Big news of the week:

I’m not going to grad school this year.

I decided that looking at my calendar with dread everyday for not having done my GRE’s yet and still having a ton to do involving my grad school applications, I’m going to put it off another year. I want to look into more schools than just Duke, UW and Stonybrook. I want to look at grad schools out of the country too! I want to look into the Masters in Global Health mainly for now and then after I finish that maybe working on the Ph.D for Genetics. I just see myself working towards helping people. I love being in the lab by myself working towards a goal, but the social aspect hits me way harder. I love seeing the reactions people have in person. I want to see just exactly what my help is doing for people.

This is why I’m a food delivery driver for Lifelong AIDS Alliance. I deliver food and groceries to people who are too sick to leave the house to get it themselves. Sometimes I am the only person that they will see the entire week and they look forward to those Thursdays where I’m around just to talk to. The look on their faces when you step through the door is heartbreaking sometimes. You really get to understand the frailty of human life and the capacity a person can have for the compassion and care for others. I’ve seen more of how diseases really affect people here than I’ve ever given thought to before. Doing these projects I find my love for the human race and how much I want to do my part in trying to make even a few people’s lives a little happier.

I’m also volunteering for ZomBcon for Halloween. Apparently, Seattle is now the Zombie capital of the world because in July they had a zombie walk and over 6,000 people showed up to walk/crawl/eat people’s brains in the streets of Fremont (the neighborhood next to mine). ZomBcon is a convention with discussions with major horror film gurus, plenty of viewings of your favorite horror films and even a Zombie prom! I’m super psyched for the prom, which I’m actually going to with a few friends. We have theatre majors to help with the make-up and gore!

I decided since I’m no longer tied down to staying here in Seattle that I’m going on another whirlwind adventure this summer. The family wants to go to Morocco, so that’s going to be the starting point. Hopefully Nolan can meet up with me in Africa and we’ll head out from there. I want to do shark diving, ride an elephant, see a lion (better yet, a tiger!), and I want to go to a nude beach! I know I have high aspirations, but what’s a life without a little adventure? Maybe I’ll visit my friend Jenna in Korea and stop through Kenya to help out with the AIDS Empower program. I can do whatever I want! I just need to save all my money for the next few months. I can do this. It’ll work out the way I want it to; I just have to want it enough to try.

“Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson