A Day in My Summer Life

A Day in My Summer Life My typical summer weekday runs as follows: 5 AM: Beep-beep-beep-beep my alarm goes off, I look out my window, and I realize that once again, Im awake before the sun has risen fully: Im living at UPenn this summer, along with 50 or so fellow Merck interns (or Merckterns though I dont much care for this nickname, lol). I have three suitemates, and since all of us are used to showering in the morning instead of at night, my mornings tend to (1) start early, and (2) be a little hectic :( 5:30 AM: Done showering, dressing, throwing my hair into some kind of order. Time to make lunch! Salad + fruit + almonds + a roll orrr PBJ sandwich orrrr I decide Im too lazy to make my lunch and that Ill just buy something at the Merck cafeteria (the latter happens way too often, sigh one of my summer goals was to improve my culinary habits, but I am currently failing miserably). p.s. Ive been spending way too much time on the Food section of Pinterest lately. Might make the following this week :) 6:00 AM: I grab my bag and head out the door to make the 20-minute walk to the train station to catch the 6:30 train to Pennbrook, the closest station to Mercks West Point location. 6:30 AM 7:30 AM: pass out on the train and hope that I wake up to my 7:20 alarm. 7:30 AM: Finally at Merck! I cant actually talk about my specific project, but just as a general overview, Im working in Mercks vaccine division this summer. Ive learned so much!! Though Im pre-med and am pretty set on becoming a doctor, I wanted to get a little insight into the pharma aspect of medicine. Working at Merck and meeting people who have worked on high-profile vaccines like Gardasil (for HPV) and Zostavax (for shingles) has been both humbling and amazing. I found out that it takes 20 years, on average, for a vaccine to go from RD to clinical trials and approval. The people at Merck are so passionate about helping people. 4:30 PM 6:00 PM: I leave Merck for the day and start my 1.5- hour-long trip home. And this is where my day gets a little variety. I generally do one or more of the following: (1) Med School Apps = O.O NEVER. ENDING. Seriously. There are multiple stages in the process: primary apps, secondary apps, interviews, then acceptances/rejections. Im only done with the first step (primaries) 25% done with the apps, woohoo! (2) Planning for Camp Kesem 2012   we have 95 kids and 50 counselors coming together for CK 2012 (CK = a summer camp for kids of cancer patients, with chapters all over the U.S.) this August. Its going to be awesome!! But theres also a tonnn of planning involved: fundraising, planning daily activities, coordinating with counselors/campers/camper families, checking in with CK National, and more. (3) TV Show Marathons: I LOVE SUITSSS. (4) Arts and Crafts :) There are a lot of things I havent had as much time for during college, including reading for fun, dancing as much as I used to in high school, and drawing. I took some time these past few weeks to catch up my novice artistic side: 10:30 PM: Lights out! And then repeat the above all over again. More soon (read: later this week) about weekends/fun stuff that has happened this summer. Peace!