There’s a new look here at the blog! I had a spur of the moment burst of energy and inspiration and decided to channel that into the long, arduous process that is coding a custom WordPress layout. There are several things I did with this layout that I wanted to try out:

1. Using custom fonts! I used this quick and easy tutorial by the lovely Jenny to replace all <h1> tags and the page menu with a font I’ve been in love with recently – District Thin. I really love how it turned out!
2. Integrating Lifestream. I’ve been wanting to integrate the Lifestream Plugin for a while now, but I never got around to it. Unfortunately for me, there’s still some kinks that need to be worked out — the Lifestream page only seems to look right in Internet Explorer (that’s a first!!) and is giving me problems in Chrome and Firefox. I haven’t checked Safari, but I’m assured by Marjorie that it looks right. Anyone know why? :(

I spent 7 or 8 hours straight from 9 at night to 5 in the morning completing the look (from designing to coding), and despite all the frustrations WordPress gives me, I was really happy while doing it. (Does that make me sound like a coding masochist? Hahahaha.) I think all in all, I’ve accomplished what I wanted to do with the look — something simple and clean. On the downside, I thought there was originally too much yellow going on (namely links), so I made entry links and sidebar links different colors. I’m not sure if it looks weird or not.

Other news: got my MCAT score about a month ago, but I never got around to updating about my road to medical school. Despite walking out of the testing center feeling severely discouraged, I was happy to find that my real score was an accurate reflection of my AAMC diagnostic averages — even though I only took two practice tests! It was actually my second time taking the exam (the first being right after summer in September), so my advice to those who are in the same boat would be:

• If you plan on taking an August or September MCAT, seriously prepare during the summer. I think this was my biggest problem the first time around. Because I had 2 and a half months prepare for a 5 hour test, I severely underestimated the MCAT monster — it probably didn’t also help that I have a really really bad procrastination habit. I took the exam knowing that I wasn’t fully prepared, and while I didn’t do horribly for Texas standards, I did horribly compared to my own.
• Know what your weaknesses are, and fix them. The Physical Sciences section was my Achilles’ heel. So the second time around, I bought books known to be the best preparer for that section and drilled myself for my second examination. Reading through material isn’t enough to do well on the MCAT — you must know your information, and then you must know how to use that information. There’s a fine distinction between the two.
• Take those practice tests how you would on your actual examination date! That means no longer than 10 minute breaks, and no pausing during your actual diagnostics. When I took practice tests, I found myself really tired between the Physical Sciences and Verbal Reasoning sections, so I decided to prepare a snack to eat during the break between the two. I also found out that I tend to lose concentration during the Biological Sciences section because it’s the last part of the test (FREEDOM!!), so I was actively telling myself to focus during all exams.
• Don’t take the exam until you have been hitting your goal score. Probably my second biggest problem. I knew that I hadn’t been hitting my personal goal, and I took the September test anyways. Not my brightest moment.

The biggest difference in preparing for my first September administration and my second March administration was that I didn’t take all that information into account. Taking diagnostics upon diagnostics without actually taking the time to seriously review doesn’t help — in preparing for the September test, I probably took a total of 13 practice tests. I scored lower on the September test than on the March test, even though I had only taken 2 practice tests before the March administration. Moral of the story? Be active in preparing, work hard, and you’ll do well.