Residency

I think I know what residency feels like.

Two nights ago I went to bed at 1 AM and was at a meeting by 8:00 the next morning. Last night I went to sleep at 3 AM and was in the lab by 7:00 today. I had to leave a message on the chalkboard in the tutoring room that I had run to the cafeteria to get some food so that I could eat tonight.

And I have a lab report due tomorrow that I have only barely started. (I got 14/20 on the first one, so I need to do just a little bit better... just a little.)

On the flip side, this morning and afternoon I had some great conversations. Three things:

First, I met with the chapel vicar this morning to talk about New Haven, Yale-New Haven Hospital, and med school in general. She's a really awesome person, and gave me a lot of great advice. She also has a friend from Yale Divinity that works in the chaplaincy at YNHH, and if I get an interview she's going to put me in contact with her to tour the hospital when I go. A Gustie is at YSM now as well, so I now will have that contact. Incredibly sweet.

Second, I met with Raj, the head of the Diversity Center at Gustavus. He has some students for me to tutor who aren't really comfortable coming to the larger sessions the chem department puts on. I'm now tutoring in three separate settings. The more the merrier, I guess. I'm starting to get a big head.

Last but not least, I watched the Q&A session to one of the Nobel talks today, the one about ethics/morality and science. Of course, the presenter's (George Ellis's) British accent helped. Surprisingly antagonistic was science writer Thomas Levenson. He was actually (I can't believe it) arguing that human life and consciousness was meaningless, in his words no more important than any other physical process in the universe. Most important to him, of course, was the process by which the sound from his mouth was ingratiating the hearer with his bullshit. While his statement was true at one level -- i.e. life and consciousness are biological, chemical, physical processes -- at another level his is the precise kind of statement that led Einstein (whose discoveries were honored at this conference) to shirk pacifism when Hitler came to power.

Suprisingly helpful to Ellis was string theorist (now my new favorite) James Sylvester Gates (aka Jim). I can't remember his exact words, but Gates said that science is a "helpless optimism." He said that all scientists wrestle with the nagging suspicion that what they are investigating is meaningless. Some questions that he asks he will never know the answer to in his lifetime. But, scientists always hope that one of their ideas might mean something entirely significant to someone down the line. Science is like a "message in a bottle" we send into the future. I have to read his (non-technical) introduction to superstring theory sometime.

George Ellis was good too, and really reminded me of Tim Ingold, my anthropology professor at Aberdeen in his eloquence. Something he said that I entirely agreed with: the reason that science is "scary" to people is that some fundamentalist scientists make it so. They claim that science entirely does away with any ethical or moral system (he included Richard Dawkins in this group, which got me on his side quickly). That forces religious people to totally abandon science if they buy into their arguments.

Thats it.

The Nobel Conference

Practical note: I have to, unfortunately, undo the comments section again because of all the shameless advertising that's going on there. Don't know how to fix it, so it's best to throw it away, right?

Whew. I'm just about done with med school secondaries today. I got the Yale application sent today, and I'm sitting down Wednesday morning with the chapel vicar, who graduated from Yale Divinity School, so that I can learn a little bit about Connecticut and the University. Considering that my experience with New England consists of visiting Harvard and Princeton a few summers ago, it might be good to know what I'm signing up for. I suppose it's a little different than Minnesota. Doesn't mean I have to become a Patriots fan, though.

As the title suggests, the Nobel Conference is starting at Gustavus. Tomorrow at 10:00 the lectures start, and I believe the first one is by Wolfgang Ketterle, a recent Nobel laureate in physics. I plan on attending, just to see how much I can understand. My physical chemistry professor had one of the speakers when she was at Cal Tech, and she says he's an incredible speaker.

Since 99% of Gustavus students don't attend the conference (as opposed to only 76% who drive sober) tonight will be hell in the residence halls. I plan on staying in the library doing chemistry until at least midnight to avoid it, just because I really can't deal with it tonight. Between all the things that are stressing me out right now, I just don't want to babysit. Is that so wrong?

