Bamboo shoved under my fingernails. Pungee sticks. Being caned. Having that dream where you get to school and then realize you're naked actually happen. Chinese water torture.
Above is a list of things I prefer to Christmas Shopping. First of all, I abhor crowds. Nature abhors a vacuum- as far as people are concerned, I LOVE a vacuum. The only thing worse than being in a huge crowd of people is being in a huge crowd of shopping people. So let's discuss shoppers.
They are inconsiderate. If you've ever seen the movie The Deer Hunter, where Christopher Walken's character becomes something less than human by being forced to participate in a game of Russian roulette, you might know what I'm talking about. You take a normal human being and put them in a mall where they may or may not find what they want, and they instantly devolve to something primal and horrifying.
If the troglodytic nature of Christmas shoppers were the only problem, however, it wouldn't be a big deal to go Christmas shopping. A little bit of faith and a whole lot of self-affirmation goes a long way toward helping one survive a Friday afternoon at the mall in December. The real problem is that not only are these people crazed, beastly shoppers during the Holidays- most of them are "mall-people" year round anyhow. Mall-people are the bane of my existence, the fly in my ointment, the Serpent in my Eden. It's become vogue to talk about how commercial Christmas has become, but does anyone really feel that strongly about it? I don't think so. Most of those people you hear chatting about the evils of commercialism around the water cooler in December spend hours every week the rest of the year at the mall happily plugging quarters into the machine.
Don't misunderstand me here. I do buy Christmas presents, because that's what's expected. Maybe I'm a hypocrite. I spend lots of time every Fall/Winter cruising the stores looking for just the right present for every one on my list. I do it with chills running down my spine and sweat forming on my brow. The sweat comes from nervousness about impressing people because I got just the right thing. The chills come from being forced to sweat about it. Is this the prize of our brutally fought for free-market economy? The ability to spend money has replaced the instinct to show real human sentiment?
Friday, December 7, 2007
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Med School: The Ultimate Roundhouse Kick to the Head
So it's been a while since I've posted anything, but I've been stressing, fretting, sweating, and having nightmares about medical school admissions for the last several weeks. I interviewed at three different medical schools in October: Brown University, Case Western University, and the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. I've been put on the waiting list at Brown and Case; I got accepted at the MD-PhD program at UTMB but turned it down because I'm not sure the MD-PhD is really the direction I want to go.
Do you have any idea how stressful it is to turn down a GREAT career opportunity because you feel like something that's a better fit might come down the line? I feel sometimes like I might have made the biggest mistake of my life. Of course I'll only feel that way until I get accepted somewhere else...oh yeah of little faith, right? Well, I don't exactly feel super confident after being wait-listed at two places (it's really just a nice way of saying no, right? Like saying "no thanks" instead of "aw hell no"). Plus, no other schools have even pretended to be interested. I'd really like to go to Colorado, but talking to them, they make you feel like they couldn't care less. I scored a 37Q on the MCAT! I've got a 3.84 GPA! I've done a lot of research! I'm a good person!!! What's wrong with me that I can't get in while morons all around me are getting accepted elsewhere?
I promise this will be my only rant about medical schools. Unless someone else interviews me and wait-lists me, then the floodgates may really open; nay, the dams will burst and I won't be able to hold my tongue. There's got to be a better way to do this.
On a lighter note, I'm trying to learn to fly fish. Fly fishing seems like a truly masculine art to me, one in which bearded Herculean giants can participate and not feel at all ashamed like they might as ballerinos. I've always enjoyed the arts, and I've always enjoyed the outdoors- fly fishing is the perfect marriage of those two passions. While I'm no Picasso out there on the water yet, in fact I've only been once, I hope to reach the point where I can feel the artistry in the way the rod sways and the line dances. Or at least, I hope to someday be good enough that others on the river will say, "You know, fly fishing seems like a truly masculine art to me." I wonder if Da Vinci's goal with a painting was every simply to inspire others to want to paint. How altruistic of me.
Do you have any idea how stressful it is to turn down a GREAT career opportunity because you feel like something that's a better fit might come down the line? I feel sometimes like I might have made the biggest mistake of my life. Of course I'll only feel that way until I get accepted somewhere else...oh yeah of little faith, right? Well, I don't exactly feel super confident after being wait-listed at two places (it's really just a nice way of saying no, right? Like saying "no thanks" instead of "aw hell no"). Plus, no other schools have even pretended to be interested. I'd really like to go to Colorado, but talking to them, they make you feel like they couldn't care less. I scored a 37Q on the MCAT! I've got a 3.84 GPA! I've done a lot of research! I'm a good person!!! What's wrong with me that I can't get in while morons all around me are getting accepted elsewhere?
I promise this will be my only rant about medical schools. Unless someone else interviews me and wait-lists me, then the floodgates may really open; nay, the dams will burst and I won't be able to hold my tongue. There's got to be a better way to do this.
On a lighter note, I'm trying to learn to fly fish. Fly fishing seems like a truly masculine art to me, one in which bearded Herculean giants can participate and not feel at all ashamed like they might as ballerinos. I've always enjoyed the arts, and I've always enjoyed the outdoors- fly fishing is the perfect marriage of those two passions. While I'm no Picasso out there on the water yet, in fact I've only been once, I hope to reach the point where I can feel the artistry in the way the rod sways and the line dances. Or at least, I hope to someday be good enough that others on the river will say, "You know, fly fishing seems like a truly masculine art to me." I wonder if Da Vinci's goal with a painting was every simply to inspire others to want to paint. How altruistic of me.
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