The List

Here is my 101 Things in 1001 list.  I start October 2nd, my 25th birthday. 

Competent adult activities (8)
-Recycle all recyclables for 1001 days
-Finish and organize my disaster/pandemic kit
-Finish my Afghan
-Knit another blanket
-Organize my recipe box
-Organize my important documents
-Find my social security card (see above); procur another should it prove to be AWOL.
Turns out it was back in Maryland all along!
-For 30 days in a row, wash all dishes at night so as to wake up to a clean sink.
Food activities (14)
-Make baklava
-Make cheese
-Make sourdough from a starter
-Harvest black walnuts
-Make nocino (green walnut liquor)
-Try Calliope ice cream
-Try a Humble Pie pie
-Try oxtail
-Make two new kinds of preserves
1) Apple butter: the secret appears to be apple cider vinegar and apple cider liquor
-Cook 8 kinds of vegetables I've never cooked before
1) Turnips: In chicken braised with Fall vetables, 10/11/12.  Not offensive at all, but not tremendously flavorful.
-Bake a really, really fancy cake
-Go vegan for two weeks (for my own sanity, they do not have to be back-to-back weeks).
-Eat a cheeseburger. Sustain-a-burger (grass-fed patty) at the Great Dane, 10/3/12
-Have a brunch party
Health (16)
-Run a half-marathon
11/3/12: Tyranena 1/2 Barrel run
-Run a full marathon
-Go to an actual GP; discuss concerns with said actual GP openly without fear of looking like a hypochondriac
-Floss teeth 1001 times
-Write out my living will and POA
-Limit sweet consumption to one (epic, memorable) dessert per week.  Take picture of said dessert.
-Do at least one pull-up.  (This may be next to impossible--should this prove futile, I would like at least to do more than hang there and kick.)
-See a dermatologist, get them to identify and treat problematic moles (as opposed to the current plan, which is to freak out about any mole looking unusually moley.)
11/7/12: Diagnosed with a dysplastic nevus, scheduled to be removed 11/28/12.
-Record what I eat for a month
-Take a picture of everything I eat for a week
-Get glasses with my new prescription (if only so I can walk through the HSLC atrium without squinting warily and hoping I'm not unintentially ignoring anyone).
-Take 1001 vitamins and 1001 caltrate pills.
-Get a fasting lipid panel done.
-Try meditation
-Try yoga
1/23/13: PowerFlow
-Get my weight to below 135 lbs; never let it get above 135.
Fun stuff at home (11)
-Play a game of pub trivia (10/8/12, postdoc's farewell dinner at Capitol Tap House)
-Try to cross-country ski or snowshoe
-Do karaoke (and keep a list of acceptible songs somewhere, so I don't blank out and forget what I'm capable of singing.)
-Try paddleboarding
-Go berry-picking twice
-Visit a comedy club
-Go on a day-long biking adventure with Intaglio
-Tour a brewery
-Go downhill skiing.  Try not to break anything.
-Go to a concert
-Go swimming in a lake.  Or a cold, fast-moving river (damn you, Naegleria fowleri)
Travel (8)
-Go to Chicago
-Go to Milwaukee
-Go to New York City
-Go to the West Coast
-Go on at least 3 full-day hikes
-See the ocean.  Ideally, tide pools.
-Visit a state I've never been to before
-Climb a mountain.  (Are there any WI mountains?)
Money (6)
-Keep track of all my income and expenditures (do not give up halfway through the month because it's depressing).
-Save $3000 per year
-Figure out exactly what my savings accounts are and where I should be putting my money.
-Spend one month figuring out exactly how much I spend on food at work, and, following that:
-Go one month without buying any snacks or meals at work
-Fill up each of our 3 piggy banks: cash the coins and go do something AWESOME.
Career/School (12)
-Find a good preceptor for 903; meet with them faithfully 10 times per semester.
-Keep grad school GPA as close to a 4.0 as possible (yes, it doesn't matter, yes, research is more important, yes, anything less than an A has and always will irk me.)
Fall 2012: 4.0!
-Write one review paper
-Write (and publish) two scientific papers
-Write (and do everything in my power to get) an F30 grant
-Pass my prelim with flying colors
-Give a talk.
-Devote two hours a week to reviewing First Aid/BRS/notes
-Organize my current lab notebook
-When the time comes to start a new notebook, keep it spic and span
-Learn how to use a citation manager
Mendeley...it's a work in progress...
-No facebook for 2 weeks (my productivity will skyrocket, right?  Right?).
Silly personal goals/Satisfying my 13-year-old self (9)
-Write that novel.  Even if it's a half a page a day and it sucks.  It probably will suck.  Write it regardless
-Get inked
-Read at least 30 books of fiction
1) The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood, finished 10/31/12 
2) Beatrice and Virgil, Yann Martel, finished 11/20/12 
3) The Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut, finished 12/28/12
4) John Dies at the End, David Wong, finished 12/29/12
5) Someone Will Be With You Shortly, Lisa Kogan, finished 1/17/13, technically not fiction but this is my goddurned blog!
6) God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, Kurt Vonnegut, finished 1/17/13
7) Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout, by Lauren Redniss.  Finished 2/5/13.  Also non-fiction.
-Dye my hair
-Get that "Now Panic and Freak Out" t-shirt I have privately coveted for months.
-Ditto an "Innsmouth Swim Team" t-shirt.  Even if I have to get it printed myself, dammit!
-Watch the Spongebob Squarepants movie
-Read 5 books that I have, for one reason or another, been terminally reluctant to read.
-Go to an amusement park or water park
Interpersonal (10)
-Send Christmas cards
-Send Christmas cookies
We did Christmas caramels with attached Christmas cards 2012 (flavors: vanilla, espresso-orange, sesame-ginger, maple-walnut)
-Help out/volunteer at 10 university/MSTP events
1) 10/12/12: Morning escort for MD/PhD candidates
2) 10/12/12: Chaperone for bowling and pizza night for MD/PhD candidates 
3) 10/13/12: State street tour and lunch for MD/PhD candidates
4) 11/8/12: Volunteered at the Salvation Army Dental clinic
5) 11/30/12: Morning escort for MD/PhD candidates
6) 11/30/12: Bowling/pizza chaperone for candidates
7) 12/1/12: Lunch at Sunroom cafe, cheese tour (eg, Fromagination), impromptu capitol tour to touch the lucky badger's nose (yes, I pretty much did the same thing with the second set of candidates that I did with the first!)
8) 1/18/13: Afternoon escort for MD/PhD candidate
9) 1/19/13: State street tour for MD/PhD candidates: Lunch at Mia Za's, cheese/ice cream tour
-Donate blood
1/23/13
-Send Valentines
-Send 10 care packages/gifts unaffiliated with a major life event
-Write a thank-you card for Every.  Single.  Favor/Present/Gift.  No exceptions.
-Go on a trip with my family
-Cut out discretionary spending for a month or two, and then buy someone a really, really nice gift.
-Bake 6 birthday cakes
1) Intaglio's birthday, 11/28/12: Lemon poppy-seed cake, lemon curd mousse filling, lemon cream-cheese frosting...the cake layers were soaked in lemon syrup, too.   Intaglio really likes lemon. Covered with almond flavored fondant to look like a popcorn box.
2) Zen's birthday cake, 12/14/12: English toffee cheesecake, consisting of a graham cracker crust with plain toffee bits, a layer of brown sugar cheesecake flavored with almond, a layer of chocolate toffee pieces, another layer of cheesecake, and a sour cream top.  Decorated with red and green sugar.
Miscellaneous (7)
-Get a new bathrobe Completed 10/2/12 thanks to Intaglio!
-Get the carpets steam-cleaned
Completed 11/3/12, also thanks to Intaglio
-Organize the top of the closet
-Throw out all socks that no longer have their mates.
Done.  I'm pretty sure I never, ever need to buy socks again.
-Procur 7 new pairs of earrings
1) Red glass engagement earrings from Intaglio, 12/25/12
3 pairs of earrings from my family (also Christmas 2012)
2)  Yellow single gemstone
3) Pearl with spangly metal bits
4) Steampunk flower (made of copper wire and gears)
-Organize the cabinets
-Get a new TV
HAH!  Finally.  11/29/12, Intaglio's 29th birthday present.

