Day 685: Failure -- flaw or character building?

At what point does failure stop being character building and start becoming a character flaw?

This is the question going through my mind. After more rejections from schools and life, I wonder if medical school or helping people is really in the cards for me. With rejections left and right from medical schools, including an especially frightening one from the University of Miami -- they "terminated the admissions process with me", it seems evident 2009-2010 was not the application cycle for me. Follow that up with a rejection from a summer camp job I applied for and you can see how I leaped to these conclusions. My obvious distaste for humankind must be seeping through to all facets of my life because what other explanation is there for human disliking me right back?

I am frustrated beyond belief. I wanted this camp job more than anything else lately. It was going to give me some much needed fulfillment and validation. Right now, I am raversing the fine line between routine and rut. I hoped camp would get me out of both (the rut of my routine) and give me something to look forward to. Make me feel like I was making a difference. Instead, they seem to be throwing salt in my wounds to further remind me how inept I am at life.

The rejections from med schools were character building. They showed me that life doesn't work out as planned. Your character is not defined by how well you plan, but by how well you deal with the kinks in your plan. And right now, my life is looking like a protein. Kink-y.

See? Kinky.

So the question remains, at what point does all this failure stop being character building and start being a sign from on-high that whatever I'm doing is not working?

Day 666: Mixing luck with the devil

How ironic that the day I get my blogging act together, it happens to be Day 666 of this blog, but also St. Patrick's Day. You've got to love the irony.

Okay, a lot of things have happened since Day 631. My intellectually stunning friend Nicki stopped on by my coast and we spent a lovely week together. We were very low-key about everything but it was still time well-spent. She got to meet my friends, the whole quirkily fabulous lot of them, and hang out with my family (always a hoot). She's absurdly impressive and I can't say enough positive things about her.

Let's see, there has been some pseudo-drama at the lab. My boss was throwing blame everywhere for the most random things. All of which was completely unwarranted but he's the boss so we all kept our mouths shut.

Fun fact: One random day, my boss decided that I am suddenly a capable human being and decided to tell the lab so. We were at a lab meeting and when one of the researchers/post-docs had a lot on his plate, he asked him, "Well, why don't you use Jessica? She can do these things for you." ...I can? Last time I checked, you thought I was an incompetent twit and now I'm capable? My, my. My boss is as flighty as a baby bird in flight.

So, now I'm trying to get my act together. I had a phone interview today for a job I really, really, really want. My friend MK told me my over-expression of wanting to join said-organization may have made me come off as desperate. And I retorted, "Well, how bad is desperation for wanting to work there? It shows I want to be there." To be frank (and you can be George), the interview seemed all right throughout, but after I hung up, I got this nagging feeling that it didn't go my way. It's just a feeling, but I was hoping for good-job-yay-me feelings. Not, huh-I-wonder-if-that-could-have-gone-better feelings. Oh well. I had nothing to lose applying so I'll cross my fingers and toes.

Lastly, I'm baking these days. A ton of stuff. On the agenda tonight is poppy seed lemon cake. I've made croissants (and failed, they ended up tasting like Chinese pancakes rather than croissants). I've made steamed buns and pork-filled steam buns. I've decided if med school doesn't go my way, I'm going to figure out how to open a bakery. You think I jest, but I'm speaking frankly George.

My buns

Day 631: Buzz, good news and one

So the new Google Buzz is obviously attempting Facebook-like qualities and I'm trying to decide how I feel about it. So far, I'm using it as much as I used to use Facebook (which isn't much). I'll probably be de-Buzzing myself soon because I can only imagine how much crazier Buzz is going to get.

Anyway, my auspiciously amazing friend Nicki got into her first grad school! I'm sure many more acceptances are on their way but I thought I should share the good news with all ... four of you. Haha, one of whom is Nicki, but that's besides the point.

Lastly, I found this in my e-mail...

 

Hilarious? Yes. True? Most definitely.

...and I found the image to be quite appropriate for life. Applying to schools is a lot like baby-making. It only takes one. For schools, one acceptance removes a lot of stress and pressure. For baby-making, it just takes one good swimmer to latch on to the mothership and a new life begins. More often than not, one isn't the loneliest number so much as the constantly-sought-after-but-not-always-attained number. But, I can see how that wouldn't make such a catchy song.

