Chambana

March 18th, 2011

Things I learned:

  • The Teal bus is not evil.
  • Cravings is the oddly named awesome Chinese food place.
  • Fat Company™ sandwiches should be federally mandated to be sold in every state, province and territory.
  • Korean burritos are the best thing to happen to tofu since oyster sauce.
  • Rice Garden sucks (and this isn’t at all because my cashier greeted me with “Hola”).

My days are spent in JY, Neal and Patrick’s apartment and my nights are spent at Schmitz, Kwiatek’s and David and Anna’s house. That is not including the afternoons in the UG library trying to un-re-un-learn the stats material that my new professor has hopelessly muddled.

I’m trying to catch up on my movies and TV shows in the evening. (There’s too much sex in this House! This is an anti-dramatic season premiere!) Between wildly boring classes and sampling the local dining, I’m also attempting to get as much done as possible before the upcoming “Hell week” once I return to Purdue.

I see everyone after literally years, and everyone is different, yet more or less the same. They look and act the same and have the same haircuts and flat feet (+1 beard). But we’re all more “mature” now, which means we can hold onto our liquor better and since we’re also mostly 21, we can actually hold onto and accumulate liquor. And I suppose we’re all closer to adulthood with our over-caffeinated, hard-studying, popcorn fueled lifestyles. I know this doesn’t need repeating, but high school was a long time ago.

And now some of us perch on the cusp of the real world; 40% of the math team is graduating in May. The Fellowship of the Scholastic Bowl team will soon be broken and scattered across the state, maybe across the country.

I will not visit the Schol Bowl again. I can’t. There will be nothing left to see.

Breath

March 13th, 2011

I’m here. I’m alive. I’ve really been into just trying to keep my head above water in my classes. I added another class, which puts me at 18 credit hours and a 5 hour marathon on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I really, really hate to sleep apparently. And this puts me out for my classes’ TA office hours too. Which is why I have a new catchphrase: “Oh, well… shit.”

I’m finally in classes with actual pre-med students too, now that Physics has caught me up curriculum-wise. Now that I’m in Physical Chemistry (CHM 372), I get to have my self-esteem torpedoed on a daily basis. It’s not just that the pre-meds are really really smart and make this quantum mechanics stuff look easy, it’s all the extracurricular stuff they do.

“I got to get to the pool to train for my triathlon next month.”

“I’m so tired. I spent all night in the lab working on my gels.”

“My internship has me coming in at 8AM all summer! And they won’t let me have coffee in the clean room.”

“That Kaplan prep class is tough! I keep missing that endocrinology question.”

“They postponed my meeting. The lead researcher had to go back to Stockholm for a few days.”

It’s really easy to feel inadequate. I have no research experience. My last practice MCAT score was lower than my ACT score. I’ve had no internships. I’m not an RA. And I don’t have a Blackberry.

But hell. I gotta apply. Nothing to lose except for $4-5000 spent on application fees and deposits, interview and travel expenses and that darn MCAT.

I’m on Spring Break now. And I found myself looking upon a familiar sight. I’m at UIUC. It’s been two years to the day since I was here last. The high school crew has moved on and changed. And I with them.

How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on… when in your heart you begin to understand… there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend… some separations that go too deep… that have taken hold. I cannot always be torn in two. I will have to be one and whole for many years. I have so much to enjoy and to be and to do. My part in the story will go on, but it won’t be here.

But enough of the heavy stuff, I’m on vacation. Bacon time.