Stealing from School

As many of you know, I have started medical school in Chicago. This has put both the year of-no-buy and my blog on hiatus over the past weeks (although there is an arguement to be made that the blog is on permanent semi-hiatus) as I get settled into the new world of medical science, cadavers, and classmates. As I am back to no-buying and blogging, I will defer writing about moving for no money, and making new friends for little money, and instead post a school assignment. We have to keep reflection portfolios about our development as physicians at school. Here is my first installment, with more to follow as the portfolio grows:

I have answered the question “what do you want to be when you grow up?” with the response, “a doctor” since people have asked me that question.  At age five, this may have been because the possible answers were limited to doctor, lawyer, professional athlete, astronaut, and confusingly, President of the United States.  (I always wondered why there were enough slots in most professions for people to enter those fields, whereas there can only be one president every four year.  Your individual odds are terrible).  As I grew older, and my convictions that medicine is the best field for me deepened, I, paradoxically, felt freer to explore other interests and passions.  While I contemplated majoring in biology in college, my advisor told me to do something that I would never be able to study again, so I opted for French History and Literature.  Not the most career applicable major, but I loved the very personalized course of study that I followed and support that I received from faculty and advisors.  I learned how to think critically and write (and write and write and write) in my major, which are two skills that served me well on the MCAT, at least on the verbal section.  

Within the first six weeks of medical school, my suspicions about there being science medical students and non-science medical students has borne out.  I have come to think of myself as a humanities leaning science person, and thus despite the deluge of information pouring over our heads, I make time for the New York Review of Books and a John Updike novel.  I would not be me if I was not reading something currently and I am determined to make literary reading a part of my life during both medical education and practice.  The other divide that I sense in medical school is the difference between people who are fresh from college and those who, like myself, are several years removed from their undergraduate days.  The younger ones are young, tend to be quicker on the knowledge uptake, and also faster on the party circuit.  My group of friends are all over the age of 25, and we are all adjusting to being students again, especially students of medical learning.


Now, on to perhaps the most important question of this first reflection: Am I glad that I am here, finally beginning my medical career?  The answer, despite the fact that the clinic seems impossibly far away from my current life, is an unequivocal yes.  Once the application/interview/decision cycle was completed, I harbored a tiny sliver of fear that I had possibly been wrong after all of these years.  What if I did not like medical school, or after interacting with my classmates, professors, and medical staff understood that I made a bad choice?  I don’t know what I would have done then because mercifully I still feel shivers of anticipation at the thought of being a practicing physician.  I admire several of our course heads for the clear, level-headed introductory courses that they are providing for us, and have been impressed by the doctors on staff of UIH that I have come across.  A friend of mine from college who is an M3 wrote in an email several weeks ago that “at some point during the first two years everyone [meaning every student in a med school class] falls in love with medicine itself.”  I am lucky to count myself among those who fell hard and quickly.  

Up and at 'em to Chicago

The scoreboard is on and Owen and I are about to head out of this piece and begin our westward migration. One major tip regarding cost free moving is to schedule your move just after a group of friends have moved and then take all of their recently minted boxes. The other takeaway from this experience is that if you put things on the sidewalk, generally people will claim them quickly. Though I must admit my green office chair has been out there for almost two days. Even the used candles went faster than that. Other than whipping up some broccoli and onion pizza (both vegetables are far beyond their normal lives), the only major task left is to shred the receipts of the past two years. Oh all the trips to Costco, Save-A-Lot, Giant, and Whole Foods; how funny it is to look at your artifacts in retrospect and think about the immanence of life. This year's receipts are a much slimmer pile indeed...

Eating in the Summer

Craigslist scams

Owen and I are hoping to push no-buy in a new, deeper direction by getting rid of both of our cars before we move to Chicago. Maybe being sans vehicle in Arctic winds will teach us a lesson, but right now the prospect of being carless is a joyful one. Both of our universities give out "u-passes" which allow students to travel on all public transportation for mere pennies a day. This is exciting because I have never been a big public commuter (no need in Portland and no real possibility to do it in Baltimore) and I look forward to the challenge of bus schedules, large bags, and strange seatmates. Something new at least. The sole detractor from all my car-free reveries is the hassle of selling a car, namely on Craigslist. What is the deal with all the scams? Why do I have an inbox full of Nigerian wire transfer offers and sketchy people who want me to drive the car to Columbia (the town in MD, not the country) because they just moved here from a foreign country? Finding renters for the house was so pleasant, and this is just so bizarre. I just want a nice person to hand me some cash and take my bruiser of a vehicle off my hands so that I can start drooling over the Chicago Transit Authority route maps and schedules.

The No-buy birthday

Dudes and dudettes--

I have officially attained quarter century status, as of 10AM MST on July 16, 2007. It's actually a pretty momentous occasion. Usually, when people ask the mock-serious question on your birthday: "so, do you feel any different, any older?" I respond with a smirky, snarky comment. But this year, I really _do_ feel different. I am 25% through a typical 100-year old life. I break that down into 0-25 childhood/major education, 25-50 career and family rearing, 50-75 begin retirement/self-enrichment, 75-100 waiting for the bell to toll for thee. In that frame, I have completed the phase in which I could plausibly be called a child. There's no turning back now, I am officially, and unequivocally an adult. The next step is just the baby in the baby carriage (and maybe marriage before that, if you want to be proper about things). To complement this momentous birthday, my family did a stupendous job of adhering as closely as possible to not buying things as gifts/buying very meaningful things. My sister Katie redeemed a free Victoria Secret underwear certificate and graciously sent me the receipt for verification. And the undies even have little pencils on them. Ironic because I was a teacher and am about to become a student again. My father continued to outfit my nascent kitchen supplies with a top-of-the line Japanese dicing knife. He says that it is the best knife in the world, and my father should know, because he cuts a lot of things up, including his own fingers. My mother thrifted a stunning near-floor length black down jacket (sleeping bag) from the [in]famous bins of SE Portland's Goodwill outlet. She says the jacket will make me look like Jackie Kennedy. Owen says I look more like Cruella Deville. Nontheless, I will be warm and bundled in Chicago. Owen made/is making a recipe binder of all the loose recipes I have collected over the past three years. It's amazing how much I like lentils. This is reflected in the fact that there is a "lentil" section to the book. In all of this using things up mentality, no one takes the cake like my grandmother though. Not only did she make me napkins out of the same material as hers and my father (what a lineage!) but gave me a book of daily meditations from the Dalai Lama called "Reaching Tranquility." I call it my "daily lama." To all my birthday peeps, big ups. You did a perfect job.