Oh, The Agony

Wow, it has been a while since I have written. This is mostly due to procrastination on my part and the sudden onslaught of essays and research needed to maintain grades in my classes. Finals are next week, the semester has gone by rather quickly. I feel as if I haven't learned anything, even though I have done well in my classes. Hopefully as I progress through college I will actually acquire some of this knowledge that I am supposed to be using in my future life. This is especially true of my science classes which will greatly affect my chances of eventually making it into med school, my goal (at least at this moment.) Registration was a few weeks ago, and I don't think I have an encountered a more agonizing experience at school. Watching the class numbers dwindle away was horrifying. My perfectly planned schedule was demolished on the first day of registration. Of course, because I am a lower classman I get last priority. This means that next year I will have some advantage over incoming freshmen. This is one of the reasons I hate the school I am going to. It prides itself on small class sizes and one on one teacher interaction, but this sacrifices the ability to attend any class you want without worrying about class size.

I have also had concerns lately about the fact that my college is not a well known one. Being a destined med school student, your undergraduate school has some influence on the types of schools you are accepted to. I feel that because my school is smaller and virtually invisible on the map of colleges that I will not be given a fair chance when applying. Within the last month or so I have seriously considered transferring schools as a junior. I will get all of my med school requirements out of the way at the school I am at now and just focus on my major at the new school. I would like the prestige of going to a top school, something I would not have been able to achieve with my poor high school grades. Therefore, my main goal over the next year and a half is to maintain a good GPA and take the classes (hopefully) that I need to for a transfer. Another goal of this transfer is of course, cost. The school I am at now is VERY expensive, even with an academic scholarship. I would hope to transfer to a state school such as UCLA or UCI to cut costs while still enjoying the high caliber of classes offered.

The thing that I am most excited about that is coming up in January is a Buddhist retreat, part of a world cultures class. This includes ten days of meditation and religious ceremony in Colorada. People have said that this is a life changing experience, and this is one of the main reasons I am taking it. I feel like my life so far has been predictable for the most part. I am not a risk taker and I never strive to do the unexpected. This Buddhist retreat will be unlike anything I have ever done before. First, I have never travelled completely by myself before. I have always had friends or family members with me. Second, the retreat is completely cut off from the outside world. It will be a different experience living out of the range of cell phones and in a remote area, at least 2 hours from any major city. My third motivation is the reaction I get when I tell people my plans. Some assume I am buddhist whereas others, the majority, laugh and think I am out of mind to be attempting this sort of thing. This reaction motivates me more than the others because through college I am trying to do the unexpected and branch out from the world I know. I will most definetely be writing about my experiences when I get back from this amazing trip.

Well, I guess this is all for now. I of course have many other ideas and experiences that I inevitably forget to write about. Hopefully I will continue to use this blog as a way to organize my thoughts, it is the perfect tool for this kind of endeavor.