My specialty

So, I've decided what I'm going to do with my life: I want to be an orthopedic surgeon.  It's funny to put it out there like that, especially because you spend so much time in med school trying to obfuscate your preferences.  All through 3rd year, within 5 minutes of meeting you, the residents and attendings on every rotation ask you, "So, what specialty are you thinking?" and all thru 3rd year, the correct answer is "Oh, I'm still deciding/not really sure/still ruling things out," thereby implying that their specialty is still in the runnings.

It's kind of silly, and you might say, why not just tell them what you actually want to do?  Well, unfortunately it doesn't really work that way in my experience, because as soon as they find out that you are not going into their specialty, the relationship changes.  Which is actually reasonable: if I'm on psych and they know I'm not going into psych, it would be... less fun for them to invest a lot of effort in me. I think that ultimately, mentors hope that you will want to follow in their footsteps.  If you explicitly don't plan to follow in their footsteps, you'll find that its suddenly much harder to get a mentor on a given rotation.  I know that sounds kind of cynical, but I've seen it happen, it's happened to me, and honestly, it makes sense.  And it's not the end of the world either, but in 3rd year, you find yourself fighting to learn, fighting to find good mentors.  And by telling a physician that you don't want to do what they do, you make your fight that much harder.

But enough on that, I'm putting it out there - I want to be an orthopod!

And in other news, I've been listening to SO much good music this year!  Spotify is a huge, huge part of my life - I think my priorities are 1) breathing, 2) spotify 3) food, peeing, other basic life functions. Anyway, if you are a fan of good things, this band, Periphery, is amazing - prog metal at its best!!

Aright, this feels good!  If my Netflix habit suffers a little to get this blog going again, so be it.

Axl Rose to the Occasion

Today I got in to medical school!

I know, not as much fanfare as you might have expected from me considering that this blog was dedicated to the struggle of getting in to med school. I got the call today right after work, but I couldn't answer it because I was talking to the music store guy about becoming a guitar teacher there. I checked my voicemail afterwards, and there it was:

"I am calling to congratulate you on being accepted to our med school in Boston! You are a wiener!"

Just like that. But he had a pretty thick accent, so he might have been calling me a "winner"... In any case, yes, it is official. The journey that might have ended in sputtering defeat sometime next May will instead continue on and on and on.

Time to party! Axl out!

An Astute Observation

So it has been a week since I wrote in this blog, and I (approximately) quote: "2-3 days from now I will know one way or another if I got in to med school or not." Unquote.

I have thusly made the following astute observation: logic dictates that one of two state of affairs must have come to pass (states of affair?). Either:

1) 3-4 days ago I was accepted to medical school. I drank champagne and celebrated with my homies. I partied like a rockstar, drank like an Irishman, and ate watermelon like a boss. All was good in world, and I quit my job to backpack around Europe with my cat Bobbins Magellan Mouse-Destroyer 3000. I came back, and found that I had 12 other med school acceptances, so I played them off against eachother until 5 of them offered me full scholarships. I then settled on a school in Boston that offered me $20k per semester to go there. Bitches loved me.

Or

2) 3-4 days ago I was not accepted to medical school. I drank Wild Turkey whiskey and passed out in the urinal at KFC. Hours later, I woke up in a police station where I was questioned about the whereabouts of my accomplices in the bank robbery I pulled off earlier that day. Upon insisting that they had the wrong guy, they showed me the security footage at the bank, and the bank robber did indeed look an awful lot like me. In the footage, I try to make a getaway on a giraffe that had escaped from the zoo - and I do not get away. It then turned out that, in fact, it was me. I went to prison. I tried to join a prison gang for protection, but was rejected on account of that I failed to get in to medical school, and was therefore uncool.


Logic dictates that ONE of these scenarios MUST have come to pass since I was ABSOLUTELY supposed to find out 3-4 days ago whether I got in to med school or not.

In fact, a third scenario has come to pass, one that I feel quite foolish not to have anticipated: the med school that was going to make a decision and let me know 3-4 days ago did not make a decision, and did not contact me 3-4 days ago. I continue to sit and wait like a chode in the wind...

