Misery Loves Company

You know that one kid in class who always screws up the average, the outlier? That one kid who does well while everyone else bombs the test. Well out of the pre-med students, while there's always a few who are anomalies who can juggle everything and do well in everything, for the rest of us...life pretty much sucks.

So it's no wonder that when the pre-med students finally do crawl out of their rooms into the daylight (or moonlight) and can spare a single hour to do something other than study or go to class, that they use that hour to vent. Tonight the pre-health club held a fall pre-registration info session, their second meeting of the entire school year. Instead the "info session" turned into an all-out, everyone-venting discussion about how much pre-med breaks you.

There was a lot of discussion that occurred within that hour (some of it serious, not included below though) but here's just a sampling of what went on:

: "Erdman's a great place to live - it has a dining hall so you can just get food quick."

: "You actually have time to eat?!?"

: "Do you know there's a shower in Park Science?"

: "Uh...you mean the emergency showers in the hallway...?"

: "No, no. There's a shower downstairs in the physics wing. You can live there. People do that."

(Third girl interjects): "Yeah, I totally didn't leave that building during finals week last time."

(Fourth girl) : "Yeah, if you need a key to get in, just let me know."

: "Don't worry, everyone goes through these doubts and stress. Ahh, should I be pre-med? I don't think I'm cut out for this. But in the end you'll convince yourself you love medicine and you'll pull through. And by the time you're almost done you'll be all worn out. Then you have to go to med school because otherwise you put yourself through all that torture for nothing."

: "I was talking to a recent graduate and he told me to enjoy undergrad because once you get out into the real world life gets worse. And I thought, 'What?! It gets worse than this?!?' "

There was also a quick side discussion about how some of the (male) post-bac's were interested in raising money to help Haiti relief efforts. So they were thinking about auctioning themselves off but were worried because they didn't know whether or not anyone would buy them. We came to the conclusion that it wasn't a matter of whether or not anyone would bid on them, but rather that we were seriously concerned for their safety....

Anyways, kidding aside now, while tonight gave me an idea of what my life will be like if I decide to stay pre-med, I'm actually not turned off from it. But we'll see.... Still praying I get into SMDEP for this summer; I find out in 2 days! April 1!

One final thought I had related to being pre-med...my friends. From what I witnessed tonight, pre-med students seem to inevitably complain about their lives. Not that other people don't complain about their lives, but to a non-pre-med student, pre-med students may appear to be putting themselves through unnecessary suffering. Thus for non-pre-med students the complaining is going to get annoying. So if I decide to stay pre-med I apologize to my friends in advance. (Maybe these will be the times which separate my friends from the acquaintances.)