At any rate, I hope to get something out of the conference this year, since I haven't gone in two years. Gotta run for tonight, but I expect I should be able to post during the next couple of nights. Thanks to everyone who's stuck with Boyumblog.

Highs and Lows

This has definitely been a week of highs and lows.

Monday our group lost all of our lab data after we spent 2 hours on MathCad. We were lucky to be able to finish up with another group instead of starting again from scratch, but I still have a lot of work to put into it, which probably means that I won't get to the Nobel lectures this week.

The U of M sent me my supplemental application letter September 8th, and has been the only school to attach a deadline to their application. In this case, today-- September 25th. I didn't get the letter right away because it went to my house instead of my school address. So by the time I got it, I only had about 2 weeks to get it done. And, of course, because I didn't have anything better to do than a med school application during that time (like, say, homework?) I should have gotten it to them early, I suppose. But, it's still not done, and even though I emailed and called the admissions office to let them know this on Friday, no one answered. My friend Katie said she got an extension on hers, but that the guy said if she hadn't they would have destroyed her application on the 26th... i.e., tomorrow, morning. I'm really sick of the U, and it has dropped from 3rd-4th on my list of schools I'd like to go to to dead last. At the same time, the U is one of two or three schools I know I can get into, and if something should go wrong at the other two, it would be nice to have a school to fall back on. Oh well, I guess I'll see what happens.

Also, as I said before, one of my good friends Nick is being sent to Iraq as a field medic. That is, he will be on the very front lines. I saw him Friday at the chemistry club barbeque, and it was really obvious that he is -- as anyone would be -- annoyed and probably scared by it. He said that lately he's been making his classes every day and doing all of his homework, as well as continuing with his extra curricular activities. He says it makes him forget that he's leaving. -- The dilemma is that he's not 21, and at his going away party he's going to have alcohol; this means that if I go to it, I have a chance of losing my job with Residential Life because I know they'll be serving minors. But if I don't go, I might not see him again, because he won't be starting again until at least Fall 2006.

I'm having a really hard time with all that. I'm mad about the war. I can't believe the American military didn't have a better plan to get our soldiers out after Saddam fell.

And, I feel terrible griping about my own problems when a great guy like Nick is going into a situation like that.

On a positive note, our Chapel Apprentices meeting went really well. I was almost able to forget about all of this crap. We went to the UMN landscape gardens in Chaska and just walked the grounds, talked about the year, and did some skill inventories. It was really a great, relaxing day.

I had a practice med school interview with the health professions advisor on Thursday, as well. That was the first time I've felt on top of med school application process in a long time... since June. I hope to get the last of my secondaries done tonight, so that all I have to worry about is getting recommendation letters sent out.

I suppose life will go on.

Highs and Lows

This has definitely been a week of highs and lows.

Monday our group lost all of our lab data after we spent 2 hours on MathCad. We were lucky to be able to finish up with another group instead of starting again from scratch, but I still have a lot of work to put into it, which probably means that I won't get to the Nobel lectures this week.

The U of M sent me my supplemental application letter September 8th, and has been the only school to attach a deadline to their application. In this case, today-- September 25th. I didn't get the letter right away because it went to my house instead of my school address. So by the time I got it, I only had about 2 weeks to get it done. And, of course, because I didn't have anything better to do than a med school application during that time (like, say, homework?) I should have gotten it to them early, I suppose. But, it's still not done, and even though I emailed and called the admissions office to let them know this on Friday, no one answered. My friend Katie said she got an extension on hers, but that the guy said if she hadn't they would have destroyed her application on the 26th... i.e., tomorrow, morning. I'm really sick of the U, and it has dropped from 3rd-4th on my list of schools I'd like to go to to dead last. At the same time, the U is one of two or three schools I know I can get into, and if something should go wrong at the other two, it would be nice to have a school to fall back on. Oh well, I guess I'll see what happens.

