Crown of Glory

God has blessed me to live another year and today I am celebrating another birthday! I am turning 21 again

For the past two weeks, I’ve been traveling and trying to keep up with the school gig. Last weekend I attended the Florida Education Fund’s “2008 McKnight Doctoral Annual Fellows Meeting” in Tampa, FL. At the meeting, I had the pleasure of interacting with dozens of African American scholars who shared their experiences of the graduate education process. One of the specific aims of the conference was to address issues pertinent to the needs of matriculating graduate students. With several panel discussions and workshops, I can honestly say that many of my needs were definitely addressed. I also had the opportunity to sit down and speak with the president regarding my shortcomings in school thus far. He listened very attentively and was able to hook me up with someone who is where I want to be in 8-10 years; a female who had successfully been through the process in my field! Read more…

I’m headed out of town for a weekend conference. For all of you who have been inquiring about the Strawberry Letters, please bear with me as I am just getting a handle on school. I have a lot to say but now is not the time to spill….look out for another post in a few days.

As of this week, I have been a PhD student for 5 weeks and it has NOT been easy. This semester, I am taking a core course which provides exposure to fundamentals of all of the disciplines represented by six advanced programs that the College of Medicine offers (Structural Biology, Molecular Biology, Genetics, Cell Biology/Cystoskeleton, Cell Biology/Transport, and Signal Transduction). So far I’ve completed the Structural Biology module of the course and the exam was last Monday. I actually received my test results a few hours ago and I did poorly (not the lowest in the class, but I could’ve done a lot better). I’m not feeling too down about my test because I know what I did wrong and I did not study as much as I should’ve. Additionally, I was under an immense amount of stress worrying about money and how I was going to eat everyday and how my bills were going to get paid. I had gone more than a month living here with no income! It’s very sad that there were no reliable resources to assist me (and others in the same situation). I finally received my first check Sept 12 and it was missing nearly a week of pay because of “technical errors”, but I was happy to receive it nontheless. My next exam is October 6, so I am definitely going to try to work more diligently to ensure that I understand all of the concepts. Hopefully, I’ll find a reliable person(s) to study with.

I just came back from the gym and I am so proud of myself because that was my second workout this week! Yesterday I went to this cycling class and I thought it would be a breeze but it was surely intense to say the least. The instructor had us standing up on the bikes and stuff…I could barely keep up, lol. Today I decided to try a stepping class. That class was a little less intense but my feet were giving me hell. I need to get it together! I decided that I will keep going to different group fitness activities at school until I find one that is at my level (over time I will step it up a few notches). I think I might give swimming a shot next week. To help keep me motivated, I’ve joined The 50 Million Pound Challenge. I’m not looking forward to it, but I definitely need to purchase a scale to keep track of my progress of losing my goal of 24 lbs. I think I’m off to a good start!