Done.

My last interview was yesterday. Thank goodness, I'm so sick of traveling.

Vermont was interesting. First of all, it started out fairly disappointing because it was POURING all day so my poor dad just went to the mall instead of doing all the cool things he looked up. Then, I got the latest possible interview slot so I literally just sat/wandered around for two hours. I wanted to stalk down Dr. Sholler (scroll down a little) and profess my undying love and desire to become her one day but I figured that'd just get me a security escort out of there. One of our student tour guides did take us to get ice cream at Ben and Jerry's though. That was cool. I got "chocolate therapy".. it was probably the best thing i've ever eaten.

Major downside to Vermont though: They tax the snot out of EVERYTHING. All you PA people that come to the hospital gift shop and have a stroke over paying an extra nickel for your pop, go to Vermont. Everything is a 10-11% tax. EVERYTHING! Also, the airport is slightly smaller than my house. There wasn't even a McDonalds!

!

That scream you just heard? Yeah, that was me reacting to my updated Pitt status page.
-ahem-

UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH SCHOOL OF MEDICINE CLASS OF 2013!

My life is now complete. :)

A Very Exciting Day

The past 24 hrs have been pretty exciting. In no particular order:

1. I figured out what is wrong with Jamie's kidney. Its called "ectopic kidney," which we sort of already knew; that means its in the wrong place. Her urologist is just old and stupid and never bothered to look into what being in the wrong place might do. As it turns out, it means that you're very prone to infections and other kidney troubles... and either you get it cut out or you suck it up and deal with it. Fun, huh? At least she doesn't have any of the weird, you're going to die tomorrow diseases we were looking up.
2. I can do yoga handstands now! Yeah, I know, not earth-shattering. But we've been practicing them for weeks and I just couldn't do it. Well today, I magically began kicking up to the wall but still teetering over when I got up there. After class, however, I practiced in my apartment... like a big brave dog!... and managed to stay up. Now I can kick up super easily! Yay!
3. I got into medical school. This might just be the most exciting thing to ever happen in the non-personal realm of my life. I'm gonna be a doctor!!!!

Holding Pattern

Yesterday was my UPenn interview. I learned two things when I was there:

1. Do NOT fly into Philadelphia... EVER. Perhaps because I've flown more times in the past year than I have in the entire rest of my life combined, I've accumulated my fair share of crappy airline encounters recently. My Wednesday night flight into Philly was no exception. First, we were delayed leaving by about an hour because Philly called Pittsburgh and was like "Nope, no room at the inn tonight, guys, don't come. We'll call when we can fit you in." So we waited for an update on when they thought we should bother taking off.

Eventually, of course, we took off. Exciting flight, all 35 whole minutes of it. But then, and this is the best part, the pilot informs us we are in a holding pattern and may not be able to land for quite a while. We have plenty of fuel, though, so no worries. -sigh- So then we flew around in circles... I honestly counted the 6 times I saw the airport and then the Eagles stadium... for a half hour. That's almost as long as the actual freaking flight! GRR! Stupid Philadelphia.

2. I may hate Philly's airport but I hate rich people more. UPenn was my first choice. Was. Now I think I could never go there. Sure, the school, fascilities, teachers, etc. were all just as impressive as I'd hoped they'd be, but I left feeling like complete crap. Save me and two other interviewees, everyone there went to some fancy-pants Ivy League or Ivy-esque undergrad. And they're super rich and like to talk about all the fun, super-rich people things they do. And by everyone, I really mean EVERYONE. Even our student tour guides were like "Yeah, I went to Princeton and spent the summer traveling through Asia doing medical outreach."

I have never felt so out of place and like such crap in my entire life. I've felt poor plenty of times at Duquesne. People coming from their stupid IB prep academies with 4.8743 GPAs and shit like that. Yep, I went to public school. Sometimes the heat didn't work and I watched drug deals at lunch time. :-D But thats only sometimes, I've found plenty of not so rich people to be friends with. But at Penn, I don't think I could. I'd have to hope I could find that couple token "we grew up in the ghetto" kids. Although, hell, that might be me there. I was pretty much ready to go sign up for food stamps by the time I left. Stupid rich people.

Ugh...z

It is now officially Fall. The weather is turning colder and flip flops just don't cut it anymore. So -sigh- the hideous boots are back.

And, you know what? Its not even so much the boots themselves that are soooo terrible; its the accompanying ridiculous wardrobe. May I offer some simple rules:

1. If your "pants" are so tight/thin that a considerable amount of thought is required in order for others to determine if those are, in fact, pants instead of just tights, they do NOT count as pants. I don't care how much better they fit into the damn boots, they're not real pants.
2. If it is so horribly cold that your feet will freeze up and fall off without the boots, it is most certainly too cold to wear a skirt. Especially a skirt that would make a more effective headband than butt covering.
3. If you are going to "dress down" and be casual with sweat pants and a hoodie--wear athletic appearal, if you will--the boots are not acceptable footwear. They make special athletic shoes for just such an occasion. Normal people call them tennis shoes.. or "tennashoes" if you wish to be absolutely correct... People from strange places say "sneakers," but the effect is just the same: These shoes go with sweat pants, athletic shorts, etc. Your ugly boots do not.
4. If your boots have a heal, this does not make them better/make you hotter. It makes them more ridiculous and you much more stupid. We have a lot of brick walkways here, girls, sacrifice your "beauty" for your ankle bones. Bet that 6-8 wk fiberglass cast will really clash with that new bag.
5. Finally, if your pants do not really qualify as pants, as described in tip #1, your boots are not sufficiently hideous enough to distract me from your shirt not qualifying as a dress. Tops are either shirts or dresses. There should not be a grey area. Please wear something long enough so as not to make me think I'm seeing WAAAY more than I ever wanted to.