Sunday, August 17, 2008

The night before

Orientation starts tomorrow. Pre orientation has allowed befriending and partying, but I'm not feeling overly prepared for tomorrow. Drinking and socializing constantly seems a strange starting point for a career traditionally regarded as stressful and isolating. Maybe the experts are wrong...It is surreal that my life as a medical student is beginning. I suppose it will still be quite a while before I feel as though I am actually becoming a physician.

I don't have anything else, mostly just wanting to mark the occasion for myself. To the general public: watch out for the new short coats in the next few days, we don't know anything.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Welcome to the jungle

Ok, so I really haven't started anything, so this is a premature post. The real jungle doesn't start for a couple of weeks. My new classmates and I have spent most of our time being lost in the city and finding places to drink. Not exactly the intense studying I've been warned of. Returning to the dorms has been awesome so far. I'm happy with my room and realize how much I have missed having no commute time. Boston seems to be a great city. In the limited time I have spent here, the local culture has been intoxicating. The sharp accents and compulsory use of the word fuck is quite charming. Today myself and some classmates were pulled over while doing community service because they thought we were soliciting the locals. The locals ooze character. Now if I could stop spending so much money on food and booze...

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Everything will change

I often entertain ideas that human beings were not meant to live in the modern world we have created. This is certainly not an original notion, but it is a particularly intimate feeling for me as I pack for medical school.

Humanity has thrived due in large part to circumstances of group dynamics and family structure. Evolution has taught every living species to value group survival over all else. We are innately social beings meant to attach great meaning to our relationships. Our tv, movies, books, stories, and fabels are packed with stories of heroes sacrificing self for the greater good. I have little doubt that these thoughts of heroism encircle the thoughts of many premeds. After all, many doctors are portrayed as selfless heroes in media and motion picture.

Why then, do I feel like I the path to medical education has led to putting myself above all else in many situations? I haven't lived anywhere near any family members for over six years. My infrequent visits are often marked by the inability to relate to those so close. To many family members, I am the smart kid who they don't really know and seems a bit aloof. I am unable to discuss my job or exactly why I am doing what I am doing. I scoff at family members when they refer to how many years it will be before I get to do what I want to do. They don't seem to understand that education is what I want to do.

Now, as I finally achieve goals a lifetime in the making, I don't see many around me to celebrate with. I will not have a close friend within 300 miles. All personal relationships have ended and I feel alone. I know that I will soon be living and learning among amazing people whom will become commrades. But what of those amazing people who are now in the past? The past 6 years have been a circuit of becoming immeasurably close to people, only to lose them when it came time to chase the goals. Is this the plan? Should this be normal? Or am I caught up in archaic emotions which have become unnecessary for survival of the fittest? Does being able to disband myself from loved ones make me strong, or vapid? I am so emotionally tired.

I don't question what I want to do. I know that medicine is the career that will fulfill me. I question the methods of achieving it. I question American morals. I question myself.

Kafka often related the contridictory life of an artist in his writings. In his efforts to describe and capture the nature of humanity and his attachment to it, Kafka found himself alienated from that which he held so dear. It seems physicians often undergo the same cycle. We fight and claw to achieve the position which we believe will allow us to most closely connect whith those around us. In this process, I think many lose touch and become separated from the common man and from those around us. That being said, Kafka understood more than I ever will and contributed more than most ever will. It is this hope that I cling to, the hope of making a contribution.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Home

I am making my last stand. My last stand just happens to be letting my parents stuff me with food. I collapse into the same rut every time I come home. There's nothing I want to do at home and my parents aquire some sort of anxiety about not doing something every second that I am here. Something usually ends up being eating. I am helpless to resist. So I will be taking an extra ten pounds to school with me...just the impression I want to make on classmates and faculty.

I am certainly one of those people who loves family from afar. I miss them and wish I could play a bigger role in the lives of my family, but when I am actually around them I become frustrated. My convictions and ways of thinking are foreign to my family. I find myself going into a mental coma when I am around my family for too long. This is of no fault to them, I am just so different. I find myself chewing fucking ice or sleeping a lot. My family will always have a divergent effect from anything else in my life.

The coming reality of med school still seems far away. I am at the edge of the cliff, but I can't see it. I'm not worried, stressed or even excited. I've just accepted it as a reality that hasn't come to pass. Maybe this will change when I get on campus. I'm looking forward to meeting new people, but that isn't what I am doing med school for. Maybe I am just in a circle of denial that all of the effort and worry in getting here is over. Maybe I'm just a fucking douche. I just don't feel as though my life is about to change, even though I know it is. I've never been one for epiphanies, though. I need some inspiration, somehow I think the people who I will soon be around will provide plenty.