another year...
while this is my fourth year back in gainesville, everything feels completely different. i basically inhale coffee. i walk through a hospital to get to the cafeteria/bookstore/professors' offices. i get stuck in elevators with 32983298 gorgeous med students, and stare at them accordingly. i sleep an average of 5 hours a night. i go out on weeknights, and pay $3-5 to drink my face off. i've made new friends and i'm becoming a "joiner," as liz has dubbed me. i live in a condo that feels a lot like home to me, with two asians who never let me get any work done. i learn lots and lots of science..most of which is interesting to me.
i absolutely LOVE my new condo. it's really cute, and it feels really homey. i love my room, i love my huge closet, and i love that light doesn't pour into it like it did at uclub. living with jli and yvette is really fun, yet really distracting. hence my residence in library west. i tried studying in the health science library the other day, but it is way too quiet in there, at least for now. i feel like a rockstar when i swipe my new student id and the little green light shows up in the elevator, granting me access to the 6th floor. i've already killed probably 3,000 trees in these first two weeks in printing lecture slides. i wish it were easy for me to learn/take notes without them. i had my first quiz yesterday- the official beginning to school. i have another tomorrow, and an exam next week. cool, grad school.
sometimes i find myself dosing off and when i come back to being aware of my surroundings, i wonder how i got where i am. i tune out of lectures and when i start listening to jibber jabber about receptors and disease states and wonder if i would've seen myself here a few years ago. then i find myself shocked that i'm actually intrigued by most things i learn. it kind of makes me nervous to realize that when i graduate, my profession will basically consist of me being a source of a bottomless pit of medical information that i'll be expected to know for anyone that decides to drill me on it on a daily basis. in four years. i need to stop killing my brain cells. i'm thinking about specializing maybe, which could give me another couple years before i actually face life outside of college walls. i don't know what i would do it in though. i drink my coffee alongside doctors in einstein's as i study my notes- that's really weird to me. it makes me feel like such a grownup. but then i have my nights out where i intoxicate myself, act like i'm 12 and bring myself back to feeling my age. i'm rushing the pharmacy sorority, and have mixed feelings about it right now. it's not really like a sorority in the traditional sense, but the mere thought of the word makes me cringe a little. i think i'm going to do it though, all the girls seem really nice, and this is the type of environment where i want to have a support system, people to study with, and hookups to upperclassmen. not to mention, people to drink with on wednesday nights. and i'm not paying thousands of dollars for friends, it's less than a hundred.
pharmacy school feels like it's going to be a lot like IB was for me. we have all our classes in the same room, back to back. so it feels like high school again. the HPNP building reminds me a lot of the new atlantic buildings, and theres 100 or so of us that will be in this together for the long haul. everyone seems to do everything together- from organizations to studying to grog wednesdays. and then there's that whole endless pile of work that is bringing me back to the days of memorizing science books while doing calc problems and spitting out world lit papers.
i'm getting back into the swing of things and am really glad to be back in gainesville in my comfort zone with my closest friends...but i still miss new zealand like crazy. i daydream about it every day, stare at my shrine, and wish i had the financial capabilities to fly there on weekends. i give myself props for actually going through with that trip- it was the best and most rewarding month of my life. i still can't believe some of the things i did there, i'll never forget them. i never felt so relaxed or happy to be on my own, not charging my cell phone for a week at a time because i never used it. i loved being able to change my plans around on a day to day basis and no one caring because no one else was affected. i never appreciated nature as much as i did that month, and i was certainly never so mesmerized by it. i never sounded so gay talking about my fascination with a chunk of land...and i continue to talk anyone's ear off about it every chance i get. i want to go back really badly one day, but i'm afraid i'd be disappointed because it probably wouldn't be what it was for me now. but it'll still be my favorite place ever. there i go daydreaming again.
i called my mom today and she sounded really sad, then she told me lucky's cancer diagnosis was confirmed. he has laryngeal cancer and the vets told us that chemo probably wouldn't let him live longer than maybe another year, and it'll be really hard on him physically. it makes me really sad. when i got home from new zealand, i started to cry probably within the first 10 minutes that i saw him because he could barely breathe due to that huge lump in his throat. he lost a lot of weight and basically slept all day, and his signature chatty lucky meows were nonexistent. but since he's been on his prednisone, his tumor has gotten a lot smaller and he's been livelier, eating more and not looking so sad all the time. my mom said he's even been playing with sammy again a little bit. so i'm glad that at least he's not suffering so much anymore, and i hope my mom decides to just let him live the rest of whatever time he has without being subjected to all that pain. he's had a good run, if we didn't find him when he was a baby, he probably wouldn't have lived more an another week or so with the state we found him in.. so i just keep trying to tell my mom that she saved his life as a kitten, and gave him the best 13 years he could've ever had. i'm going to miss him meowing back and forth with me the most, but i guess life has to run its course..
