As the World Turns

My brother is finally graduating after having been in college for seven years. A cousin of mine is getting married. An uncle had a baby--well, his wife did. My facebook feed is also being bombarded by people loving their jobs and hating their jobs and getting married and making babies. And here I am, sitting in my room doing practice questions. There's a whole world going on around me, and I'm just excited that I'm through with classroom lectures.

So do you ever have this happen to you...? You're cleaning your sink, and there's this bit of food--say, a piece of tomato--that won't go into the drain no matter how much water you splash at it. It budges a bit and moves here and there, but it refuses go in the direction you want it to. And finally, you say screw it and flick this piece of food into the drain with your fingers. Well, that piece of food is me (and med students in general). We're somehow immune to the tides that shape the outside world, for better or for worse. In this messed up economy of ours, everyone is hurting. But even though med students are drowning in debt, making us some of the poorest sons of bitches you will ever meet, we remain relatively unscathed. In other words, we might be the most well-off impoverished people in the world. It's kind of weird, but I think we're all grateful for this insulative barrier that we have. But maybe all of this is a moot point because the pig flu will get us all in the end. No, not even med school can save us from that.