\m/etal

So I've decided that this is the perfect time to refocus my efforts on my guitar playing, and on metal in general. I feel like I can finally enjoy things again, haha! To that end, I have taken specific steps:

1) I am now a guitar teacher! Every friday, I will be teaching guitar at the local music store here in Metalton. I'll charge $25 a half hour or $40 for an hour. It's a lot cheaper (per hour) for an hour-long lesson because I really prefer to have longer lessons. I feel like a half hour isn't really long enough to get in to the juicy part of playing metal right? I feel like you'd be getting a good shred-boner going, and all of a sudden, oops! half-hour's up!

2) I am listening to some sweeet metal. Specifically, Steel Panther's new album, Balls Out. It's awesome. There is so much amazing guitar playing on it, and tons of great singing and songwriting. Truly, these guys are musician's musicians. In fact, it seems that it would be worthwhile to just go through and learn the whole album front to back... hmmm... a challenge! I have thrown down a gauntlet to myself! Challenge accepted, self!



3) I have been practicing a lot! It's actually been really fun to be good again :) I miss having that little bit of pressure, knowing that you will have to play in front of other people. Nothing like a little performance anxiety to motivate you. I played about 4 hours yesterday, and I have to say, I was climbing (slowly) above the plateau that I've been stuck at for a couple of years. Yeah!

That's all for now. Go listen to Balls Out. It will make you happy in your pants.

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...

The End (or Beginning) is Nigh (or Not)

So one of the Boston schools I applied to is supposed to call accepted students in the next 2-3 days. I'm trying to play it cool, but I am not feeling cool at all. I think that this med school is one of my best chances at acceptance, so if it doesn't work out, I will be really on edge for the next 8 months until all the waitlists resolve themselves.

So yeah, by Friday of next week, I will either be cruising down easy street with an acceptance to a great school close to home, or else I will have my back against the wall hoping that one of the other schools throws me a bone.

I feel ill. But you know what? This is stupid. If I don't get in to med school, I will go work for some biotech company, or go get a PhD, and I'll get a band together and write some music, play out, and become a rockstar/biomedical entrepreneur.

Listening to: Crusade by Trivium. A true work of genius by any standards. Especially the title track - incredible. Inspiring. One of those rare pieces of pure musical expression that shocks you in to a state of submissive wonder.

All the f-ing time in the world

Today is Sunday. Next Thursday is Thanksgiving. I would kill and eat the turkey with my bare hands if I could just hear SOMETHING by thanksgiving. Like, honestly, at this point, a rejection would be better than just waiting and waiting and waiting... It's inhuman is what it is. When I have my own med school, we will meet right after we've interviewed the applicants, decide within 24 hours (because it's not like you are waiting on new information at that point!), and then send notification within 4-5 days of the interview. I mean, really, why does it have to be 6-to-8-to-26 weeks? rrrgls. UVA actually notifies applicants within like a week of their interview. How reasonable - if only some of the schools I interviewed at had as much humanity!

It's just driving me nuts - either my life will be set on a really cool and rewarding course, or else I have to start from square one and figure out wtf I will do with my time on this little rock hurtling through space.

Ugh... yup pretty much going crazy. Creative/enlightening/hilarious blog posts will resume when my mind is not in a constant state of suspended torment.

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.

Interviews done...Hammerzeit

Today I completed my last med school interview - and I am quite relieved. It has been a crazy month, and now I have 6 interviews behind me. Did I nail the interviews? Will I get an offer of admission? Should I have offered my body to the interviewers? (and if not, oops)

I have no effing idea, but now there is nothing more I can do - and that's a good thing. Pressure is off. I might possibly get a couple more interviews later this year, but for now, the die is cast. I sit, and I get really really good at waiting.

Although I am somewhat exhausted from all the travel/working full time/working my other job, I will share one quick story from my interview today.

I was at the school in Boston(ish...), and the interview was in the dreaded Massively Multiplayer Interview format where you have like 10 interviews, each of them 10 minutes long, and each involving some role-playing or ethical dilemma or philosophical question etc.

So one of the interviewers was this guy who was pretending to be a patient telling me his history, and every 2 minutes, he'd pause and ask me to recount as many details from the story as I could. I rocked the first two minutes, and did pretty good in the next couple minutes, and then basically deteriorated from there. By the end I was totally information-overloaded, and couldn't retain anything he told me.

Him: "OK, go ahead and tell me what you remember from that last section of my patient history."

Me: "Ummmm... pretty sure you said something about...words...and there was a...um...you had some coughing and pain in your...balls? And/or face."

The following comic perfectly expresses how I felt that interview ended perfectly. Enjoyez-vouz. (P.S. @HeavyMetalVixen, don't worry, this is almost entirely a dramatization for entertainment purposes only, and actually I think the interview went very well overall).