Pet Peeve: Overqualification

Ideally, I would bitchslap those individuals who are clearly over the top and are still extremely anxious about NOT getting into their health profession schools! Gah, so what does that make me, along with all other passionately well-rounded applicants?

-Steady 3.0 GPA overall and 3.0 Science GPA (Hmm...)

-B.S. Microbiology

-MAPS Pre-Physician Assistant Co-Chair AND Co-Founder

-TOPPS, 1 year as Secretary

-Researching with Dr. Haas for 1 1/2 years

-Clinical Care Extender at St. Mary's Medical Center

-Ran a Health Fair

-Medical Billing Clerk for 3 years

And To-Do Lists:

-P.A. Shadowing

-EM Scribe

-Phlebotomist OR Clinical Medical Assistant

-GRE

Oh, and don't forget unique personality and a couple of talents. Anything f'in else??????

Insomniac

Before I can rest my seemingly caffeinated mind during this time, I'd like to write a metaphoric anecdote to clear out and express one of a few incredibly memorable moments set foot, somehow placed in an unlikely location like the MLSC Conference Room...

Honestly, I'm not that good with Texas Hold 'Em Poker, but I do know how to play it, and understand when you need to give up your pocket by "folding." This is how I perceive on what you got to do to deal with adulthood life. Or put it this way, life is like playing Poker.

You don't know what you're gonna get, until you see it coming. Sometimes you'll get crappy cards, and you decide whether you should be smart enough to fold it, or have other players believe that you somehow got decent cards by bluffing--ahem, manipulating, them. But in other rounds, you do end up receiving the good ones, an opportunity to win big and go for your goal, one step at a time.

A decision must be made 3 ways: play it safe, assert tactically, or aggressively intimidate your players or competitors. I decided to go for the middle in most cases. Round by round, and about 3 hours later, I'd earn more chips, slowly engulfing the victims' stash while playing smart, and I simply made no big deal out of this.

Then you're the only two players left. You got 2 Aces, Fia. Submit almost all your goodies, and save a few as your safety. Uh oh, competition finally let loose, and, in a once in a blue moon ordeal, my friend, the other player, also had 2 Aces. Let fate or probability take its course; this time it ended with a draw, so it's all good.

Both of you had done your best in the remaining rounds, and time was already up. Fia eventually earned 2nd place with the cash given almost a 1:2 ratio between her money and the competitor's money. It was so fun and risky while it lasted, but it was also something I learned.

Don't play so safe, even if you have so-so cards (or these mediocre entities you think you have as an individual). If you do, you're guaranteed to have somebody else take over. Just go out there, especially when you have the chance, but you need to strategize in order to reach your prize (or goal) more effectively. And if you earned less than the other, or get nothing at all, so what; appreciate you got something and you had the ability to learn from what you dealt with in that intriguing event.

Keeping My Eye on the Prize

12 months from now I'll be sending my application to get into P.A. school. I'm on the roll of strengthening my disposition as a pre-P.A., with one critical setback: I need the hands-on clinical experience.

Sure, I am still interning at the St. Mary Medical Center, but from my 2 rotations I have a 4:1 time ratio of simple volunteer work to direct patient care, which is, in my opinion, decent yet mediocre as a competitive applicant. So before I solidly set the rest of my 2010 agenda by seeking my Health Profession Advisor on Wednesday, I have these flock of to-do lists that I desire to accomplish:

-Shadow at least one damn physician assistant, certainly to observe primary care but I also want to check out on acute, dermatology, or emergency care when possible

-At least work part time in a health care setting, and no more wasting my non-school days in an office setting, regardless if it's all about medical billing

-And while working I'm planning to take phlebotomy classes to get a certificate and get real hands-on experience with patients by sucking their blood with a syringe =P

-Take anatomy & physiology, and hopefully Spanish for USC, before applying to CASPA, but that depends on how soon I can attend these classes in a J.C., & so I'm aiming to take them either in the summer or fall, based on availability =\

-And ideally take medical assistant classes emphasizing on clinical care

I just had a spur of an idea right now: in the winter, or if I can't get into the A&P classes in the summer, I could ask my cousin, an Internal Medicine doctor, in Seattle if she knows a P.A. at her work or somewhere else, & that could totally help me out with shadowing for just one week!

Well obviously it's not easy to get all of this done, but having my eye on the prize at the same time gives me greater chances of getting into P.A. school as soon as 2012. So I gotta get my ass off of the couch & BE a pre-physician assistant.

What Random Things Make Fia Happy

On the other hand, here are 10 out of a plethora of happy moments that can make my day that quickly =).

1. A mother duck waddling with her ducklings.

2. A breezy, yet sunny and sweltering day.

3. Watching funny stuff.

4. When I genuinely laugh after having a tough day.

5. Finding out you just saved some cash, thinking you would pay a $7 meal and turned out to be a 25% discount exclusively for today.

6. Having sore abs--all over.

7. Actually knowing the answer to a difficult question in less than a minute.

8. Observing an intimate, family picnic.

9. Hummingbirds.

10. Trying on an outfit once, and it looks absolutely fabulous and RIGHT for my body.

Fia's Pet Peeves

I felt like writing spontaneous stuff like this, inspired by reading random people's pet peeves at this Facebook page, & they can be common or downright unusual. So I decided this blurb on telling you my personal ones, & bluntly it's all about certain people lol...

1. "Know what I'm saying?" or a similar expression in every sentence remark.

2. I'm sorry, but I just cannot stand a loud, crying little child while I'm in a quiet place or in an intimate setting, like a semi-dimmed restaurant.

3. People just hanging out at the CSULB library.

4. Customers who make rude and smart-ass remarks.

5. People who think studying science is the same level as studying liberal arts. Or that they underestimate or don't understand the difficultly of the maths, sciences and engineering.

6. Doctors, or any health profession, are doing this job exclusively for money or business.

7. A certain colleague who is a P.A. with a know-it-all attitude, asks senseless questions and becomes too blatant to work everything on his own, both of which that are f'in horrible traits as a P.A. and as a "pre-med" student (!?). Err!!

8. Anyone dissing on the health professions. Well to be a nurse, you need to go from the bottom up as a CNA that cleans the crap, both figuratively and literally, for everyone in the healthcare setting.

9. Run on sentences. It does not look professional or caring read about knowing how to write I recommend it sounds great.

10. Someone that trips an item on accident and does not place it back upright!

Nerd Write-Up

Gosh darn it; I'm getting a bit restless as usual studying in the library, & I guess this is the perfect time to write about my mundane afternoon to the average reader...

Okay: understand the signalling process in a T cell once interacted with the Antigen Presenting Cell? Check!

Do you know how the immune response works by T cells? Uh huh.

What about B cells? Almost solid.

And can you fully picture the detailed development of B and T cells from start to finish (i.e. from a stem cell to the mature B and T cell)? And how they're "educated" to recognize the differences between a foreigner and their own kind? You got it.

Oh, how I so missed writing you, Blogger. Perhaps I may have free time, after all, to watch one movie via Netflix =). But, in the real science-major world, there is never enough studying.