Ok, I know I said I know that my tendency to contemplate alternative life outcomes is annoying, but as I said even bore I said that, I am the only person who is writing and reading this journal, so I am going to allow myself to indulge in yet another trip through the twilight zone. As I was looking over my college transcripts which I sent with the other forms I received today, I noticed that it was very obvious I had no intention of going to medical school for the first 3 years of college. My courses at Chicago were all philosophically and scientifically oriented, and at Columbia I overdosed on East Asian studies courses with a bent towards film and art. I wonder, I wonder...if I had stayed the course where would I be now? One possibility is Law School just because it would have been the safe way out without forsaking the liberal arts education, but a far more interesting possibility is that I would have become a graduate student in East Asian studies, just finishing up my PhD probably at Columbia or maybe at Berkeley. I would probably be pretty fluent at Japanese, maybe also in Chinese and at least have a conversational grasp of French or maybe Russian. I would probably be eyeing an opportunity to go overseas and do some kind of field research for a couple of years maybe teaching a course at a foreign university. My dress would consist of tweed elbow patched jackets, blue collar shirts tucked into khakis, and worn brown shoes. My signature piece would be the shoulder strap leather bag. I would be aiming for the distinguished young professor look. In the course of my studies I would have fallen in love with a fellow graduate student studying Hinduism or Buddhism, fluent in French, Italian and Sanskrit, petite and elegant, shy and intelligent, who I would have married and we might be considering having our first child right about now as we figure out our next step. The salient difference from my current life situation would be the fulfilling personal relationship founded on a common singleness of purpose, cultivated within the warmth and safety of ivory towers. Medicine also has a singleness of purpose, but lacks the protection of ivory towers. If one is to find love one while engaged in medicine, it must be found betwixt the showering arrows of an invading army besieged outside the fortress gates. One must be able to fight and love at the same time, something which I have not yet figured out how to do, something which I do not think I am capable of doing, although I am very well capable of doing one or another at different times. Ok, this is just embarrassing. Like I said, I had nothing to inspire me today, so I am writing this drivel for the sake of writing, not for reading. Caput.

I finally received the information packet with my letter of appointment from Mayo. The mailman came around 3 PM today so my entire morning and early afternoon was pretty much a wash. The information they sent didn't really add much to what I already have, but it was nice to finally sign that sucker and send it off. That's a big check off my to do list. Once I had that settled, I continued the gradual process of dismantling my life here in Brooklyn and packing it up for shipping to Minnesota. I didn't actually do any physical dismantling so much as administrative dismantling, such as preparing to cancel my cable service, preparing to store my car, preparing to settle my lease, preparing my travel documents, etc, all of which I made some progress on today. I've also been trying to fix up little things around the apartment like the leaky faucet and a broken kitchen drawer. The leaky faucet was fixed beeeaaauuuuutifully, but the kitchen drawer will have to wait until I can go to the hardware store for a hanger/adapter thingy which I hope they have. Otherwise I'm pretty much ready to go. Just need to do my laundry on the last day, return the cable box, place my car in storage, give my keys to my neighbor, clean up my bathroom and clean out my fridge, and send off some last minute emails. What is worrying me is not my immediate departure, but my return and second departure to Minnesota which will require some carefully coordinated time management if I am going to make it out to Rochester in time to find a place to live and settle in before residency starts. In all likelihood I will end up taking a short-term lease for a month or so while I look for a permanent place to live. That should be fine because I am not going to have much with me anyway so a furnished apartment would be a nice luxury in the first few weeks. Whew, whew, whew, I'm looking forward to starting a new life, although I have to say its not nearly as exciting as the many other transitions I'd had before starting medical school, ie going to summer camp, going to college, transferring, going abroad, starting work and living in my first apartment, and starting medical school. I had a mini-crisis last night for some reason as I despaired over whether it was worth it to take that year off from medical school. Technically I am supposed to get residency credit for that year, but I am not getting any signs from the residency program that they would even consider granting me that credit. Fortunately, there is another resident starting with me who is in the same predicament so they can't so easily brush the matter under the rug. What I was despairing over last night was whether anything would have been different in the long run if I had just gone straight through med school. Chances are I would not even have received interviews at the places I interviewed at much less match at a great program like Mayo, but does getting into Mayo justify an entire extra year (assuming I do not get credit)? In all likelihood I would have matched at a program in NYC, most likely Columbia or possibly Cornell or even NYU, any of which I would be delighted with and would probably be very happy or at least comfortable about staying in NYC. I still would have a good shot, if not a better shot than from Mayo, at getting a fellowship at MSKCC or the NYCMEO from a NYC program, although my options for private practice would probably be much more limited. From Mayo, my impression is that I could go East, West, or even South for fellowship since it has more of a national reputation than any of the NYC programs. But since I have always imagined myself coming back to NYC I was wondering whether I didn't make a mistake by taking that year off. In the end, though, I figured that the fault in that line of thought is that I probably wouldn't even have applied for pathology if I didn't take that extra year. I would have settled for something like medicine or maybe even surgery, which in the long run, and I'm talking like 10-20 years down the line, I am certain I would regretted. I don't have those doubts about pathology which is something I am grateful for. Even in the short run, I'm sure I made the right decision. If I had done medicine, I probably would have ended up at a NY program, not Columbia or Cornell which would be out of reach, maybe NYU or Sinai, which I would be happy but not elated with, or possibly one of those locoregional hospitals on Long Island. If I had done surgery, there would be a good chance that I would have ended up back at my medical school for residency which would have been a disaster. That single realization, that my year off effectively derailed any possibility that I would have ended up in a medicine or surgery residency at my current school, completely justified in my mind taking a year off. Not that I think the training is sub-par, on the contrary, I think it would be excellent in certain respects, but the prospect of staying put for another 4 years, walking the same hallways, buying coffee from the same stands, parking in the same lots, would be enough to make me bolt, not that that outcome would necessarily be the worst thing in the world, but the rules of the match do not allow one to know one's fate until it is too late to change it. This is probably the most humdrum entry in this journal so far. I am seriously considering deleting it. It really has no value beyond revealing my neurotic preoccupation with hypotheticals. Yah yah yah. Nothing happened today that really inspired me. What a shame, another 24 hours lost forever. Oh except that this morning while I was browsing some online personal ads (yes, I admit I did scope out the situation even before I came up with my rank list) I saw this absolutely incredible Chinese girl in Minneapolis who recently relocated from Boston and is apparently a little lonely and lost, much like I will be. It wasn't just that her picture was breathtaking, which it was, a ballet dancer for 16 years she said, but also intelligent, graduated early from Brown, worldly, Chinese, Italian and French, and whimsically mysterious yet beguilingly honest, not sure why she went to Minnesota except that she was looking for a new experience. Hmm, somehow that gives me hope, that maybe Minnesota has some kind of mystical draw for wandering souls like myself and this ballet dancing babe from Boston.

Overall another uneventful day, although I did feel much better when I woke up this morning. I guess the neurochemical theory of depression really holds true. Thank god, my mind is able to reset after a good night's sleep. I woke up again around noon, but stayed in bed because it was so comfortable to be under my down comforter with the wind blowing through my open window. I was half-awake, half-dreaming for what seemed like hours and I was sure when I actually decided to get out of bed it would be 2 or 3 o'clock in the afternoon, but actually it was only 12:15. Somehow I had managed to have multiple dreams in the space of 15 minutes, strange, but interesting. And inspiring too because it just goes to show how relative our experience of time actually is. In the space of minutes I could live hours worth of experiences, so why not days and lifetimes? So for breakfast I had the left overs of spaghetti from yesterday which still tasted good but again I felt bloated for several hours afterwards and wished I hadn't eaten it. I watched a bit of news to see what is going on with the war. Some kind of terrorist camp was taken over by the coalition troops and they discovered what is believed to be the chemical laboratory that produced the ricin found in London some weeks back. That is good news and something I can believe. I am skeptical of generals telling me about #'s of sorties/day, #'s of cruise missiles launched, troop movements, air supremacy, blah blah blah, because what in the end does it really mean? Those kind of reports tell me nothing about what aims of the war are being achieved and whether any progress is being made. But the discovery of a chemical laboratory in Iraq with ricin residue that can be traced to ricin involved in a planned terrorist plot, now that's news, and that's pretty good justification in my mind for what the war has entailed so far. The question is whether this laboratory received any support from Saddam Hussein or whether it was somehow independently operated by terrorists. The news reports indicate that this was a "terrorist" camp and not an Iraqi factory, but why would a terrorist organization set up in Iraq of all places, if they didn't have at least tacit approval if not overt support from the regime. I hope the news focuses on this tonight. If I was a news editor, I would make this the lead story. Proving a terrorism link, moreso than weapons of mass destruction, human rights violations, etc, is what will shift the tide of international opinion in my mind. The whole weapons of mass destruction argument is so hypocritical and it is beyond my comprehension why no one in the Bush administration realizes this. Does it not seem outlandish that in order to prevent Saddam Hussein from developing weapons of mass destruction we are dropping 20 ton bombs on the heads of Baghdadians and then proudly emblazoning those images on international television? I read somewhere that our military is considering using bombs so huge they would have the explosive impact of a nuclear bomb. Anyway, as far as I know such bombs have not been used, but the combined impact of the explosive ordnances used so far probably far exceed the explosive impact of a single nuclear bomb so we really have to ask ourselves whether we are not shooting ourselves in the foot. If or when this war moves into Baghdad I just hope we will have more justification for the war. So far, there has been nothing, no weapons of mass destruction, only circumstantial evidence of chemcial or biological weapons, no clear evidence of massive human rights violations (mass graves and such), only silly reports of wire bed frames attached to car batteries. And no clear evidence of a terrorism link, except perhaps this ricin discovery. I think the rest of the world would be more sympathetic if we could demonstrate that such things existed. They don't care about #'s of sorties, #'s of surrendered soldiers, etc. The UN, rather than simply demanding an end to the war, should insist on finding evidence of weapons of mass destruction or human rights violations. There should be a thorough investigation of the coalition controlled areas before the war proceeds into Baghdad. Invite the UN inspectors back and let them have the lay of the land. Saddam Hussein is not going anywhere, let him roast for a while. And the military threat to surrounding nations is effectively neutralized so why push this war when there is no longer an immediate threat? If we find undeniable evidence of an active nuclear, chemical or biological weapons program, or massive human rights violations, then we would have justification for removing Saddam Hussein.

I've been feeling incredibly depressed all day and I don't know why. Maybe it was the way it started. I had purposely gone to sleep last night late so that I would wake up around noon when the mailman normally comes because I was looking forward to receiving the residency packet from Mayo which had been sent on Wednesday. I woke up around 12:30 and immediately checked my mailbox which was empty. Around 12:50 I heard the mailman downstairs tossing mail into the boxes so I went down after he left. There was still nothing in my mail box, so I'll have to wait until Monday at the least. What a disappointment, since I had been looking forward to settling this whole contract business before I have to leave for Europe. I was also looking forward to getting any more information about orientation, etc. So I trudged my tired ass back upstairs and thought about taking a shower. Instead I just put on my fleece and went food shopping. That was the highlight of my day. I bought some Italian bread, ground sirloin, milk, cookies, and mushrooms. It was a very focused shopping session and I was proud of myself for keeping it under 20$. The market was crowded and people were looking at me funny because I still had a bed head. I considered buying an ice cream cone from Carvel on my way home, but I decided to go straight home and make spaghetti instead. So I made the pasta and cooked up the ground sirloin with the portabello mushrooms I had just bought and half a white onion I had left over and then added some bottled spaghetti sauce. I also toasted slices of the italian bread on olive oil and a little butter on a griddle. And I "baked" a potato in the microwave for 12 minutes exactly. Everything was timed perfectly and I had a great lunch, but felt pretty bloated for the rest of the day because of it. I only ate half of what I made and put the rest in the fridge. As I was pondering what to do with the rest of my day, it started pouring loud rain, huge droplets were smashing against the blue tarp outside my window, whap, thwap, so that development allowed me to postpone my decision. Pollack, the movie, was showing on cable and had just started, so I watched the whole thing even though I had seen it before once and parts of it multiple times. Anyway, it was still moving, especially since I had just been to the Picasso-Matisse exhibit at the MOMA a few days ago. That was strike 2 for my depression because I started thinking about what exciting and wonderfully creative things I could be doing had I not decided to go to medical school almost on a whim some 6 years ago. Those 6 years have been a tremendous waste except for maybe the first year of medical school, and the year I worked as a paralegal before starting medical school. At this very moment I am seriously considering ways to derail my career from its predetermined path, but in medicine that is just so hard to do. After Pollack, came on Jerry Maguire on another channel, but again it was just starting so I had to watch it again. I was moved to tears multiple times which proves I am depressed. What really hit home about the movie was that it forced me to consider the chances I have taken in my life, and how few REAL chances I have actually taken, especially with regard to relationships. I've taken chances with my career and education, but I am incredibly conservative when it comes to initiating relationships, not just romantic relationships but even pure friendships. Why is that? Jerry Maguire realizes at some point in the movie that he will never fall in love until he devotes as much time and COURAGE to his relationships as he does to his work. I'm in the exact same situation. But Rene Zellweger responds by asking whether love should really be work?, which is also a good point. So this whole Jerry Maguire thing got me thinking about my relationship with Mina. 4 years since I last spoke to her and I'm still thinking about what I could have done differently. Was I too focused on academics at that time? I was getting the best grades I have ever gotten that first year of med school when I was set on becoming a surgeon and I think that is what first drew her to me. She was always impressed that I knew the esoteric answers and that drove me to study more. But at some point it probably went overboard and I might have made her feel inadequate because we were both taking the same exams. I probably should have spent more time just getting to know her and letting her get to know me outside of school. I wonder if she ever knew she was the reason I studied so much, and that after I stopped speaking to her, my grades started to drop. I guess I was afraid that if I wasn't exceptional in some way she would lose interest in me. Anyway, I'm not going to beat myself up for what I might have done wrong, because she also made mistakes which I don't think I've forgiven. I often think what I should say if I met her again, and I still think I would be indifferent. But still she was special and I haven't met anyone else like her since. So this whole Jerry Maguire instigated rumination started to really depress me and I tried to get my mind off it my continuing the long and stressful process of cleaning out my apartment for the big move. I shredded almost all of my old bank statements and records which I thought would be a catharctic experience. Instead I ended up thinking even more about my past as I read over my old credit card statements all the way back to 1998, which was when I started seeing Mina. This was all just too much so I went outside and took a walk down Third avenue to clear my mind, which helped a little. But when I got back, I started writing this journal entry which is getting me more depressed again, so I think I will end this here and go for another walk.

To whom shall I address my journal? The choices are myself, an imaginary friend, God, or random internet surfers who stumble into this lonely corner of the interuniverse. I think in the long run, at least at this point in time, I will get the most out of this journal if I address it to an imaginary friend. This way I can write about concrete things peppered with philosophical thoughts and such while still maintaing the same discretion I would use as if I were writing to a friend whose opinion of myself I do not wish to damage. Yes, that is what I will do. So today, I finally got in touch with the Dean's office in England that is coordinating my overseas elective next month and thank god, they did receive my forms and I will have accomodations there. I was worried that I would have to find a place to live on my own which could be difficult especially since there is supposed to be some kind of national snooker tournament while I am there. Anyway, I spoke with the lady in charge and everything is clear so I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. In the afternoon I went to school and got copies of my transcript and a letter of good standing. I also got a chance to look at the match list for my medical school this year. I only know I few people from my class because I took that year off, but it seems that all of the people I know did very well. Everyone who was going for competitive fields like dermatology and otolaryngology was successful. Good for them. On the way back I was thinking about how nice the lady in the registrar's office was to me. Usually they are very mean. But today the woman actually did me a favor by printing up the letter of good standing immediately so that I would not have to return tomorrow or next week to pick it up. That little charm will save me at least 2 hours of transit/preparation time. So I was thinking when I came back that that little favor the registrar lady did me will probably be my last contact with the medical school as a student. I will probably never go back. So I was happy that I could leave the school on a good note and when I become rich and famous I will donate 20 million dollars to the school and in my speech I will say it was because of the registrar lady who was so nice to me on my last day, even though the registrar's office is usually very mean. Hehe. I am writing liking a child, probably because I also think like a child. Oh well, what else... I received this neat little tiny itty bitty Sony digital camera yesterday which I carried around in my pocket while I went to the city as I always wanted to do so I could take random pictures of city life with the camera hidden in my palm. Anyway, I didn't have the confidence to take it out and look like a tourist but I did get one street shot which was kinda neat because the background is blurred as I was walking across the street as I took it. Hehe. Thats it for now folks. Signing off. Duke just lost to Kansas. Poor Duke. Maybe I should have ranked them higher. I think the Southern programs are underrated. They really should be on par with the Northeast programs. UVA, Emory and Duke are all amazing places for pathology. Oh well, Mayo clinic is pretty good too and probably has a better international reputation so it may be helpful if I want to try to nudge myself into the international forensic pathology community, although forensics in southeast Minnesota isn't exactly bigtime. Signing off again for real this time.

I want to write to write
in the language I share
with the likes of
Shakespeare

James Joyce,
Emily Dickinson,
Ernest Hemingway,

but my imperfect facility with English
prevents me from reaching
those heights
even for the sake of
pure imitation.

I fumble
when I try to use phrases like
"starving hysterical naked" or
"My cries heave - herd-long"
feeling ashamed
at myself for misrepresenting
depth of or deft language
behind a deliberately contrived
meatloaf of words.

English does not belong to me
as it did to Joyce. My inner
voice simply does not say
things like
"Signs on you, hairy arse.
More power the Cavan girl."
What does it mean
to say "Signs on you"?
and what is or where
is Cavan? No, my inner
voice speaks in strict gram-
matical syntax with
a built-in spell check.

And when I read
what I have written,
as I often do 2 or 3 times
before I even finish
a sentence, I become annoyed
if I cannot understand what
I had only moments
ago meant to say.

And so I change what
I say to make it more clear
to the reader, which is
sadly, only myself.

This paradoxical, obsessively
compulsive attention to meaning
distills my writing making
it colorless
and tasteless.

I wish I had the courage to move on,
to proceed into the desert night
without heed of the trail I leave behind
me.

Is it not paranoia
that convinces me
there is someone
looking for me?

I am alone walking
in the desert night.
Who cares if my
foot steps are too
regular, too predictable,
too same?

Who cares if I should meet someone
along the way who might ask "Why
do you walk alone in the desert,
for so long in a straight line
with no destination in sight or mind?"

I should have the fortitude
to continue walking, even
if I should fall into
a
hypnotic
step
from which
I may
never
emerge,

for I am ultimately alone.

And so I allow myself,
as I have just done,
to slip into a regular step,
perhaps hoping
that someone is following.

But why do I not
just stop
and greet my shadow?

Because there is
no time to pause.

The meaning of my message
is in my regular footsteps
and I promise not to deceive.
Still I have hope even if I
know not where we are going.

My hope arises from the rhythm
in my inner voice, the same rhythm
I feel in Dostoevsky
and Conrad,
whose translated works I can read
without the burden of pausing
over words like Cavan
and phrases like "Signs on you"
because in their translation
to English I am sure the fine
subtelties of individual words are lost.

The kind of words that
allow one to play with language
as we might play with a lifesaver
in our mouth, probing its central
cavity and the smoothness of its
contour with our tongue, are lost.

Aha, I have awoken
and now
I must pause.

I apologize
for the delay
and I do not
mean to
deceive as
I have said

but I must rest now.

Please will you also rest
so that we do not bump in the night.

Thank you.

I want to write, to write in the language I share with the likes of Shakespeare, James Joyce, Emily Dickinson, Ernest Hemingway, but my imperfect facility with English prevents me from reaching those heights even for the sake of pure imitation. I fumble when I try to use phrases like "starving hysterical naked" or "My cries heave - herd-long" feeling ashamed at myself for misrepresenting depth of or deft language behind a deliberately contrived meatloaf of words. English does not belong to me as it did to Joyce. My inner voice simply does not say things like "Signs on you, hairy arse. More power the Cavan girl." What does it mean to say "Signs on you"? and what is or where is Cavan? No, my inner voice speaks in strict grammatical syntax with a built-in spell check. And when I read what I have written, as I often do 2 or 3 times before I even finish a sentence, I become annoyed if I cannot understand what I had only moments ago meant to say. And so I change what I say to make it more clear to the reader, which is sadly, only myself. This paradoxical, obsessively compulsive attention to meaning distills my writing making it colorless and tasteless. I wish I had the courage to move on, to proceed into the desert night without heed of the trail I leave behind me. Is it not paranoia that convinces me there is someone looking for me? I am alone walking in the desert night. Who cares if my foot steps are too regular, too predictable, too same? Who cares if I should meet someone along the way who might ask "Why do you walk alone in the desert, for so long in a straight line with no destination in sight or mind?" I should have the fortitude to continue walking, even if I should fall into a hypnotic step from which I may never emerge, for I am ultimately alone. And so I allow myself, as I have just done, to slip into a regular step, perhaps hoping that someone is following. But why do I not just stop and greet my shadow? Because there is no time to pause. The meaning of my message is in my regular footsteps and I promise not to deceive. Still I have hope even if I know not where we are going. My hope arises from the rhythm in my inner voice, the same rhythm I feel in Dostoevsky and Conrad, whose translated works I can read without the burden of pausing over words like Cavan and phrases like "Signs on you" because in their translation to English I am sure the fine subtelties of individual words are lost. The kind of words that allow one to play with language as we might play with a lifesaver in our mouth, probing its central cavity and the smoothness of its contour with our tongue, are lost. Aha, I have awoken and now I must pause. I apologize for the delay and I do not mean to deceive as I have said but I must rest now. Please will you also rest so that we do not bump in the night. Thank you.

Voices in silence haunt me,
Murmurs slip quiet into
Absence, Making my heart skip -
Skip across the chasm deep

In some ways, the idea of keeping a journal online is the best way to keep it secret. If I kept a physical journal or even a password locked file on my computer as my journal, it would probably have a much higher chance of being discovered "accidentally". But keeping a journal on the internet is like hiding a needle in a stack of needles, but also having a special tool that will allow me to locate that one needle anytime and anywhere I need it. As long as I remember to logout of my account each time I use it, there is very little chance that anyone I know would ever read it. So that said, let me update you on what is going on with me. Last Thursday was Match Day, the day when graduating medical students across the country find out simultaneously where they will be training for the next several years. In the months before the Match we each submit lists of programs in order of preference, but it is not until Match day that we find out where we are going. Pre-match agreements between programs and applicants are strictly forbidden. So to cut the story short, I matched at Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minnesota, a tiny little city of 80,000 about 1 hour south of Minneapolis that is completely dominated by the massive Mayo Clinic and its associated hospitals, Rochester Methodist and St. Mary's. Overall, it is a great program but the location is kinda worrying me. Were location not a consideration, Mayo would have been my first choice without a doubt, but as it were, Mayo was my third choice. So ce la vie, there's no way to change it now, I am destined for Minnesota and what odd experiences that is sure to bring. The most curious thing about Rochester is that it is a city built around a hospital, as some medieval town would be built around a castle. Downtown Rochester consists of the Mayo Clinic, its buildings, and the hotels which house its visiting patients. There are a few shops and stores in the downtown area but they seem to be frozen in the 1950's. What have I gotten myself into??? In retrospect, there are a number of coincidences that I might use to convince myself that Rochester is in my destiny. The day before match day, I watched About Schindler, which is about a retiring insurance salesman in a small Nebraska town, not too different from Rochester, who deals with the loneliness of widowerhood and retirement. The scenes of the city reminded me tremendously of Rochester, and I remember thinking I could very much end up spending the next 4 or more years in such a place. Cut to silent scene of grey concrete square buildings, cut to straight paved roads with no cars, cut to a traffic light blinking in vain, cut to an empty sidewalk with no pedestrians, cut to wisps of steam rising from a flat roof into a cloudy, sunless sky, this is Rochester, this is any little town west of Chicago and east of the Rockies. Maybe, I'll bide my time by writing a book, or maybe a movie. I will need something to sustain me. Something to look forward to. Another less impressive coincidence is that "Blue Streak" with Martin Lawrence posing as a police officer is on TV right now against the Oscars, and "Blue Streak" was the movie I watched at the Mall of America by myself the day after my Mayo Interview while I waited to fly out of Minneapolis airport which is right next to the Mall of America. Ok, so I'm stretching it with that one. But certainly, the movie connection is there. That must be it then. I am destined to write a movie during my residency. Yes yes yes, that is it.

Finally made up for my sleep deficit accumulated over the past month. I've slept at least 24 hours this weekend so I've spent more time sleeping than awaking. Yesterday, during my awake hours, I got some nice quality step 2 studying done at the Manhattan public library on 42nd Street. I finished 100 questions (30 on the subway ride alone) including reading all the answers one by one. But I still have to build up my stamina for the real deal in 2 weeks, 400 questions, with only a 1 hour break over 9 hours. I did it before, so I figure I can do it again, but I spent a lot more time preparing for Step 1. Anyway, I'm sure I'll pass, I just hope my score doesn't drop too much from my Step 1 score. Tomorrow we start a silly lecture series called Emerging Concepts in Medicine which consists of morning lectures on all the things the old fogey faculty at my school think are at the cutting edge of medicine, gene therapy and whatnot, basically any talk with the words genetic or molecular in the title will do. Not that I'm not looking forward to some of the lectures, some do sound interesting, but the context within which they are presented, as some sort of farewell kick in the ass as we head out into the great beyond of molecular medicine, just annoys me. Why don't you let me decide what I need to know? The lectures are so haphazardly organized it makes me wonder how or what we are supposed to be gleaning from these semi-illustrious visiting lecturers. I just hope the visiting lecturers are prepared for a lot of dozing, doodling and dangling legs over arm bars.