Wait (More) Like a Boss

My apologies for the long absence. Things have been very much in limbo since I completed my last med school interview. I am, in essence, working and waiting. But I am determined to wait like a boss! So far, I have not heard anything, good or bad, from any of the schools. I suppose that, as they say, no news is good news, but it is frustrating to have to wait for decisions (having waited to GET interviews) (having waited to GET secondaries) (having waited to GET MCAT scores) (etc)...

But I suppose this is as good a chance as any to recap what has gone on up to this point:

1) I f-ed up my college transcript with shitty grades, due to a lack of effort (or at least, a lack of effort in class. I put plenty of effort in to my guitar skills!). That was circa 2007.

2) I went out in to the real world (NYC) and got reamed by life/ my terrible job/ being poor/ trying to be a musician.

3) I rebooted my life. Left NYC and moved to Philly where I got a master's degree in biotechnology (and got reamed by student loans). Applied to med school unsuccessfully (sort of). Met my woman in Philly, and we moved to...

4) The Desert Southwest. Had a great year working in a lab. Retook the MCAT and pwned it. Reapplied to med school.

5) Got 6 interviews. Moved to New England.

Which brings us to today. The interviews occurred between 1 and 8 weeks ago. And now, we wait...

Also, I have been playing a lot of guitar again. Listening to lots of music, including:

Alter Bridge: AB III
Protest the Hero: Scurrilous
Winger: Karma
Mr. Big: What If?

So yeah... I haven't gotten in to med school yet, but I am close...so close.

She's What!?

Headed to Beantown tomorrow for an interview on Friday. It's going to be... an interview. Haha - at this point, I really just want an acceptance. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe not. Ugh.

I cook all the time because my girlfriend is in med school. I long for the good old days... [sigh] Back in the kitchen female!

Protest the Gyro

Ho. Lee. Shit.

Today is a good day. Sorry HMV, but it's time for a metal-related post. Today I discovered my new favorite band - Protest the Hero. They are from Canada, like proto-prog rockers Rush, and they are astounding. Perfect. Just perfect. Technical but tasteful. Virtuosic but hooky. Perfect. I will listen to their entire catalogue over the next day or two, and report back.

Today is a good day. Sorry HMV, but it's time for a beer-related post. Today a new friend of mine gave me a home-brewed beer. I was impressed enough that he was able to brew a beer at home period, but this beer is perfect. Dark but springy. Chocolatey but rich and serious. Totally badass.

Well, tomorrow I'm off to Maine to hang out with some college friends of mine - there will be debauchery, which is sorely needed after all this work and applications and Kaplan and stuff. Then on Tuesday, it's back to the desert for my second interview of the season. THEN, its HMV's white coat ceremony! Very sweet.

Adios amigos!

Au Revoir, Mon Ami

Yes, this is it. Parting is such sweet sorrow. The end of days in the Great American Southwest is upon us. The time has come to say auf wiederzein to all that I have known for the past year. Hasta la vista, bebe. And other cliches.

I am moving on to a new chapter in my life, hopefully full of good news on the med school front. And as we part, let's take a moment to remember the good, the bad, and the downright strange from my days in the desert:

The Good

- Saving Sir Bobbins Magellan Chookums Mouse-Destroyer 3000 from the clutches of defeat at the hands of the pound. He is going to be our little souvenir from the desert.

- Having a sweet-ass hot tub right at my apartment. I think I'm going to miss you most of all, hot tub.

- Sand people. Contrary to depictions in popular media, desert people are genuinely nice, more so here than average. New Englanders are...well, they're like fried ice cream (hot on the outside, cold on the inside...?). No wait, that's not right. They're like frozen... hot chocolate. A little cold on the outside, but warm and gooey on the inside. Desert people are just swell through and through.

- Spring in the desert. Spring here is awesome. My relatives back east were complaining about "mud season", which is spring in New England. Meanwhile, I was hiking in the mountains, enjoying perfect 70 degree weather. Nice.

