Only a little longer...

Only two exams, some packing, and a five hour drive stand between me and two weeks of home cooking, family, and lots of holiday-type (am I allowed to say Christmas?) cheer. This is my last night Gustavus this term, and it will be a doozy. I'm on duty until midnight tonight, I have to wade through some 30 pages of Ovid (in Latin, not English), and my two (not just one) papers that accompany my 100-point sociology final have yet to be started.

So, in an obvious Boyum move, I have agreed to a Mario Kart tournament tonight at around 7:30. I just can't say no to ambiguously gay Italian-American plumbers.

Okay that last part came out wrong. But it shows how secure I am in my masculinity that I didn't erase it. PS. I watched the Vikings game yesterday. PPS. I leave the toilet seat up.

The guys and I have started talking about Spring Break. And by "the guys and I" talking, I mean that Dhiraj and I mentioned it when we were eating dinner tonight. Right now it seems the decision will be between a flight to Mexico (e.g. Cancun or Mazatlan) or a road trip, or a road trip to Mexico. I guess I'll see what materializes.

Still nothing re. med schools. I really am going to call Baylor if I don't hear by the end of the week. Don't they know they're killing me?

I sit down to write...

For the first time in a while, I'm sitting down to write. I'm not only writing on my blog, but I'm going to take some time to work on my play, which starts with two men talking about typewriters in a department store. Sounds like a good one. *(|:^ | <-- this guy needs a hat because it's cold outside.

But now for the blog:

On a positive note, my two finals that I've taken have gone really well. The P Chem final was surprisingly simple - there was only one question I wasn't sure about. Turns out I did it right. I was the first one out of the exam, which made me a little nervous (I'm not the fastest test taker in the world). Maybe I missed a few pages or something. Then again, I did study quite a bit, and actually read the book, so that helped. My religion final was pretty easy, and I didn't need to do fantastic on it in order to get the A, so psshhtt... (that's my flippant, egotistical scoff)

I haven't heard from Baylor, which leads me to believe that the decision isn't as I had hoped. At least I should be able to find out my position on their ranked waiting list on Monday when I give them a call, if I'm even on it. That's somewhat disappointing; at least I still have Yale, Mayo, and (maybe) MCW and OHSU left to go. I can't screw them all up so badly that I don't get in anywhere, can I? (Oh no. The beginning of the end here, folks.)

Come January I will begin looking for stopgap "positive experiences" to explore between June and next fall when I would apply again to medical school. I've been advised not to do Teach for America (it's 2 years). And I think the advice was solid, so I'm going with that. I have a friend who did Americorp in the Twin Cities for a year working at a free clinic. That would be good experience and would give me the chance to work with a population that I care a lot about. I have decided not to apply for the NIH research fellowship I was thinking about - I just don't think that bench research is what I want to do for a year. I have thought about getting in touch with the Sioux Lookout Diabetes Program to see if they have any positions available for next year and if there's any way I could do that being from the States. Otherwise, I have to get in touch with the career center.

I can't believe that everything I've worked so hard to achieve seems to be slipping away. It's kind of depressing. I shouldn't jump to any conclusions yet (I mean, I don't even have the doormat), but it's hard knowing that (a) I'm going to be leaving Gustavus in 5 months no matter what, (b) I will have to be somewhere, doing something, and (c) that (b) is as definite as I can be about my future. I've really invested so much in medicine that I can't think of doing anything else, and I don't think that I could be passionate about anything else.

So, at this point, I guess the word is "Wait and See." I guess I'm just not expecting as much as I was earlier on. Humbled, maybe you could say.

---
"Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you got
'til it's gone?"

'Big Yellow Taxi' by Counting Crows
---

The Best Laid Schemes...

Well, today was the day. Here's how it was supposed to happen.

1. I was supposed to wake up.

2. I was supposed to call the UMD medical school and thank them for accepting me to their 2006 entering class.

3. I was supposed to be finally free of fear that next year will come and I'll be sitting in my parents' basement sipping Coke and playing Madden football until my eyes glaze over.

The first one happened. The last two didn't.

On the other hand, I did get an email from Mayo telling me to come to Rochester for an on-campus interview and tour. I guess I should be happy that I have options open at other med schools. And I -am- on the waiting list at UMD, or will be in April. So it's not a total waste of ... my life.

Also, briefly because I have to run in a few minutes, I talked with a recruiter for Teach for America today. It sounds like a great program, and I'm at least going to apply for that and see -- my backup plan to medicine is teaching, anyway, so can't go wrong there.

Well, that's my day.

It Begins...

OK. My last post was a while ago. So I'm taking 5-10 minutes to write a post while I'm sitting in the Wash U Med School library. Aren't I dedicated?

So, what have I been up to, my loyal followers ask. Well, I spent Thanksgiving at home, with a stopover in Duluth on the day before for an interview at the UMD med school. Then, I went off to Houston, TX, for an interview at Baylor. Now I'm in St Louis at Wash U. They're all really good schools (UMD more focused on primary care - family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics), and all of them definitely have had their own personalities.

More about that later, I suppose.

Can't wait to see where I end up next year.

Can you?