Moonwalking with Einstein: My Summer Thus Far

Sorry faithful readers, (all 4 of you) for being so aloof this past month. What can I say, finals happened and kind of pushed me out of the saddle, but I'm back again! And ready to update you on what I've been doing with my summer!

I'm living in the city this summer, which is super fun. My roommate, (and best friend from high school) Ashley had an open room for me to use until my program starts on June 8th, so things worked out perfectly. 

My roommate, Ashley and I

Before I was in the throws of finals week, the pre-dental club and I got to attend the University of Michigan's dental school open house. It was super great to see the school in person and get a feel for the building. It was also fun to ask actual U of M D1's about their school experience as well as about their personal lives. There's only so much one can learn about a school by looking at their website.

The ladies of the pre-dental club standing in front of the "Women in Dentistry" exhibit inside the U of M Dental School

After the open house, finals week went off without a hitch, (despite the ACS exam in organic chemistry, which I somehow managed to do decent on.) Although I must say, I did continue to sweat until I saw my final grades because who ever really knows what their final GPA will be until they see it in black and white?
So school ended and my summer began. My normal summer schedule is research in the morning and job shadowing in the afternoon. My research consists of doing field work with tree swallows and collecting microbial cloacal samples. We're doing this in hope of determining if their is a link between certain microbes and reproductive success. Some, (usually most actually) people will ask me, "PJ, you want to be a dentist. What's with the birds?" Well, first of all, they're adorable.

Look at this cutie!

Second of all, I'm a firm believer in the fact that you should try everything you're interested in once to see if you like it or not. How would I know I didn't want to do biological field research if I never tried it out? And finally, after talking to an admissions representative from U of M dental school about research and discovering that it's not the content but the experience in itself that mattered, I figured, hey, why not birds?
Anyway, my mornings consist of catching birds, swabbing their cloacal openings and putting samples on ice to be analyzed at a later date.

Microbial samples! Science!

 After I finish my research, I change out of my mud-covered leggings and sports bra and change into a skirt and heels and spend my afternoons shadowing a variety of dentists in the local area. Don't get my wrong, I love being in the office and watching my (hopefully) future craft, but after 40 hours of seeing teeth get drilled and filled, one starts to wonder why 100 hours is the minimum amount of shadowing required to apply to dental school. I really enjoy talking to the dentists, however and I've learned a TON spending so much time at a dentist's office. Did you know, for instance, that tongue piercings, unlike ear piercings, never fully heal and instead remain as a constant source for bacteria and infection? Fascinating!
Now for the obscure title of my post.
Moonwalking with Einstein: the Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer is the book that's been assigned to us by Case Western to read before we arrive to the SMDEP program on June 8th. 

In this book, the author chronicles his journey in becoming a USA Memory Championship winner and the tricks and brain exercises that got him there. Although I haven't finished this book yet, I'm really into it. This probably has to do with the fact that my major involves SO MUCH memorization and coming up with ways to clearly remember facts and formulas is golden. 
The number one memory device the author used is called the memory palace. Although it's kind of hard to explain what this is exactly, I'll do my best. A memory palace is a building one can picture perfectly in their mind, whether it be their childhood home or cottage on the lake, and one they can walk through in their mind's eye. Next, the person takes the fact or formula their supposed to remember and associate it with an image. The more obscure, weird, or even raunchy the image is the better. It can be anything; just as long as it allows the person to remember what needs to be recalled. Then the image is placed someplace in the person's memory palace and allowed to be seen when necessary. 
For example, I was answering the DAT question of the day yesterday and realized that I had no idea how to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius. Turns out, you take the number, subtract 32, multiply by 5 and divide by 9. If I were to try and use old-fashioned techniques to remember this random order of operations, I would undoubtedly forget how to do this in a month. However, I used a memory palace in hopes of retaining this information until after I take the DAT this December. I know I'll remember to subtract 32 from the number, (for some reason, probably because 32 is the freezing point of water...) So now in my memory palace, I have a big bee hive buzzing alive with the busy pollinating insects, ("hive" = five) and then the dancers from the movie "Nine" running away from the bees. (Number -32 X 5 / 9)
Time will tell if this technique is effective or not, but these memory champions swear by it. 
Well, I hope I've entertained you, and if not at least taught you something. I promise to keep you updated more often once my program starts and I have interesting things to tell you about!
Until next time,
PJ