- Eastern Blocker Soccer. Every saturday, I've been playing soccer with a bunch of Russians and Lithuanians that I met over here. It's been a blast. And let me tell you, you do not know the meaning of exhausted until you've played a game that ended at a score of 18-19, in 100 degree heat, without breaks, for 2 hours, at an altitude of 1 mile. I could probably run a marathon at sea level no problem now, even though I don't run marathons.

- Mexican food. Naturally, it's pretty awesome here.

The Bad

- Summer in the desert. Over 100 degrees all summer? No, but thanks.

- Being dirt broke 90% of the time. That may be more my fault than the desert's, but I'm going to go ahead and blame it on the desert anyway. Jobs are scarce out here, so if they say they are going to pay you $30 and a sandwich per week, you say Thank you sir, may I have another?

And then they say no.

- Crime. Desert people are poor for the most part. This means that there is a lot of petty theft and other crimes. Which sucks. Fortunately, I haven't been a victim of crime here, but I do mean fortunately. Had I stayed much longer, I fear I would be pushing my chances.

- Middle Eastern food. It's my fave. Along with Japanese. But there is not a lot of cultural diversity here, so there really isn't much in the way of good hummus. And I say boo to that.

The Downright Strange

- [content removed for a crazy reason, see next blog post]


And so, a farewell to arms! It's time to make like a shepherd and get the flock outta here! My next post will be from the land of milk and honey - New England!

Waiting: like a chump or like a boss!

Waiting for secondaries or interview invites or interview days or final decisions is a marathon. A waiting marathon. It's basically the Olympics of waiting.

Sometimes, we forget that. Today is one of those days for me. Up until I got my first interview invite a few days ago, I was totally relaxed - I basically forgot that I was waiting for anything (which is the pro way to wait!). But then I got that invite, and then another one, and now, I'm jonesing for more! I was all up on SDN today just trying to figure out what schools were sending out invites, what schools weren't, what were the trends from last year etc. It's easy to lose your cool like that because there is so much riding on getting these interviews.

But then I was like, wait, I'm a pro waiter! I'm the Leonardo Davinci of waiting. Last time I applied to med schools, I waited 11 months just to find out that I didn't get in anywhere! This one time, I waited for like 12 years...for my 12th birthday to come, beotch! I aint no chump, I'm going to not even know that I'm waiting for anything! I'm gonna wait like a boss!

The Dog Days of Purgatory (feat. Sassy Moses)

People sometimes ask me how I know that I will like being a doctor. Let's play a little quiz game:


Q: Wanna know how I know that I'm going to like med school and being a doctor?

A: Because I'm going through hell to get there. And after hell, well shit, even purgatory looks like the tits.


OK, maybe I'm not going through hell, but this period of my life will forever be known as... the Bummer Summer. No, the Acrimonious August. The Time Not So Sublime? The Dog Days of Dog Turds? The Before-Fall's Walls-to-walls Punch in the Balls? The Pre-Autumn Smacked-Bottom?

I don't want to turn this totally awesome and metal blog in to a sissy little bitchy diary, but August has been really tough. HMV and Bobbins Magellan Mouse-Destoryer 3000 have moved to New England ahead of me and started med school (the HMV has, not Bobbins. He's deferring a year). That has left me alone in the great American Southwest, with no car, no cat, no girlfriend, no stuff in my apartment, and no money (moving expenses I guess). So I've basically been subsisting off ramen, pasta, rice, eggs, frozen pizzas, and whatever else I can dig up. I'm working two jobs, and trying to sell the last of my shit in my free time. If I want to go anywhere I have to take the shitty bus system or walk. I've walked more this month than fucking Moses did in his whole life.

However, there's a purpose to all this. Literally everything I've done in the last 3 years has all been towards one goal: getting in to med school. And now I am nearing the finish line (again), and honestly, the day I get the call that I'm in... I don't even know... that will be a good day. And if I don't get in anywhere, it will be a kick in the nuts, and I'm not sure where I'll go from there. Hopefully, we won't have to find out.

Anyways, I scheduled my two interview invites for mid-September and early October. Let the games begin.

