Livin' for the moment

So while contemplating whether or not to get my doctorate I've been thinking about a lot of things.  I know five years from now whether I decided to continue my education or not I will be 27 (wow that sounds old) but it is the quality of those five years that I am worried about.  Right now I spend my life studying, I work on homework all the time.  If I were given the choice to be able to start my college career over I don't think I would want to have to redo it all.  I know college is supposed to be the time of your life but there is no way I could have time for what it needs to do well in all of my classes. 

I suppose the best way I can think of to describe this is my intensity.  When I get a project or goal in mind I think of it as more of an end destination and want to finish it.  I have always been very determined/competitive and I need to work on enjoying the ride rather than looking to the finish.  With all that in mind, still no decision. 

Finals Week

You can always tell when finals week is here because our apartment seems to get much cleaner!  I was lucky this year because most of my work was due the last week of class, aka dead week.  This week I only have one final, so I've been taking advantage and going to a coffee shop everyday to study for a bit.  I can't believe that I am heading home in 2 days!  And then it's Christmas time!  It sure feels like Christmas time if you go outside, it is freezing!

Henry is so happy to have some presents

Tonight my roommates and I are exchanging out secret santa presents.  We were all pretty good this year and as far as I know no one knows who anyone else has.  Hope we all get something good : )

And I hope you all are enjoying your Holiday Season as well.

Pondering

So during my trip to San Diego while we were all hanging out we somehow got onto the topic of the potential of stem cells and the advances that have been made in science and all kinds of things.  But someone brought up the fact that the more you know, the more you realize you don't know.  There is just so much out there, so much to be discovered and researched and understood.  Really focusing in one specific area portrays all the infinite details and how oversimplified we as a society tend to make things.  Nothing is that simple, nothing is a 100% guarantee.  Within almost everything there is so much more going on than you can ever imagine or is even understood.  And this translates into everything, into surgeries that are done routinely and even into dealing with people.  Speaking of which, as one of my (blogger) friends mentioned the other day, I need to be more understanding of others.  Nothing good comes out of judging.  Just a thought for the day.

Student for Life

I recently made a quick trip to San Diego, and by quick I mean being in SD for less than 24 hours with a five hour drive on each end!  But it was a lot of fun and a good way to get to know all the CIRM students and professors a little better.  It was a very different atmosphere than when in class. 

The point of this trip was to get to know all of the host institutes a little bit better and learn what they are researching about and discuss some logistics with the matching process of our internship.  I was thinking after this meeting I would have a very clear idea of where I want to go but there is just so much potential in all the different aspects, I don't know where I want to go!  I loved Novocell but from networking with all of the postdocs it sounds as though if I want to be able to do research then I need to get my PhD.  I was kind of hoping in two years I would be completely done, so now how do I decide if this is something I should do?  It is likely that I could double count a couple of my classes from getting my masters and that my internship could be the basis of my research for my doctorate, so I don't know exactly how much time I would be looking at. 

I guess I should just let the information sink in a bit before I make a decision.  I just don't know what I want to do for my career.  Should I continue my education to ensure there aren't any doors that are closed in the future?  Should I look for a job after I get my masters and go back to get my PhD if I do later decide I want to do research? 

If only I were better at making decisions!

Sharing the joy of Blogging

Yay for bringing another friend into the blogger world!
If you guys want to follow her here is the link: http://beccatm.blogspot.com/

Give her lots of love for starting out : )