I recently took my first MCTS exam (for Configuring Windows Vista) and passed it with relatively little headache. Four hours were allotted and it took me about an hour to plow through scenarios such as “Terry cannot share files on the network. Help Terry fix file sharing.” Today, I got my certification card and Microsoft “diploma”. I’m not sure if this will ever be good for anything other than bragging rights, but it’s useful to have options should I need them in the future. Certification is something that employers in the IT industry look for… but I’m not going to do IT. Hopefully. If Obama’s plan to force everyone into socialized medicine goes through, I may not be practicing medicine as a clinician.
My graduation gift to myself was a Dell 2408WFP monitor. I’ve had my Dell 20″ since 2004, when I came to OU, and it seemed fitting that I upgrade after it saw me through five years of college. The new one… is massive. It really puts a smile on my face just to see how much screen real estate the thing really has. I also convinced my parents to upgrade from their tiny 19″ screen, because they do a lot of video watching on the computer.
Caitlin came to visit me this week before she started summer school. It’s so weird to be apart after seeing her pretty much every single day since we started dating ten and a half months ago. I miss her terribly, but I’m grateful for technology like webcams, Bluetooth headsets, and AIM, so I’m not stuck writing forlorn love letters as my only means of communication 
It’s a hard thing to be apart, but it’s worth it to know you’ve found your soulmate.
Another chapter has closed on my life. I graduated this weekend from OU, packed up my stuff, and moved out today. I’m done being an RA, and I’m done with college.
I’m leaving OU with a dual degree (as opposed to a double major, which is a single degree with two concentrations), which is two wholly separate degrees: a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology, summa cum laude, and a Bachelor of Science, with distinction. I also completed minors in French, Computer Science, and the History of Science. It took two hundred and eleven credit hours and five years to get through it all, but it’s over and done.
…Until I leave in August for Illinois to spend another seven years getting two MORE degrees.
I’ll always have good memories of my time at OU. I met a ton of people, did so many new things, and grew up a lot. I lived in Housing, worked for Housing, and met the girl of my dreams thanks to Housing. I took classes from good professors, bad professors, and sit-in-class-and-play-video-games-they’re-so-bad professors. But mostly, I had fun.
Thanks for all the fun.
Once again I fail at blogging within a reasonable interval of time. I’ll get the hang of it again. Someday.
I got flown out to Urbana-Champaign early this month to interview for the University of Illinois’ Medical Scholars Program. Like many of the others I’ve applied to, it combines two doctoral degrees, the MD and the PhD, into a 7-year program. About a week ago, they let me know that I was accepted. They pay for all the tuition and give me a living stipend— it’s really a very good deal. I’m not completely sure that it’s what I want to do, but it’s definitely at the top of my list. I’ll keep praying about it for sure. Alternatively, I could work here for a year before heading off to school, if they’ll let me defer admission. Or, maybe I’ll find work doing something else entirely. I just am not completely convinced that going to school for another seven years is exactly what I want to do at this point. I’m a little tired of it all.
Caitlin and I went on an adventure today after I read on FatWallet that Walgreens had Energizer rechargeables on sale. Usually they’re about $12 for 4. We drove to 5 Walgreens until we found packs on sale for $8 that had $2 coupons on them, then stacked that with the $5 rebate from Walgreens. We got 12 packs for the price of 1. Yay FatWallet ^_^
Lots of batteries
My eVGA 680i motherboard that I bought in May of 07 is starting to act flaky. For a long time (since last spring) it would sometimes fail to boot (POST), instead throwing a C1 memory error and beeping. I RMA’d all the memory, but it kept happening. Now it’s not even booting with 4 sticks of memory installed. I set up an advance-exchange RMA tonight with eVGA; thankfully I’ll have time over break to get everything back and working again. Very happy I sprung the extra $30 or so for the lifetime warranty board. If I hadn’t've, I would be springing $200+ for a new board of comparable features.
I introduced Mom, Dad, and Nate to Wii Sports today. As luck would have it, they all had a blast. Dad especially enjoyed punching people in the face in Boxing 
Mom suggested I leave the Wii here “to keep it safe”. I think that means “so I can get better at Bowling and beat you”, but I’m not judging.
Time on my hands to fix computers and play Wii… it’s good to be home.