Will Shred for Cash

I have decided that this might be a good time in my life to go busking (apparently not everyone knows what busking is (het-hem HMV) - its when you play music on the streets for change). But I feel that busking has been done seven ways to Sunday. Every Dick Joe and Harry and his uncle has set the guitar case open and played some lame song after lame song. Not me - I'm going to make busking sexy.

1) Albums. The HMV has this terrible, terrible habit of never listening to a whole song all the way through, let alone a whole album. I on the other hand like to sit down and listen to a whole album. So I thought, how awesome would it be if a busker just played a whole album all the way through?! So that's what Ima do. I'm thinking I'll start with Appetite for Destruction by GnR, Skid Row by Skid Row, and maybe Master of Puppets by Metallica. Sweet.

2) Signs. "Donations Accepted", "Need Cash", "Thanks for you help". Know what I say to those signs? Yaaaaaaaawwnn zzzzzzz. I will have signs that change every day. And they will be sick. "Donations Accepted for legal defense fund", "Need cash for Lobster Dinner", "Thanks for supporting alcoholic musician bums". Boo yah bee-otch.

3) Parties. Where Axl busks, the party follows. I will recruit local musicians to come play with me, and I'll get my band to come out and play acoustic sets that are still totally metal.

Plan complete.

Mega Ultra-Metal Super-Medical Somewhat Relevant Update: Roadtrip and Cetera

Oh my - long time no update...

[deep, deep inhale]


Days 2-5 of roadtrip were sweet, stopped in Kansas City, Chicago, Eerie(ish), Niagara Falls (Holy Strip-mall Trash-heap Tourist-trap Batman!), and then arrived at our new home in [super-secret New Englad college town] where we got our new home set up and Heavy Metal Vixen got situated with her med school stuff at [ultra-anonymous med school in said super-secret college town] and then we drove north to see my fam which was awesome and then we drove back and now I am flying back to the Southwest to finish up my job and our lease and now I am sitting around like a chode in the wind waiting for my 3 hour layover to be done, full stop.

[deeeep inhale]

Yes. I have been writing many many secondary essays for the application process, which sucks. I have a tendency towards run-on sentences; the above paragraph-sentence should have gotten most of that out my system. I've been editing those out of my secondaries all day. And now. My sentences. Are. Much. Shorter.

Leeet's see what else is huge going on...

Well, in the world of metal, Trivium's ridiculous new album In Waves is about to drop, so I'm saving up all my tooth fairy money for that. If you have any love at all for metal (and why wouldn't you?), watch this music video, it's super cool.


Also, in case it wasn't clear, I am moving back to [anonymous New England college town in New England] at the end of August. I will live with the HMV, apply to schools, and work. It will be sweet. But also [dum da-da daaaahhh] I will be starting a new metal band! Who wants to play with me? If you do and you live in...the...Boston environs...or anywher kind of near there...hit me up. :) Sweet anonymity-save Axl!

As of this 5th day of this month August, I am announcing the start of a fabulous new sweepstakes super-competition! If you don't win this competition, your head will almost certainly explode due to the crushing pressure of defeat at having NOT won the incredible prize on offer. Here's the skinny:

Axl Rose's Mega-Metal Ultra-Music-Like Somewhat-Medical Bingo Sweepstakes Competition!

I challenge you, yes YOU, gentle reader, to come up with a sweet name for my new band that will form shortly. All lame entries will be labelled "Lame" and posted on this blog. Then I will probably send you a bag of Bobbins's poop in the mail. But oh! if you send me an awesome band name, it shall be labeled "Metal" and posted on this blog. And at the end of August, the most metal, most clever, most sexy, most head-swellingly awesome band name shall be picked (either by me or by popular vote), and it shall become the actual In Real Life band name of my band. And maybe I will send you a fabulous prize (or potentially a bag of Bobbins's poop)! Void where prohibited. Yeah, I'm talking to you South Dakota. Don't even try it.

That is all for now gentle reader. Excuse the long silence - secondaries have genuinely ruined all aspects of my life: my TV watching is non-existent, my drinking is severely sub-alcoholic, and my free time index is in the toilet. But I am aaaalmost done with secondaries, at which point you can expect a deluge of tasty tasty treats.



