Och aye, the McCat is slain.

On Friday, I took that test of all tests, that exhalted exam, that furious final, the rite of passage for millions of let's-go-to-med-school-because-I-don't-want-to-do-research science students around the globe, the MCAT. To be honest, it really wasn't that bad, including the studying. I suppose I can say that now, looking back, after a solid weekend of pretty much nothing but Guitar Hero, fast food, and beer.

I know I "symbolized [my] signature by clicking 'Yes' to the non-disclosure agreement," but there was a random question about oximes (yes, oximes, of all chemicals), and I ----in' NAILED it. Synthesized by hydroxylamine hydrochloride? Yuh-huh.

Sorry. I had to get that out.

However, today I had a scary few hours when I realized that I never clicked "save" during the written portion. I just let time run out. Today, however, my saviour Meg let me know that it automatically saves my answer when I move to the next section. Looks like Andy's movin' up from a J to a K. Ohhh baby.

Anyway, I just read an awesome Scientific American article about the origins of life, and how the RNA world hypothesis probably isn't right. Too tired to post about it right now, but it'll come tomorrow.

Instead of studying . . .

While doing a practice MCAT this weekend, I had to read a Verbal Reasoning passage about the origin of retirement communities during the 60s and 70s. For the most part, it wasn't interesting, but it made a fascinating point early on. It pointed out that until relatively recently, old age and death were not really associated with each other. During the French Revolution, for instance, only about 10% of mortalities occured in people over sixty. About a quarter of all deaths were infants. Thus, as late as the mid-nineteenth century, at the beginnings of modern medicine, no one's mental picture of death included old people, which at least to me, is quite a thought.

Ordinarily, I'd start pontificating at this point, but I have to study.