The Finite

The whole reason I joined the graduation banquet committee was to make up for lost time. I spent the first few years of pharmacy school quite angry at the world. For a couple of reasons.

So the first two years of pharmacy school, thanks to AP classes I was a year ahead of everyone else. Thus, I was in no classes with any pharmacy people for for three semesters straight and I was actually TA to many of them for Human Anatomy. This gave rise to a public perception of me being some sort of super genius. (Ha, well, we see how that theory turned out.)

So when pharmacy school finally began, I found myself at a distance from everyone in the pharmacy class and without the social skills at the time to be able to do anything about it. Combine this with an exhausting campus job with late hours, social anxiety that scared me off joining any professional organizations or going out the bars and I grew more and more isolated as pharmacy school progressed. It got to be so that the only impression some people had of me was the snarky, cynical things I said during class.

But everything changed during P3 year.

I can’t be sure when, but if I had to pick a time, it would be February 21st at 10:50PM EST.

The noise of the Neon Cactus thundered around me. The building shook from the rafters to the sticky, dusty floor. I looked up from grinding on someone I barely knew, my eyes glazed over and the sounds faded away. The colored lights fluttered in a silent vacuum. The CO2 jets fired in Zach Snyder-time and my surroundings were obscured by darkness and alcohol, but as Ke$ha’s “Die Young” thumped, I, for the first time, saw the world in perfect clarity and understood this simple and sibylline truth: We’re young so we should party and not worry about it too much.

The take-away message for me was that this bitterness was self-destructive and that I really needed to cut loose, give people a chance, and just start having more of those “F&#K IT!” moments.

So I tried Turkish coffee and it’s interesting. Tiny and pricey. But you can’t say any cup that alters your perception of time and makes you think the cashier’s a wizard was a bad purchase. The preparation process consists of super finely ground (like fine fine) coffee that’s basically silt. And they just brew it and give you a cup of that with the liquid on top and the sludge on the bottom.

DO NOT “bottoms up” this. The baristo gave me rather dire warning not to attempt such a thing because he “just painted the ceiling”.

So I’m really feeling, like the whole place here. Really, all the vibes. The music’s good, the food’s good. The AC is on a bit too high, but if I keep tremoring I won’t even be that cold soon. I think I’ll feel better if I start escorting people to their tables. Yeah, I’ll do that now.