Also, as I said before, one of my good friends Nick is being sent to Iraq as a field medic. That is, he will be on the very front lines. I saw him Friday at the chemistry club barbeque, and it was really obvious that he is -- as anyone would be -- annoyed and probably scared by it. He said that lately he's been making his classes every day and doing all of his homework, as well as continuing with his extra curricular activities. He says it makes him forget that he's leaving. -- The dilemma is that he's not 21, and at his going away party he's going to have alcohol; this means that if I go to it, I have a chance of losing my job with Residential Life because I know they'll be serving minors. But if I don't go, I might not see him again, because he won't be starting again until at least Fall 2006.

I'm having a really hard time with all that. I'm mad about the war. I can't believe the American military didn't have a better plan to get our soldiers out after Saddam fell.

And, I feel terrible griping about my own problems when a great guy like Nick is going into a situation like that.

On a positive note, our Chapel Apprentices meeting went really well. I was almost able to forget about all of this crap. We went to the UMN landscape gardens in Chaska and just walked the grounds, talked about the year, and did some skill inventories. It was really a great, relaxing day.

I had a practice med school interview with the health professions advisor on Thursday, as well. That was the first time I've felt on top of med school application process in a long time... since June. I hope to get the last of my secondaries done tonight, so that all I have to worry about is getting recommendation letters sent out.

I suppose life will go on.

Back.

There was about a week's lag there, during which I learned two things:

(1) that my friend Nick, a student here at Gustavus, is being called to active National Guard duty in "southwest Asia" -- aka Iraq (and Iran?).

(2) that my name is not in the U of M's list of medical school applicants.

Neither of these things made me very happy, to be honest.

I haven't had any really profound conclusions recently. I've been too busy to think, actually. My first real free time has been a walk back from volunteering at the pound today.

Finally, a note from Petronius, from The Dinner of Trimalchio: "Alas for us sad people, all of that which the human being is is nothing. Thus we all shall be, after death carries us off. Therefore let us live, while it is allowed us to be happy."

Translation...

We met our new sociology prof today. Her name is Ryan Rae Sheppard, though it used to be something else. She told the story today about how during her years doing odd jobs for low wages she spent days telemarketing, giving customers alternate names that she was considering replacing hers with. I found the whole idea incredibly cool, especially because I was considering a similar theme for the one-act I have started to write. I think I might include part of her story in it. Ah, we'll see, I guess.

Today's post is short because something came up tonight. Sorry to anyone who's still reading this.

Busy Weekend

This weekend has been busy, but in a good way. I've gotten a lot done. Most of it has been schoolwork, so I won't bore anyone about that. I saw Shain and Bri on Saturday for lunch. That was pretty cool. I watched a terrible movie on Friday night but I was with friends so it was all good. I got "moved in" at the lab most of Saturday. Today was the floor program we put together as RA's. We watched the officials steal two touchdowns from the Vikings and make them lose.

Tonight I've got quite a bit of reading to do, and I work until 10:00. It would be nice to get more than a few hours of sleep tonight; that I slept almost all day Thursday (I don't have classes on Thursday) showed me that I haven't been getting enough.

But, the past two months have been one of those times when there is a never-ending list of things to do.

I need to get the rest of my supplemental applications done in the next few days. I was going to get them done this weekend, but... well, it didn't happen. The problem I've been having is that I want to be somewhat motivated at the time I'm filling them out. And that hasn't happened most days in the past ... well ... six weeks, because I've had very little free time and been under a lot of stress. I guess that's not really an excuse but it's better than saying that I just haven't felt like doing them.

At times I wonder whether becoming a doctor is worth all of this busy work.

Grand Ideas...

During a training course I had a week or so ago that dealt with loss and bereavement, the college Chaplain said something that I found extremely insightful for my own life. She told us that as people get older they begin to realize that many things they at one time dreamed of doing they are no longer feasibly able to do.

