chances come we hang out like we used to.
Back to the point! Yesterday, Mary and I went to work and didn’t plan on doing anything special afterward. Long called me and asked if we were still barbecuing (I was really happy to hear from him because it’s been a long time). I asked surprisingly, “We’re doing it today?!” Long said, “Yeah, that’s what Uncle was telling me.” Man, I was pretty excited! I told Mary as well, so we were anxious to finish with work as soon as we could. Unfortunately, we were a little busy so instead of getting off right at 4:30pm, we had to stay until about 6:00pm because we still had customers. Then we headed home to pick up our baby brother, Avin, to come with us (he’s our half-brother from mom and her boyfriend). Mom was cooking some things for us to bring over so we waited until she was done.
We finally arrived to Uncle’s house before 7:00pm! Long waited as patiently as he could. Ha ha. He also brought his girlfriend, Briana, her daughter Journey, and his friend Sebastian. Yes, Briana is only 17 and Journey is about 4 months old, but they’re both really sweet. 
Also, Uncle’s girlfriend’s sisters were there: Selena, Tracey, and their cousin, Nga. Nice group, eh? And of course, Uncle was busy barbecuing. It was awesome.
After all was done, we sat in the living room and ate. Uncle made three different types of barbecue, spaghetti, and bought a container of mustard potato salad. It was so delicious! Even before then, we all ate my mom’s homemade Vietnamese “crepes”. I honestly don’t know what we would name it in English, but that’s that.
As most of us were done eating except Uncle, my boyfriend Michael also came. After Uncle was done eating, we went downstairs for karaoke! And talk about great singing but also hilarious moments. We sang all night until about midnight! Then we all took some food home because Uncle said he can’t finish it all.
I know that was a looooong blog, but just wanted to express my family memories. Hopefully we’re going to do something again today!
Have an awesome day, everyone.
Tagged as:
Barbecue,
family,
Friends,
Get togethers,
Karaoke,
Weekends,
work
This week was the best week I had all year. My birthday was on Thursday and all I wanted was to have dinner with my family. Not only did they travel down to St. Louis but all my friends joined as well. Thursday night was the most fun I have had in a long time. So thank you to all those who came out to celebrate with me and my friend NickiJ, whose birthday was also on Thursday. I cant believe it has come and gone already. The biggest surprise I had was two of my team mates got a poster and had people around campus sign their names and write some birthday wishes on it. It was nice to see what people wrote. Best gift of the night.
Tagged as:
birthdays,
family,
Friends,
Thursday nights
