Acoustical Sightings

The title of this entry is an oxymoron which have been successful in drawing your attention towards my ramblings of the day. Even now, my inappropriate conjugation of the verb "to have" has pulled you deeper and deeper into my sticky web of shibboleths (no, that's actually a real word).

But whatever.

Now that we're on the subject of excellent movies (see previous post, Arnold and Me), I'd like to draw everyone's attention to some recent sightings around campus that have gotten me quite giddy.

While out on a stroll, you may be lucky enough to come across a man playing his guitar. His specific location on campus seems to be highly variable, but I implore you to consider looking both high and low in your quest to find him. The search itself is not unlike "Where's Waldo?" except much, much easier because you'll be able to hear him if you're close. Also, you've got it pretty easy because he doesn't have a tendency to hide out at large conventions which span the temporal spectrum from the prehistoric to the metallic future, and where people stand very close together and wear curiously similar red and white striped shirts which, I can only imagine, is utterly "coincidental." The man has, however, been known to hide out among bushes, in trees, or upon some Allegheny art, which are all sanctuaries eerily similar to those of the guitar guy in "There's Something About Mary."

Happy searching.

Arnold and Me

My family and friends have often asked me what it's like to be applying to medical school. I tend to meet their question with a generic response which, in terms of thoughtfulness and depth, lies somewhere on the spectrum between a giggle and a slow nod. I'll say things like, "It's rough" or, "The process is pretty tedious," but I always make sure to shy away from details. It's not because the questions annoy me. No, I hold back the specifics not because I want to, but because I have to. In all seriousness, and without hyperbole, if med school applicants were to clue in the general public on the ins and outs of the application process, our health care system would cease to exist. Nobody would agree to go through with it.

Perhaps surprisingly, the medical school admissions process has a lot in common with The Running Man, that 1987 movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. If you haven't seen it, the basic premise is that "The Running Man" is a futuristic game show where convicts are given the chance to run to freedom all the while being chased by "stalkers" who are trying to brutally murder them before they escape.

For med school, each school you apply to sends its own team of stalkers who will try and take you down. Defeat the first stalker and you get a secondary application, defeat the next and you get an interview, defeat the third and you get your acceptance letter. Sure, like Mr. Schwarzenegger, you might yell out a witty phrase like "He had to split!" or "What a pain in the neck!" after cutting in half and strangling two respective stalkers, but the plain truth of it is that the majority of your time is spent huddling in dumpsters and crapping your pants in fear.

Of course, the abilities and aggressiveness of the stalkers depends on the school. Drexel's stalkers might only have foam bats and a couple Nerf crossbows. Johns Hopkins' stalkers, on the other hand, have battling robots and an unending supply of heat-seeking lightsaber missiles.

It's a daunting task, and surviving is no easy feat. Yet we still do it. We endure the toil, the sharpened hockey sticks and the rolly-polly man who shoots lightning (seriously, watch the movie) so that we can eventually become doctors. After hearing the truth about the process, you may ask why it's worth it. I think we, as med school applicants, know the answer in our hearts. Though we may come from different backgrounds and bring with us different strengths and vulnerabilities, we all participate in the game because, well, we know that at the end we get to kill Richard Dawson.

"That hit the spot."

It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's....A Blog Entry??

I am not a person who likes to admit that they've made a mistake, botched a cookie recipe, left the gate open allowing the dog to escape, or made a grievous mathematical miscalculation which leads to an extended yet refreshing vacation away from a blog. And so as I sit here eating my sugarless sugar cookies, typing these words, I'm going to skip right over the fact that I've been absent for almost a year when I said it'd only be a month or so.

It's been a long "month," to say the least. Normal month-long activities have begun and have come to an end. I finished a year of college in a month. In two days time I will have squeezed 8 months of dating my girlfriend into a single month. I studied for the MCAT for 5 months, took the test, waited a month to get my scores which makes for a grand total of 6 months, and I did it all in, yes it's true, one little month. Fantastic, I know.

And so as you all may have guessed (though, there can't possibly be any of you readers left), the blog...is back. I come to you today as I did so long ago--with a couple of thoughts in my head and an unending supply of words at my disposal with which to overstate and misrepresent each and every one.

So bye, for now, my fishsticks await. I shall return, and shant be late. Toodles.

P.S. That was a poem! Hehehehe....typical fashion, my friends. Typical fashion.