The Strangest Thing

Greetings family, friends, facebook stalkers :),

It’s the strangest thing – looking at where I was to where I am today. Going from fourth grade where I only wanted to be a paleontologist, then to 6th grade where I wanted to be a doctor or a dentist (after realizing that dinosaurs were gone and they’re never coming back – not in my lifetime anyways), then to eighth grade where I wanted to be whatever would give me the most money, to tenth grade where I wanted to be a business man, to eleventh grade where I wanted to be an accountant, to 12th grade in which I wanted to be something involving math but, for sure, not an engineer, to starting my first year of college as a computer engineer, to realizing a month later how truly boring it was to me, to deciding to be a biochem major – simply because of the fact that I liked chemistry and I liked biology – and deciding to be pre-med although I had no idea what that truly meant. A few years later and I am in medical school with no regrets and little doubt that this is where I should be. I was so sure of myself after each year that passed and yet, I had no idea what was going on. Who knows, maybe next year I’ll end up dropping out of medical school to become a paleontologist (hiiighly unlikely). Anyways, it’s the strangest thing to look back and think that every step I made was an important step along the way. And at this moment, I find myself writing this and, in my head, hearing the voice of Ted from the TV show “How I met your mother”. Perhaps medical school is already driving me crazy.

Anyways, two weeks down and, well, I’m not going to count how many left. Last week was a plethora of studying, classes, studying, and a few episodes of how I met your mother. But some interesting things did happen, both involving medical school and not involving medical school. I dissected on Friday for the first time in my life. It was an interesting moment. Although it was exactly what I expected it to be, it was still one of those defining moments – despite the fact of how frustrating it can be to find some annoyingly small ligament in the body.

So what else is going on with medical school… Well right now I’m trying to figure out my life and what I want to be when I grow up. At Iowa, there are five different distinction tracks that are available. The purpose of them is to “encourage, support, and recognize medical students who pursue scholarship” in various areas. The five tracks are in Research, Education, Global Health, Humanities and Service. Now you can do more than one of them, but each one already takes up a good amount of your time. Here’s where I’m stuck, I want to do Global Health because it is something I’ve always been interested in, yet never took the time to pursue. I also what to do the Research track – I’ve been involved with research throughout my undergrad. Also, research is practically a requirement for more difficult specialties. In my case – Surgery – which is something I want to try.. At the moment anyways). I want to begin planning, at least a little bit, for next summer in which I’ll need to figure out where I’m going (for Global Health) or figure out what I’m doing (for Research). It’s a conundrum. But I’ll be getting more information about these things this coming week. Feel free to give me any suggestions. Also, leave some comments or give anonymous feedback!

Sorry for the long post,

LP

So this song doesn’t really pertain to anything going on in my life right now – I just like it

In Spite of Ourselves by John Prine and Iris DeMent        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5axlwCBXC8

Here’s a song covered by one of my best friends, check it out and hit that like button

Carry On  – Covered by Rob Maurer (Originally by Fun.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8su14GodpU&feature=plcp