Ouch ouch ouch -- Do Not Attempt This Stunt!

A few random words of wisdom that hit even closer to home than before...

1) Stretch thoroughly before attempting anything strenuous or extensive flexibility
2) Bone is hard... and being hit by something hard hurts!
3) Shins are very vulnerable to ouchies and are not the best shields against a nice solid foot or another shin!

So basically... I learned these lessons from Tae Kwon Do earlier tonight. I did some pretty aggressive sparring and managed to take a lot of blows to the shins, mostly from bumping shins with fellow white belts who are just as clueless and/or klutzy as I am! And then there was the whole not-quite-stretching enough before class. I think I pulled something in my left leg and I'm now hobbling about... I just knew something wasn't quite right when I was about to deliver a nice solid hook kick to my opponent and then I suddenly felt everything in my left leg tense up... and then I just kinda curled up in pain. At first it wasn't too bad since I did try to take care of it in the locker room after class since it did occur towards the end of class, but as if that weren't enough, I ended up practicing that same kick at home, thinking I was still pre-stretched... and then in another flash of luck and brilliance, I bumped my leg in the shower -- the same one that's already kinda sore... OUCH!!! So my poor left leg is now all tenderized and bumpy. And I still have a bump and several bruises on my right leg from using it as a shield...

Thank goodness for my hiking pole or I'd have to look even more foolish with a cane or worse! And thank goodness for all my experience with ouchies like this to know when it's just ugly as all hell and just a minor inconvenience to be treated with a bit of TLC and some hot towels and a massage... or if it's something I need to haul my tail to the doctor for.

Anyway, enough ranting here and back to work...

GRE Biology Exam

So this past weekend, along with many other aspiring graduate students, I took the GRE subject exam in biology. The overall comment, as my friends would say, was SN-2. For those of you who don't know organic chemistry, it's basically a reaction mechanism also known as "back-side attack". In other words, one molecule rams another one from behind and at the same time knocks off the leaving group and the effect looks a lot like an umbrella being turned inside-out. It was a pretty tough exam, especially for someone who doesn't generally memorize things very well. But I have to admit, the experimental/data interpretation questions were a lot of fun just trying to deduce answers on techniques I had no clue on. I don't know how I did, just that I'm glad that it's over and I pretty much did all I could to survive it! I still have tons of stuff to do for the rest of my grad school application stuff, but at least the tests are over!

And to be really honest... I'd much rather be out at the range with my trusty 30lb Martin X-200 recurve or working on Project Argonium than being cooped up on campus, but I've got to do what I've got to do to get into a really nice graduate project.