So my internship is officially over. It has been over for almost a week now...I just haven't gotten around to writing about it. Saying goodbye to all of the friends I made this summer was possibly the hardest set of goodbyes I have ever had to do (oh wait, just 3 months ago I had to leave Denmark...so I kind of take back that statement). Nonetheless, this was really REALLY hard. I can't believe I made such good friends in just 10 weeks. I think it was because I was living, eating, breathing with these people during all the time that I was not in the lab (which actually wasn't that much during the last few weeks because I started staying later and later in lab to bear down as my project came to an end). I have to say the whole summer was way more amazing than I would've expected...and I even learned a bunch too (which is important for this thing called college and this other thing called my future career).
Here's a run down of the important decisions I made this summer:
To go to grad school (assuming I get accepted)
To go to grad school for neuroscience (rather than for psychology or something fun like painting, which I can't do for the life of me so that was never actually an option)
To go to grad school somewhere close (by close I mean the general midwest area...somewhere driveable...definitely not europe :(
All of those decisions result in these consequences:
I have to take the GRE soon (sometime before sept 30)
I'll be studying for the GRE during pre-season (which starts in just 2 weeks!!)
I'll be beginning applications for grad schools during fall term and hopefully will have them all done by mid November (yikes!!)
But in general, despite the scariness of the things to come, I am quite excited about this whole grad school process! I truly did enjoy my research experience this summer and I imagine grad school will have even more exciting and challenging opportunities.
Ok I need to stop sounding like a poster child for grad school.
My life right now consists of hanging out with my family as much as possible and then tomorrow I will leave for a 5-day vacation in Washington D.C. where I get to stay with Emma (my knox roomie!!) and see the Larsens, my host family from Denmark. How fortunate! After I return, I'll have a little over a week left in Newton and then it's off to Knox for pre-season. I think I need to get some tennis playing in there somewhere.
Also, if you are interested in updates on my dad (and haven't seen this website yet) you can visit an awesome site my mom made: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/samclark1
His tumor has begun to grow back (after surgeries, radiation and chemo) so we are currently waiting for an appointment to be scheduled at Duke University for an extensive evaluation and then we are hoping he can be a part of whichever clinical trial they think is best. As my mom says "We are swinging for the fence!" (my mom is particularly fond of sports metaphors)
We are staying really positive, but we are also on edge, just waiting and watching and praying and hoping. On the bright side, I played tennis with him a few days ago and although his motor skills have definitely been affected by the tumor, he still had some serves that aced me!
Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers you have sent our way. They mean a lot to us.
That's all for now! Take it easy and stay cool out there.
P.S. If you want to see a short video I made with photos of the summer, check out this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8a_F60IHt4
