Day 604: Hitting the ground running

I have had enough of my little pity party. The past few days have involved me having minor freak-outs and panic attacks about applying to medical schools again next year. I have resigned myself to the fact that I won't be getting in and it sucks. A lot. After accepting the suck-age that is (eventual) rejections from 18 schools, I have decided to cancel my reservation for a pity party of one and, as the title of this post says, hit the ground running.

I walked into my principle investigator's (that's fancy research words for "boss") office and asked him flat out if there was anything I could do. I was avoiding his awkwardness and "well, you don't know anything" talk for the past week because I didn't want to hear it. You know what? That was pretty much his response. "You've been here for a while and you haven't really learned anything." "You should ask the other people in the lab if you can help them." Et cetera. And you know what, rather than feel bad and dejected about being such a "failure" in his eyes, I just stared right back at him and I said, "you're right. I haven't learned how to do any surgeries on my own but I have been able to participate in them and I know how to do X and Y. I was hoping you could provide me with some reading so I could see what we could do in our lab and see if I could start helping out more." I fully accepted my weaknesses and was actively trying to improve them. So now, I am not afraid of being called out but annoyed at his inability to help.

So. The new plan is. Get reading. Find something to do. If Dr. Z continues to be disdainful of my presence, then my time can be better spent...elsewhere.

In other news, I submitted an application to volunteer at a homeless shelter. I'm looking up phone numbers to start cold-calling doctors I could shadow. I don't know what has been holding me back, but I'm slowly getting over whatever it is because at this point ... I have to go, go, go.

Day 421: Have there really been 421 days?

It's a little weird to think that I've been writing in this thing for more than 400 days! I barely sleep that consistently ;)

Anyway, updates!

• My lab cohorts, 9 1/2 and J-Town, and I are so inefficient and ineffective that our boss has separated all of us and placed us with different lab people.
• I have my second (of four) calc tests tomorrow.
• My best friend is home from Ireland for the week! Jubilation!
• I start my MCAT prep class this weekend. -- You know, I was kind of against this class for some reason. However, upon being signed up for it and registering that I'm really taking this class, I'm rather grateful. It'll be nice to have someone teaching me instead of me teaching myself.
• I realized I only need two quarters of calc and one quarter of stats (for a year of math, total) so once I finish this class, I'm done! (With Calc anyway) ...then, all I have to take is stats and Bio 2. Holla!
  

I think that's all really. Oh. There's one more thing. I'm getting braces. Okbye.