The Perils of the White Coat and More Timeless Adventures

The white coat - a symbol that has so many connotations based on who you are. To a child, the white coat represents fear. To an adult, the white coat represents help. To an elder, the white coat represents unavoidable death. To me, the white coat represents one thing and one thing only - a chick magnet. Just kidding.

Yesterday we had our White Coat Ceremony. The best description for it was a ceremony which officially graduated us into the medical world as medical students. Basically a chance for parents to come and see what we've been doing so that they know their money wasn't being spent on random trips to Georgia to pick up 40's at 4am like it was in college. The ceremony was the first time we saw or put on our white coats and we also got our stethoscopes (which I most likely wont be using for the next year or two). I felt foolish in the whole getup, like I was wearing a costume or something. "Bend over and say cheese for me!" I thought it, but didn't say it. See, I'm learning something here.


Since then its been a game of shuffling the time of day around to accommodate my vices while still trying to maintain some sort of grip on the stuff I have to learn. Pretty much, the last few days since the ceremony have either been spent studying or sleeping. Eating only happens when there's a book or slideshow in front of me, and sleep hasn't exactly been long enough to have a proper fantasy of me and Megan Fox on the ocean front. Because of all this, friends, family, and yes, even bathroom breaks have had to take a cut. Surgeons have to stand for 6 hours at a time without bathroom breaks, so I guess that means I could do it. I better stock up on some cranberry juice.

I'm starting to see a really clear separation of the gunners and the relaxed kids since we have so many tests and quizzes coming up. I don't really hate people for being gunners. I think the world needs them in order to motivate (or scare) everyone else to be more productive. The one's I do hate are the gunners who fly under the radar. These are the ones who say they're going to go back to the room and take a nap or go out with some friends nobody knows but actually just end up studying alone in their rooms with fears of being found out by all the others. They're the ones who secretly go to office hours for no reason but to ask questions that they already know the answer to just to show the professor his or her face.

Nonetheless, big weekend coming up - Lane Kiffin will be running all the way home wheezing rocky top through his endotracheal tube after the the Gators get a hold of him. Too much?


I picked up a non-medical school book yesterday, then had to immediately put it down. I haven't watched a single second of TV this entire week. I haven't left the 98th-100th Street 2 block radius for 4 days now. My jokes have been limited to "that's what she said" when the professors say something like, "You can't just find a hole in the body and not go inside of it to see what's inside" for the sole sake of lack of inspiration. But the nerdiest statement of the night is: I'm really loving it all. By the way, I found out my cadaver's name. His name was Charles.