Day 630: Rejected but not dejected

Since I last posted, I have been rejected by two schools. The first one was amusing because my first thought was, "Really? You haven't rejected me already? Huh..."

And then yesterday, I got rejected by UC Davis (the school that screwed me over because of a technical glitch in their system) and I was completely unphased. At this point, there's only one direction for me and that's forward. These rejections are rolling off me because I've fully prepared myself for them. Besides, I am getting my new application ready to go come whenever AMCAS 2011 opens.

So, for all of you who are so fantastic and caring, I'm fine. I was glad I could get out my feelings (in cartoon form!) and then they were done. Thank you all for your concern and well-wishes and good vibes. I'm not one with the universe but I'm surely not as depressed about life as I was last week.

I've decided when this is all over...the big brunt of applying and I'm finally in the interview stage...I'm going to write a new blog titled "What I Wish I Knew Before I Applied to Medical School". I feel like it could really help other people in the same boat. You know, the boat of "lost and confused and daunted pre-med post-baccs trying to get their life in order."

Day 622: Eine Kleine Cartoon

Day 620: Mentorship, Biochemistry and Baking

My Stanford mentorship held a meeting/get-together this Tuesday. The Dean of Admissions and first-year medical students gave presentations about how to be a better applicant to medical school. I was annoyed because the Dean came, spoke, and left ASAP. There was no chance for any one-on-one time, which would have been ideal to ask about me specifically as an applicant. Oh well, such is life.

On Thursday, I had my first day of Biochemistry. A ton of the kids in that class are applying to medical school and shared that little tidbit when we talked about ourselves. I don't enjoy sharing things, especially something so banal and common, so I just said I had some trouble finding parking :P

The professor is this cute little pregnant Asian woman who seems adamant about making the class as relaxed as possible. It was pretty low-key, so that was nice. The first day was just a review of some biology and chemistry that will relate to future lectures. All of her lectures/notes are given via PowerPoint, of which she will be emailing us future lecture slides/notes in advance. It isn't all that great because she zips through her lectures and doesn't give me any time to copy them down. It was fine the first day because she gave us a hard-copy of her notes, but still, I prefer hand-writing my notes. Call me old-fashioned that way.

I don't have the textbook required for the course. My friend who took Biochem in NC gave me his book and I'm using that for now. We'll see how things pan out when I head back to class with the reading from my book instead of hers. If it doesn't work, then I'll buy the book. I thought I'd give it a go my way first.
My hole from the previous post is healing nicely. The entire situation was just so odd. The oral surgeon says it happens sometimes. One of the reasons may be that the hole(s) healed too quickly the first time and they reopen, which the doctor said was a good sign...? I don't know. Overall, everything seems to be healing nicely.

In other news, my biggest obession in life at the moment is baking macarons. I literally bake at least a batch a week. It took me a while to get the knack of everything, but I have perfected them! Now, I'm playing around with flavors and colors (as seen below).

Just a regular dark chocolate ganache. I added some blue dye to the sugar,

which gave the macaron shells a blue-ish twinge. Yummy.

Day 613: A reopened wound

For every post here on out, I'm going to try and blog with pictures. It breaks up the boring text and provides you all something to look at.

Okay, so you all saw that I had my wisdom teeth out and I looked like a sad chubby chipmunk. Well, two nights ago, sincerely out of the blue, my bottom left hole opened up. I have no idea why or how. And it appears to be larger and not-where-I-remember it being.

Just to warn you, this is gruesome. Some of you may not find it so, but just in case, I thought I would warn you with it's grossness.

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...

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Here it is...

It's like a bull's eye!

I apologize if this is gross but this has been the biggest going-on in my life as of late. I know I haven't posted very regularly but it's because I'm trying to maintain positive-good-vibes Jess and that is much more difficult than I had anticipated. So. I thought I wouldn't blog at all until I had more news.

But since everyone loves to ask (and it makes sense why), no I haven't heard from any other schools. No rejections and no interview requests. This late in the game, I am probably correct in assuming that I have not and will not get into medical school this cycle. I won't sugar-coat it ... It sucks. A lot. I'm moving forward, because really, what other direction is there? If there was a wallowing-in-my-failure option, I would certainly take it.

But, all in all, I'm keeping busy and waiting for doctors to call me back. They probably won't because they're sooo busy, so I'll be following up with them next week.