Matter, Energy, and Life of Michaela A. Castello.

Tag: academia

  • On the West Coast (of Maryland)

    Our trip back to Maryland is coming to an end with the wedding of two of our friends. While Rachel’s off doing bridesmaid things, I’m enjoying a beautiful part of Maryland I’ve never really known existed. They even have a few palm trees growing in the gardens, something I would have appreciated a lot more…

  • First Secondaries

    So far, I’ve only navigated the first few of the many  frustrating and agonizing stages of the med school application process. I’ve already submitted my  centralized application via AMCAS (using IE8’s compatibility view since no other browsers work). While I wait for AMCAS to get around to looking at my application and verify that I…

  • Life is an MMO

    More accurately, “at this point in my life it often feels like I am trapped in a MMO.” I’ve gotten the the point where I’m past all of the early levels, so no more easy battles. At the same time, I’m not yet at the high levels, where you get to experience all of the…

  • Graduated Yet?

    Even though I walked across the stage at the beginning of what is now last month, I still haven’t actually graduated. I more or less fell into a trap of my own making, because at the beginning of the semester I decided I wanted to get credit for my research internship again. This involves a…

  • Test Day

    I took the MCAT today in Bethesda at 8:00 AM. Perhaps I should repeat that: I had to be in Bethesda today at 8 AM to take a five-hour test. Normally—that is, without traffic, so it’s probably more accurate to say abnormally—it takes about 45 minutes to get from my house to Bethesda. So in…

  • Reading List Inoculation

    A few minutes ago I finished reading Flowers for Algernon, one of those extremely well-known titles that I wasn’t entirely sure if I had read before or not. It was an excellent book that I would highly recommend reading if you weren’t already required to at some point. One of the benefits of being largely…

  • Medium for Consternation, Anguish, and Trepidation

    Preparing for the MCAT is difficult on an emotional level as much as it is on a purely intellectual level. Just as with the rest of the med school application process, my moods oscillate between courageous optimism ( “This isn’t that bad, you’ll get into a bunch of schools” ) and abject despair ( “You’re…

  • Not a Bad Day at All

    Today was one of those days that makes me feel pretty good by the end of it. This was largely because my Spanish exam, which had been looming grotesquely overhead for the past week, was suddenly canceled a mere hour beforehand. I got to spend the reclaimed time with some excellent people before heading in…