[Cretit to nananishigaki.com for cat poop pic, hehe]



P.S. I totally forgot - I became obsessed with this vid over the past week. I normally do not proscribe non-metal videos and/or music, but this is the most metal non-metal video I have ever seen! Enjoyez-vous:

Totally Metal Pre-med Road Trip Woooo! Day 1

Today was the first day of the rest of our lives. I suppose that applies to the day before that, and tomorrow, but you know... there you have it. We left our old home in the Great American Southwest, and headed east. It was hot as balls, but we were not to be repelled by the Southern Plains.

Today, we saw corn. A. Lot. Of. Corn. And wheat, and cows. And hay. The cows smelled cow-like.

Then we went to a Wal Mart in Kansas. Hilarious. Get your groceries, your playstation 3 games, and your 55 caliber anti-aircraft gun ammunition.

My co-pilot Bobbykins worked very hard. He guarded the area near my thigh tirelessly. Or is that tiredly?

Tonight we are in Dodge City, and we ate steaks made out of the cows that we've been seeing all day. They were delicious!! And now we are going to sleep.

Photo credits: Heavy Metal Vixen
Bodyguarding credits: Bobbins

The Latest Goings-On

Ugh where to begin...

1) My scientific paper on a craniofacial syndrome needs to be submitted by Friday. Which means that it has to be written today. Not from scratch, but still.

2) My personal statement for AMCAS/AACOMAS is nearing a final state, but it still needs work before I can submit said AMCAS/AACOMAS. But before THAT, I need my goddamn effin...

3) Committee Letter!!!! This is the source of all my frustration right now. The premed advisor at my undergrad school has gone totally AWOL. Like, I have been trying to reach her for weeks, and she's nowhere to be found. And until she writes me a committee letter, I'm stuck sittin' around with my genoa salami in my hands. Like a frikkin sad little kid with his kite lying on the ground in the middle of a field. Just waitin for a little breeze. I'm not asking for the pre-med advisor to give me a reacharound while she recites Hamlet, just a frikkin letter - ugh!!

Anyways, that is the state of affairs. This weekend, I'm partyin' like it's friday, friday, gittin down on friday...I hate that song so deeply. Axl out.

"I have a secret - I pooped my pants"

OK - it's Friday, I'm tired, not feeling at all witty, and I need to get some infantile humour out of my system. So here it is. This guy, Joseph Ducreux, was a painter dude in the olden days, and for some reason, he insisted on creating paintings that, when taken out of context, are just hilarious. Here are a couple that caught my eye. Enjoyez-vous.

You've seen this fellow before. What can I say? Brilliant. I'm a sucker for that winning grill. My woman is indeed a heavy metal miner!!

You've seen this fellow before as well. What can I say? I'm a sucker for subaquatic pineapple.




OK, that's it. Got it all out of my system. I promise that in my next post, we shall be returning to high-quality, informative posts all about the med school application process, sprinkled with only the highest-of-brow humour, and a minimum number of metal-related tangents...

...cause that's what you've all come to expect of me...

Valentimes (Like a Ritual)

It's St. Valentines Day. I'm so excited!! Oh wait, what? It's really all just about the girl? ...oh. And I just have to be nice to her? All day? hmmm.... (grumblegrumble feminine master-gender conspiracy grumblegrumble)

It's cool though. Life is good, getting out of work, going to go create a Valentines Day masterpiece so that I don't get harassed for a whole 'nother year! (Supposedly, last valentines I took her out to dinner, split the bill, didn't get her flowers or a card, bought a bar of chocolate, and ate it myself...allegedly...) This year, I'm gonna make good by - oops! Almost gave it away. You're not figuring it out THAT easy woman!

Happy Valentines Day!

(also, today's blog images are brought to you by the band HIM, whose logo looks like a pentagram AND a heart, so, that's pretty relevant. And speaking of love and pagan rituals, listen to "Like a Ritual" by Winger off of their seminal album "Pull". No, I don't care, Winger rules! Pull is a legit great album...)