I slept about 9 hours but to no avail. In fact I almost feel worse than yesterday. What the hell do I have?? My eyes are acting like I have conjunctivitis, but that alone wouldn't give me body aches and severe fatigue. Perhaps I have a bacterial infection (strep or staph) that migrated up and is also living in my upper respiratory tract. Nah, it's probably just some pesky virus. UGH!

Anyway . . . being sick puts me in a foul mood. And makes me wonder why I am doing all this to myself. Like my father keeps saying, I need to "nurse myself back to health". But how can I with the constant onslaught of tests and other school-related stressors.

I have three goals right now. To become the best oboist I can become, to have a successful career, and to become a mommy. Normally that's the order of priority. But I have to admit that the clock is definitely ticking! I've now started dreaming about babies at least a few times a week. And since I am pretty sure that my malaise is school related a part of me wishes I could just relinquish the career goal. If we could set things up financially so that I wouldn't need to make tons of money I could just stay home for a bit and focus on my oboe and a baby. Oh dear, I think these are the hormones talking. Because I know that if I never achieve anything careerwise that I will feel unfulfilled. But would that really be the case were I to have a happy family and a fruitful amateur oboist "career"?

I do love science though. I just wish it didn't take everything out of you!

Round three of midterms . . .

I can't believe we have tests AGAIN next week. It felt like just the other day I was going through the craziness.

I have Orgo on Wednesday and Bio on Thursday. The good news is that after all the torture of the second round of tests I studied through Spring break and have managed to keep my momentum going. I am now studying consistently every day for at least 3 hours, sometimes 6. So for the first time all year I am NOT tremendously behind the week before exams. In fact I am practically all caught up in Orgo. I just have to do problems at this point. And though I am a little bit behind in Bio, it's totally doable. I only need to review 2.5 lectures the week before the test instead of all 7 lectures being tested. I better do better this time. I have no excuse as long as I keep going at the same pace.

Tomorrow I have volunteering to do. I hope it's inspiring. Lately I've been on a severe music kick again.

Does anyone remember that show "Resident Life" on TLC? I have the theme song to that in my head.

Am I awake?
What time is it?
When I get through this day
Can someone tell me how
And how much longer now
Am I awake?

It's by "They might be giants".

So I decided to start a blog to talk about non-musical stuff, primarily my career stuff. Right now I'm pre-med. I just had my mock interview with my advisor (and another dean who I've never met). I feared the worst going in because I thought I was "The World's Worst Interviewer". In fact, part of why I ended up staying at that corporate job for 8 YEARS was because whenever I did attempt to leave for another job I ended up completely bombing the interviews. I thought I was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder from it. I was seriously scared of interviews.

I knew for months that the mock interview was one of the requirements I had to get through in order to complete this program. In January we were asked to sign up for our time and I picked March 24th because it was the week after Spring Break. I figured that if I didn't have a chance to prepare until then I'd still have the break. Hahahahah. Of course, no preparation was done until maybe 5PM last night. I read up on some of the major health care issues. I sat around and thought what I might answer when they asked "Why medicine?" or "Tell me about yourself" or "Why should we pick you over other candidates?" I pondered all this for an hour or two and then had to practice and get ready for my gig.

We didn't get home from said gig until 5 AM this morning and I had to get up at 7 AM. In honor of past, current, and future sleepless nights I dub this new blog "Am I Awake?".

Oh, the intereview went extraordinarily well, by the way! I am completely blown away and in disbelief. As we drove in this morning I was sure it would be a complete fiasco. My feedback at the end was ALL positive. They liked . . . everything. My advisor said that I handled it like a true professional. What the hell? ME?? The world's (ex) worst interviewer? Maybe I do know what I want after all. Maybe I have indeed matured. Just when I'm about to quit this damn pre-med gig, things start looking up and I get encouraged all over again (at least until the next obstacle).