25, 25, 101

I haven't blogged since last winter.  Let's see: Finished M2, took Step 1 of the boards, passed Step 1 of the boards, Intaglio moved in, did a preliminary rotation in internal medicine, started in the lab, started grad school in earnest.  Life update complete!

It's been a strange transition.  I've never been one to handle life changes with what one might call exceptional grace.  There are no clear answers in the lab.  Did that assay work well enough?  Are these controls good enough?  Am I doing enough work?  Am I doing the right experiments?  Are my priorities straight?  Who's to say?  My PI seems okay with my performance, is that enough?  Am I spending enough time on my classes, or should I throw those to the wind and focus more on research? 

25% of the way through grad school, turning 25 in two days, and in many ways I feel more tentative and wide-eyed than I did when I first started med school.  Maybe even more so than when I started college.  It's somewhat disheartening.  And, when I get disheartened, I tend to respond in the same way I have since I was in middle school: grouchiness, elevated sugar consumption, foot-dragging on intimidating tasks, generally teetering on the verge of being unbearable to others. 

In the interest of getting it together, accomplishing things, and generally acting like a 25-year-old and not like a freshman overwhelmed by OChem, I started to set goals for myself, some more ambitious than others ("Jog 6 days a week", "Send that damn email to your PI about your thesis committee already", et al).  Coincidentally, a friend in my cohort started the 101 Things in 1001 Days challenge.  I read her list, and poked about online looking for examples of this challenge.  Some seemed like fun, some seemed a bit trite (Collect 10 colors of nailpolish?  Why?), and some seemed worth doing.

With that in mind, I put together my own list: some meaningful, some fun, some trite.  I'm planning on using my own 101 as a sort of compass, a way to track achievement outside the lab.  I'm also planning on posting here more; there's a lot I like about grad school, but the relative isolation and shrinking of my day-to-day social circle was a bit of a shock.  My hope is that by making it a habit of posting here (with pictures! I found my memory card for my camera), it will both draw me out of my shell and, well, encourage me to do things that are worth writing about.