Like my life, my education after high school had very little focus.  For 13 years I think I actually studied a little bit of everything I could study.  Yes, I did say 13 years and no, it did not take me that long to get a degree.  I actually have a few of them.  My collegiate existence came about in 1998; 17 fucking years ago.  Damn I’m old.  It started in the country’s snowiest city, at one of my top choice schools: Syracuse University.  To this day, I bleed ORANGE, but my love for ‘Cuse basketball will have to be addressed in a later post.  I just have too much passion for the sport to give it just a few sentences.

How I digress… back to school.  I was a communications major at Syracuse.  I was going to be the next Don Draper at a time when no one knew who Don Draper was (if you still don’t know who that is, watch some Mad Men.  The show is incredible).  I was so sure of myself when I was 18.  I was going to be a creative copy writer and work in advertising in NYC.  I was going to be a smart ass and get paid for it.  Please… my dream job.  Then I got bored…

I left Syracuse in 2001 (for reasons I will bring up in my post about my love for college sports) and finished school in my home town of Worcester.  Clark was good to me.  I had already had the credits to complete a communications degree there, so I was able to study whatever I wanted and I did.  From geography to television, I couldn’t get enough, but it was a Biology class that changed my life.  Science and math always came easy to me, but it was at Clark, when I first found the sciences fascinating.  I excelled in classes and wanted to learn more, but my 4 years was up.  I graduated from Clark in 2002 with a B.A. in Communications and Studio Arts.  I got a job working for a local Worcester paper, in their advertising department, doing everything I thought I wanted to do and then I got bored…

After a year of ad work, I enrolled in a Chemistry class at Worcester State College.  I fucking LOVED it.  The following semester, just for fun, I enrolled in Chem II, Bio I, and Physics I.   Before I realized it, I was working 2 jobs, going to school full time, and half way through a premed degree.  Holy shit.  I couldn’t get enough.  By the time I finished anatomy I & II, I was hooked.  Completely mesmerized by science, I declared my major and was setting my sites on medical school.  I had an endless amount of support from family, friends, professors, and even my bar regulars.  I worked my ass off.  I slept just a few hours a night and homework took over my life.  I didn’t care.  I had a goal.  In 2009, I graduated from WSC with high honors, receiving a B.S. in both Biology and Chemistry.  I even left my advertising job to work in clinical research at UMass and I wasn’t bored…

I started the medical school application processes when I finished my degree, but great grades, a decent essay, and a rocking’ MCAT score wasn’t enough to get me in.  So… i went back to school.  In late 2009, while working 2 jobs, I started a full time track towards a Masters in Public Health at UMass Medical.  My life was full of statistics, scientific studies, and the fine line between what is ethical and what isn’t.  Again, I excelled in my course work.  I began tutoring UMass medical students in Biostats and became the courses TA.  When I was in class, doctors were my peers, sitting right next to me, doing the same homework, working just as hard.  They became amazing advisors to me, telling me about their medical journeys, the good and the bad, and by the time I finished my MPH, I no longer wanted to go to medical school.  Not sending those applications was one of the hardest decisions of my life.  I had worked for so long and spent my entire 20s in a book and I wasn’t going to follow through.  I didn’t want to be a doctor though.  I just loved the education behind being a doctor.  I had to come to terms with that.

It is now 2015 and I am an Epidemiologist working to an HIV clinic in Worcester and I’m bored…

I’ve been out of school for about 3 years now and I am realizing that learning is my favorite thing to do.  I miss school.  So, if anyone out there knows how I can get paid a ton of money to be a full time student, please let me know because, right now, I’m bored.

Just like my life, this blog will have a colossal lack of focus.  I’m an Epidemiologist who wants to open up a bakery.  Really?

I have spent the last 15 years studying and experiencing food, spirit, genetics, crafting, statistics, design, travel, and growth.  Rather than zooming in on simply one of these areas, I thought I would use them all to tell you how I ended up me; dancing around somewhere between the right and left hemisphere of my brain, trying to figure out which side makes me happier.  And until I figure it out, I just take it all in and roll with it.

Other than my obnoxious level of sarcasm, Baking Booze & Biochemistry will have photography, art, food, stories, and the complete DIY renovation of Brian’s house.

Enjoy