On Tuesday I had my first medical school interview. It was at a small private school just outside of Vegas called Touro University. Touro was actually started in Manhattan by a hasidic jew. Lunch was kosher AND delicious. A few years ago, Touro established medical schools in Vegas and Mare Island California. Impressions? Touro in Vegas is basically Utah’s second medical school. I had no idea, but about 50% of the school is Mormon. I ended up sleeping at a student’s house who graduated from Weber. There were 8 of us interviewed, 3 were from Utah, and 4 were LDS. Walking around campus I saw at least 3 BYU shirts. And the whole day, it felt like the Mormon interviewees were being catered to.
Pros:
1) I could handle the area despite the heat, everything is new and very family friendly. And there’s a lot of chances for missionary work.
2) The student body is all cooperative and friends with each other. A good sense of community, no cut-throat competition.
3) Roger Corbman, director of admissions is phenomenal. All of the faculty are pals with the students, there is a 100% open-door policy.
4) Jewish holidays. School starts a few weeks early because of all the yom kippur / rosh hashanah / sukkot days off. Sweet.
5) Cheap-ish real estate.
6) Cheap food and entertainment in Vegas.
7) Cheap flights to come home, or for visitors to come.
Cons:
1) The "campus" looks like a Costco. One giant, window-less, square building. On the corner of American Pacific and Auto Mall Row.
2) Billboards. Yikes.
I have two California Redwood sprouts in my apartment. The tallest trees in the world.
Be glad you’re not married to me.
Sure, my ironing skills are impeccable and I do make an incredible cheese sandwich, but sometimes I’ve just gotta wonder what it would be like. I tend to get on these kicks where I’m fascinated and encompassed by only one thing at a time. Right now it’s plants.
To graduate, I find myself enrolled in an upper division microbiology course and for about 3 weeks we studied plants. We picked them apart and grew them in the lab. We cross-bred them. We turned leaves into roots and roots into leaves. As a zoo. major, I was spellbound. Plants are nuts. So…. I remembered my bonsai tree I had back before my mission. It was about 20 years old (thanks again for killing it, mom) and I loved it. Instead of doing homework or working on essays for medical school admissions, I spent a lot of time looking at bonsai plants. Then I discovered it: you can buy any old seed from any old cool-looking tree and turn it into a bonsai-esque miniature version of the actual plant! My little brain whirled with the possibilities as I typed my way over to eBay.
Here it is about a week later. I have seeds from the California redwoods germinating in a specially concocted soil in a dark closet in our guest room, pomegranate tree seeds soaking in warm water on the dining room table, and seeds of all kinds in the fridge in the newly claimed "Jonathan shelf". I bit into an apple and planted all the seeds in a cup on the window sill, and when I saw that Jen had bought an extra large green pepper, I couldn’t see those seeds going to waste so they’re there too. Seeds from a dwarf orange tree are on there way. So are the seeds from a Japanese plum tree. Somewhere I heard that you could propagate new trees from the branches of others so now around the apartment I have cups full of planted branches in various stages of dying.
Homework stays undone. My wife and I haven’t had health insurance since she started her new job because I’m in charge of filling it out. I have ONE application left and haven’t been able to force myself to do it. The apartment could be cleaned. I’m out of clean underwear. And all the while I’ve been playing with plants.
Unfortunately today Jen showed me the credit card statement. My few blissful hours on eBay cost us $47. I promised her that something like that would never happen again.
But it still might.
Bless Jen’s heart for being married to me.
–Jonathan
Racquetball
For family night we decided to try our hand at some racquetball down at the Bountiful Rec Center.
I don’t want to talk about it.
–Jonathan
So I’ve done it. I made a blog. You can rest assured that I feel adequately hoity-toity about the whole thing. But we figured with so much going on right now it’s as good a time as any. Jen with her new job, and me with a few med-school interviews coming up, this might be a decent way to keep everybody posted. Besides, Jen is too mature for facebook.
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