Conclusions of Summer

It suddenly struck me that summer is beginning to draw to a close. It's been a fairly boring, yet stressful, summer. However things are starting to fall into place.

1. Today, in the mail, I got my acceptance letter to the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) . . . for the entering class of 2009. I guess I wasn't fated to go to med school this year. Oh well. Point is, I'm in! Hurray!! ::waves a little flag of victory::

2. This means that I indeed will continue with 1 year towards my Masters in Public Health (MPH) in Hospital & Molecular Epidemiology at my alma mater. It has a very strong school of public health, 5th in the nation I believe. Apparently the Epidemiology department only has like 75 incoming students (some of whom I know) and my sub-program is obviously much smaller than that. I'm kind of excited to have smaller and more interactive courses. Unfortunately most of my friends graduated with me and are now strewn across the world, but mostly somewhere across the US.

3. Thankfully I also found a roommate to live with me. He's a 30-year-old Japanese guy from Tokyo who will be an incoming grad student at the School of Public Policy this fall. I don't know if he's found an apartment for us yet and he hasn't returned my last email. I sent him another email earlier today. Yesterday I was made aware of another person who needs a roommate and an apartment. So if this Japanese guy doesn't respond to my emails in a timely manner, I may have to abandon him and go with the other guy. Now, I know this other guy, and he's kind of annoying so I think I'd prefer to live with the Japanese guy if possible. But I'm going to keep my options open about roommates and housing for the next week or so.

4. Yesterday a bunch of my friends from campus came to my city to have dinner. So I got to see JW-M and DJ-M (his roommate) one last time before they go home on the other side of the state. And next week JW-M will be heading to Beijing for a year, studying abroad. It was nice of them to come by, and it reminded me how much I missed and will miss them. I should write a post on JW-M as a roommate and as a friend . . .

5. Tomorrow I'll be going to my friend JR-M's cast & crew screening of his movie. I'm part of the crew, as I was the cellist for the soundtrack composed by our mutual friend, CM-M (in this post). Granted I won't know most of the people there, but hey, at least I get to hang out with some of my old friends who I haven't seen in a while. He gave me a relatively unedited DVD of his movie, but he'll have the full DVD (with director's cut and all) at this premiere.

6. This isn't really anything interesting, but I'm kind of a planning whore. Yes, I do get a little stressed when planning things, but I think I secretly enjoy it. I have pretty much my next 1-2 years planned out (coursework-wise) as an MPH and I'm starting to plan what I should bring with me to my new apartment (when I get one) as well as next summer's plans. Maybe next summer I'll finally be able to visit Beijing and other parts of China. At least JW-M will still be there, he can show me around! Yeah I'm lame, don't judge me.

7. My cousin's back in Chicago! Which means I got my room back and my privacy to enjoy certain activities. I'm doubly happy at reading another news article on a study supporting the health benefits of this particular activity. Oh yeah, my cousin was able to improve his ACT score from 21 to about 26-27 in the two weeks he was here. That's right, hardcore academic improvement.