Goodbye March, Hello Medical School

It's funny how quickly life seems to move when you're not waiting for anything. At the beginning of March, I never thought I'd get through this month. Just about all of the schools I was expecting to hear from planned to release their decisions in March. After almost two years of working towards going to medical school and 4 months of continuous traveling for med school interviews around the country, I was finally going to learn of my medical school fate this March.

I've been extremely lucky in having received so much good news this month, and now I can't believe it's all over. March just flew by so quickly and the hype, the anticipation, and the chase are all over. Part of me is just relieved to now know where I'll be in a few short months, but another part of me is sort of sad that the process is over. Though it was certainly trying and tiring, it was also exciting (and almost fun) to imagine myself attending the various schools I interviewed at, to get to know schools and students across the country, and to just travel. And I can only say that because I've been relatively successful this interview season. I know there are others still waiting for an acceptance at all or have already resigned themselves to just reapplying, and this process for them is hell, at best.

But for me, it's another experience I can tuck away and look back on one day, maybe even fondly. I'll surely be reliving this interview season again in 4 short years, when I apply for residency positions, and I can only hope to be as lucky as I am now. But in the meantime, between these two interview seasons, I get to start the next chapter of my life, in San Francisco, at my most ideal medical school. :)

California, California Here I Come

My post-bac year was rough. I was working at the Joslin Diabetes Center in the mornings and taking Biology, Physics, and Organic Chemistry at night. My only night off from class during the week was Fridays, but every other Friday night, I had to sleep early to get up for Saturday morning Organic Chemistry lab. Most days, I'd only see Lawrence awake at 10PM, after I returned from class and he from lab. We'd finally start making dinner together then. Tired, but happy to see each other, we'd labor over the food on the stove and the dishes in the sink, listening to music. We kept telling each other this would all be worth it. I was going to make it to medical school next year.

Every night, I'd turn to the fridge to get the onions or garlic or soy sauce, and I'd see this random postcard my co-worker had sent me that I hung on the fridge door. On it was an aerial view of the Bay Area, taken from the Pacific Ocean. From a distance, you could see the Golden Gate Bridge connecting Marin County to San Francisco. The water you were over continued under the Golden Gate Bridge and into the distance, where you could see East Bay and the Bay Bridge. I felt calm looking at the sunny landscape on that postcard.

As I would start to chop the garlic or add the soy sauce to the wok, I would dream of making it out to the city on the postcard, and to that most ideal medical school in that city. But I was an out-of-state candidate who probably didn't stand a chance. I would sigh, and Lawrence would know exactly what had gone through my mind. He'd play the cheesy song "California" by Phantom Planet (the theme song of the TV series "The OC"), and tell me that if I made it into UCSF, we could play this song as we crossed the state line into California, lugging in our car all our stuff with us to start our new life in San Francisco. We'd then sing the lyrics at the top of our lungs, almost as prayer to help us make it out there.

Yesterday, one and a half years later, Lawrence played the song again in the early afternoon. But this time, we sang with it in celebration. And instead of my usual onion chopping while I belted the song's lyrics, I danced around the apartment, holding my acceptance letter over my head with both hands, like a trophy.

Thank You, Tilly and the Wall

For the second Saturday night in a row, Lawrence and I were at the Middle East in Central Square for a concert last night. Last weekend, we saw The Mountain Goats. Although they were pretty amazing live, I wasn't too familiar with their songs. So I didn't find myself jumping up and down and singing along as I usually do. Last night, we saw Tilly and the Wall. Though I am only familiar with their 2004 album, the fact that I knew 1/2 of their songs they played made the experience that much more enjoyable for me than The Mountain Goats concert the previous Saturday.

The band was very energetic. They released balloons into the small crowd for tossing around, and I think that got the energy level up in the venue before they even got on stage. All the band members were in bright clothing and jumping around. There were seven people on stage, but perhaps most notable was the tap dancer dressed in a purple tutu keeping the beat for the band! There was also of course a drummer, but he, I think, was outshone by the tap dancer- she was on an elevated platform behind the rest of the band members and next to the drummer. High above the stage, her figure reminded me of the crucifix one sees at the front of Catholic churches by the altar; she stood above the rest in a royal purple, usually with her arms held in a hung fashion as sweat dripped from her face during her constant bouncing up and down from tap dancing, as if trying to breathe. (How's that for Easter imagery!)

One moment of the night was particularly memorable. Lawrence, 3 friends, and I were standing on an elevated part of the floor to the left of the stage that ran along the venue's length back. We were all in the back, but right on the edge of this elevated floor so we had a good view of the rest of the crowd and the band. About 3/4 way through the set, the band gets through their song "Nights of the Living Dead", which ironically (and of course intended by the songwriter) ends with a line "And I feel so alive" repeated several times. The band and crowd's energy reached a crescendo when "And I feel so alive" blasted from the speakers and filled the room. Everyone was jumping around, into, over, and under each other on the main floor. The main singer bounced up and down with the beat. She wore a rainbow colored frilly shirt, where the frills were neon layers of the material girls used in to 80s to make friendship bracelets or tie their hair with, and each layer was a color of the rainbow. With each jump, her frills would rise and fall with her. And while the crowd was jumping, all their arms were raised and moved back and forth in sync with the main singer's jumping.

Watching this all from the back of the venue, not to be cliched, but I literally just felt so alive. I could feel the life in me and all around me. I couldn't have been hit harder over the head with this feeling as I literally was singing along "And I feel so alive", jumping up and down, and just taking it all in.

COLUMBIA!

I can't believe I got in!