At one level, I think that her point of view makes sense. Personally, I believe that at no point does a dreamer have the ability to realize but a tiny fraction of his dreams. Time hasn't somehow sapped enough of my potential to preclude me from succeeding in several areas; instead, I have to conclude that experience has shown me that many of my dreams were foolish and unattainable to begin with. Most of them, actually, were mutually exclusive.

What's the point? I have to start setting realistic goals for myself. At the same time, I have to stop expecting myself to surpass those goals and, on the other hand, be content with and excited about achieving those lesser victories.

I have to admit that most of these thoughts have come about because of medical school applications. Of course, getting into medical school has been my goal. No, actually, getting into a -good- medical school has been my goal. I actually applied to over 5 schools that I'm pretty sure I can't get into just because they have impressive names. Guess I didn't learn the futility of that during the undergrad process.

I think that my Lutheran background has taught me to fear being happy. Lutherans are never supposed to "arrive" at anything; instead, we're always supposed to be journeying towards some goal. That's why I can't admit that I have reached my goal; instead, I have to set it higher. Before I got my MCAT results, I just wanted to get into a medical school. After I found out I did pretty well and therefore have a pretty good chance for a spot at the U of M or UMD, suddenly I felt I had to be accepted to a private medical school with a certain student demographic.

There are other examples, of course, but most are too private for a blog. All in all, I need to try to be happier.

A Slightly More Regular Boyumblog

This being senior year of college for me, I suppose it's time to start reflecting on some of the things I have learned during this whole "transition into adulthood" thing. I suppose that's really what a blog is all about, anyway--to think in a semi-public, semi-private way.

That being the case, I'm going to try to post something here at least once a week. I'm not promising much; it might be an experience I have had, a random thought, or -- what's always fun to read about -- some venting. Also, because of the change in raison d'etre of the blog, I'm going to stop allowing comments. You can always email me if you want (eboyum@gac.edu). But the main point is for me to be able to look back on what I've written later.

The past two weeks I've been at Gustavus for CF training. A "CF" is an RA at a college where nothing is allowed to be the same as at any other. Our spring break is always three to four full weeks after everyone else's in the country, we have shorter semesters and a "J-term," the College does not believe in "credit hours." Freshman Comp has given way to the "First Term Seminar." We have a "writing across the curriculum" program that requires professors in all subject areas -- from English to math -- to teach students how to write. Some do better than others.

CF training went well, but 10-14 hour days of learning college policy are never fun. As my sociology professor pointed out this morning, the College seems "fluid" in enforcing some major offenses and Draconically enforce minor ones. I could give examples, but that would be breaching confidentiality, and for it I might be sent a mean letter by the Dean warning me that my free cable will be reduced by one channel. On the other hand, at least I didn't leave trash in my bin over summer break, which could have led to a $50 fine.

I don't mean to sound like this is something peculiar to Gustavus. Is legislating whether homosexuals can "marry" or only "unite" really more important than passing the homeland security budget? To medical school admissions committees, doesn't someone's reason for wanting to be a doctor supercede their reasons for wanting to become a medical student? Yet, both parties have always supported the politicking game, and the AMCAS application still demands that students explain "why they want to go to medical school."

I saw a neat advertisement this morning. Its premise was that John Roberts, Bush's first Supreme Court nominee, does not believe in the right to privacy because he opposes abortion and therefore can't be trusted to uphold the Constitution. However, since when has privacy been an issue in the abortion debate? Remember last year's "I've had an abortion" t-shirts? Folks, we're not being honest with ourselves. We believe in certain things but either we don't know why, or we're embarrassed enough by our reasons that we are hesitant to share them.

Honesty. That's what all this comes down to. I think that, at a fundamental level, American (and perhaps other countries') society, the entire higher education system, and many individuals themselves are dishonest -- about their rules, about their priorities, about themselves.