so yeah, gainesville is being good to me for now, and i'm really happy with where i am in my life. i wouldn't really change anything i don't think. i'm proud of all i've done and overcome and i hope i never stop working for my dreams, or dreaming more.
maybe i should get back to watching my medchem lectures, so i don't fail my very first exam...yes.
i absolutely LOVE my new condo. it's really cute, and it feels really homey. i love my room, i love my huge closet, and i love that light doesn't pour into it like it did at uclub. living with jli and yvette is really fun, yet really distracting. hence my residence in library west. i tried studying in the health science library the other day, but it is way too quiet in there, at least for now. i feel like a rockstar when i swipe my new student id and the little green light shows up in the elevator, granting me access to the 6th floor. i've already killed probably 3,000 trees in these first two weeks in printing lecture slides. i wish it were easy for me to learn/take notes without them. i had my first quiz yesterday- the official beginning to school. i have another tomorrow, and an exam next week. cool, grad school.
sometimes i find myself dosing off and when i come back to being aware of my surroundings, i wonder how i got where i am. i tune out of lectures and when i start listening to jibber jabber about receptors and disease states and wonder if i would've seen myself here a few years ago. then i find myself shocked that i'm actually intrigued by most things i learn. it kind of makes me nervous to realize that when i graduate, my profession will basically consist of me being a source of a bottomless pit of medical information that i'll be expected to know for anyone that decides to drill me on it on a daily basis. in four years. i need to stop killing my brain cells. i'm thinking about specializing maybe, which could give me another couple years before i actually face life outside of college walls. i don't know what i would do it in though. i drink my coffee alongside doctors in einstein's as i study my notes- that's really weird to me. it makes me feel like such a grownup. but then i have my nights out where i intoxicate myself, act like i'm 12 and bring myself back to feeling my age. i'm rushing the pharmacy sorority, and have mixed feelings about it right now. it's not really like a sorority in the traditional sense, but the mere thought of the word makes me cringe a little. i think i'm going to do it though, all the girls seem really nice, and this is the type of environment where i want to have a support system, people to study with, and hookups to upperclassmen. not to mention, people to drink with on wednesday nights. and i'm not paying thousands of dollars for friends, it's less than a hundred.
pharmacy school feels like it's going to be a lot like IB was for me. we have all our classes in the same room, back to back. so it feels like high school again. the HPNP building reminds me a lot of the new atlantic buildings, and theres 100 or so of us that will be in this together for the long haul. everyone seems to do everything together- from organizations to studying to grog wednesdays. and then there's that whole endless pile of work that is bringing me back to the days of memorizing science books while doing calc problems and spitting out world lit papers.
i'm getting back into the swing of things and am really glad to be back in gainesville in my comfort zone with my closest friends...but i still miss new zealand like crazy. i daydream about it every day, stare at my shrine, and wish i had the financial capabilities to fly there on weekends. i give myself props for actually going through with that trip- it was the best and most rewarding month of my life. i still can't believe some of the things i did there, i'll never forget them. i never felt so relaxed or happy to be on my own, not charging my cell phone for a week at a time because i never used it. i loved being able to change my plans around on a day to day basis and no one caring because no one else was affected. i never appreciated nature as much as i did that month, and i was certainly never so mesmerized by it. i never sounded so gay talking about my fascination with a chunk of land...and i continue to talk anyone's ear off about it every chance i get. i want to go back really badly one day, but i'm afraid i'd be disappointed because it probably wouldn't be what it was for me now. but it'll still be my favorite place ever. there i go daydreaming again.
i called my mom today and she sounded really sad, then she told me lucky's cancer diagnosis was confirmed. he has laryngeal cancer and the vets told us that chemo probably wouldn't let him live longer than maybe another year, and it'll be really hard on him physically. it makes me really sad. when i got home from new zealand, i started to cry probably within the first 10 minutes that i saw him because he could barely breathe due to that huge lump in his throat. he lost a lot of weight and basically slept all day, and his signature chatty lucky meows were nonexistent. but since he's been on his prednisone, his tumor has gotten a lot smaller and he's been livelier, eating more and not looking so sad all the time. my mom said he's even been playing with sammy again a little bit. so i'm glad that at least he's not suffering so much anymore, and i hope my mom decides to just let him live the rest of whatever time he has without being subjected to all that pain. he's had a good run, if we didn't find him when he was a baby, he probably wouldn't have lived more an another week or so with the state we found him in.. so i just keep trying to tell my mom that she saved his life as a kitten, and gave him the best 13 years he could've ever had. i'm going to miss him meowing back and forth with me the most, but i guess life has to run its course..
so yeah, gainesville is being good to me for now, and i'm really happy with where i am in my life. i wouldn't really change anything i don't think. i'm proud of all i've done and overcome and i hope i never stop working for my dreams, or dreaming more.
maybe i should get back to watching my medchem lectures, so i don't fail my very first exam...yes.