Paging Dr. Rena...

In case you haven't heard/read from one of the many forms of social media that I use....I got my first med school acceptance! Whoo hoo! It is from Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM), the one where I interviewed on 8/13. Now, I might not end up going there if I get into a school closer to home but it's nice knowing that I do not have to come up with a back up plan. Plus, now when people ask me what I'm doing next year, I can say "I'm going to med school" without adding "...if they take me". I have a future, people! Thanks for your prayers and support :)

Med school interviews plus a traveling day from hell

Hello few but faithful readers!

It is about that time again- time to update you with what little excitement is encapsuled in my life. After having ZERO interviews the last time I applied to medical school, I am so very fortunate enough to already have THREE interview invitations from medical schools. They are from Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM for short), Des Moines University (DMU) and Creighton University. I had my LECOM interview on 8/13 (see below for detailed adventures), DMU is on 9/2 and Creighton is on 9/11. For those of you who are not familiar with the process of applying to medical school, here is the process:

1. Submit primary application in June

2. Submit secondary applications in July/August

3. If invited, attend interview between October and March

4. Wait (im)patiently for the schools to tell you the result of your interview

With that considered, all three of the interview invitations I have received are super early, which is a good thing. That means that out of all the applications they have gotten so far, I am one of the people they want to meet and talk to first. It also means that almost all (if not all) the spots that they need to fill are still available. YAY for interviews, especially early ones!

***If you don't care to read about my travel adventures that, at one point, involved vomiting, feel free to skip 4 or 5 paragraphs.***

So let me tell you about the (mis)adventure that was my trip to Erie, PA for my first interview. I was scheduled for a 9:30am flight out of O'Hare to Cleveland to transfer to Erie, arriving about 1:30pm. The plane for my first flight had mechanical issues and our flight was delayed until further notice (read: cancelled) and they were going to try to find us other flights to our final destinations. I wasn't panicking yet since I had planned on getting there early in the afternoon on the day before my interview so as long as I knew I could be in Erie by...oh, 10pm, I'd be okay. Soon, the guy working our gate called me over and said he found a flight for me but I'd have to fly to Philadelphia and transfer to Erie from there. The flight to Philly was to depart at 11:50am and was in a different terminal so I started over there. At this point in the day (about 9:00am), let's note that I have been awake since 6:00am CST and arrived at the airport at 7:15am.

That's the first part of the journey. The second part starts on a seemingly uneventful (read: good) flight to Philly when 30 minutes from our destination, the captain informs us that we have been put into a holding pattern due to storms near Philadephia. So here we are, circling the friendly skies. Half an hour later, they say that we are cleared from the holding pattern and we would be landing soon, but not before we have some turbulence going through what is left of the storm. This would be a good time to note that when I was waiting for my flight to Philly, there was a lovely breakfast shop across the way and I had eggs, bacon, potatoes and toast. Aaaand cue turbulence. And nausea. Luckily, the lady who I ended up sitting next to was a frequent flyer (side note: it's funny that I'm using that phrase "frequent flyer" literally when in the hospital, we use it to describe people who are in and out of the hospital a lot) and had things like tissues, wet naps and gum in her purse. When we finally landed, the slamming of the breaks was the last straw on my stack of nausea straws and I made use of air sickness bags for the first time. Thank you, Andi- wherever you are, for the wet naps and gum. I immediately felt better so I was okay with having had a slightly unpleasant vomiting experience. End of part two.

Part three starts with us arriving at the gate at 3:30pm EST and knowing that my connecting flight was scheduled to take off at 3:35pm. I rushed to find the nearest arrivals/departures board and breathed a (short) sigh of relief when I saw that my connecting flight was delayed, probably for the same reasons my arrival was delayed. I say it was a short sigh of relief because I still had to run down half a terminal and catch a shuttle bus to a different terminal to catch my connection. Note to self- next time, wear running-friendly shoes. I made it onto a jam-packed shuttle and of course my gate is at the furthest possible point in this new terminal. I get there and no one has boarded yet. PHEW. At about 4:15pm, we start boarding this tiny propeller plane (which my stomach is shaking angry fists at, concerned about another potentially turbulent ride). About a minute into our taxiing, the captain tells us that there will be a delay of about half an hour because there are a lot of planes in front of us waiting to depart as well. Great. Fifteen minutes into our thirty minute delay, he tells us that it will actually be about an hour delay. Fabulous. Toward the end of the hour, he tells us that our turn to depart is coming up but it will be another twenty minutes or so. sigh. At this point, we are two hours behind schedule from our original 3:35pm departure. FINALLY, after an otherwise uneventful flight, we arrive in Erie at 7:30pm- SIX HOURS after I was originally supposed to have arrived. I could have driven the 8 hours and arrived earlier.

Oh yes, there is a part four. After my long 14 hour traveling day, I hopped on the hotel shuttle with two of my interview-mates who I made friends with while waiting for the shuttle (they were Asian so I figured they were there for med school interviews- and I was right). They were both staying at Days Inn and I was staying at Comfort Inn. Or so I thought. When I got to Comfort Inn and gave them my name, they said they didn't have a reservation for me. Uh oh. So I gave them my confirmation number and they say that their hotel's confirmation number starts with a 4 and mine started with a 9 so it must not be for this hotel. SOOOooo then I vaguely remembered from back when I made the hotel reservations that I was debating between staying at Comfort Inn and Days Inn because they were the same price. What must have happened is I probably had both hotel names on my word document and then deleted the wrong one after I made my reservations. So they called Days Inn for me and sure enough, there was my reservation. At this point, the shuttle was long gone but one of the two people working at the desk at Comfort Inn was so graciously willing to drive my mixed up self to Days Inn in his own vehicle. I finally got to my hotel, checked in, and then found my interview-mates and told them what happened (which I followed with, "Don't judge me, I'm usually not this dumb!").

Maybe not a part five but an epilogue- we went to dinner after getting settled in the hotel. There was a little bar/restaurant on the other side of the parking lot of our hotel called Doc Holiday's. It was so weird being in a bar with smoke after all the smoke-free bars in Chicago and Champaign. Note- cigarette smoke gives me headaches/nausea. I knew my stomach wouldn't be able to handle a lot of food so I just ordered soup. When our food finally came (the service was terrible), the leftover nausea from my plane ride, intensified by the cigarette smoke, prevented me from taking more than one bite of the soup. Sad day. Luckily, the other two were famished and inhaled their food so we left soon thereafter.

Why do I feel like I just wrote a novel? Anyway, the actual interview went fairly well. It started off with an information session (during which I may or may not have snorted at a stupid question some undergrad-gunner-kissass asked) and then a group interview with 7 applicants and 2 interviewers. They asked us to "tell them about ourselves" and then asked one individual question each and then we had 3 group discussion questions. I couldn't really tell what they thought of me but I don't think I bombed it so that's good. After the interviews, we had a financial aid info session and then a tour of the school and the wellness center, followed by lunch. I got back to my hotel after lunch and my good friend Tom Swanson had planned on visiting me from Cleveland on my trip, since it was only about an hour and a half away. He got there about the same time I got back to my hotel and we went on to explore the great town of Erie, PA. First, we drove out toward the lake onto the peninsula and wandered on some of the piers and beaches. Lake Erie is not as awesome as Lake Michigan, but I may be biased. After our scenic drive, we went to a little gelato shop called Dolce and had a little snackaroo. After that, we thought we could go to the zoo, which we saw on the way to the lake. When we arrived at the zoo gates, we learned that it would be closing just 10 minutes after our arrival so we didn't end up going there. Instead, we went to watch Scott Pilgrim vs. The World which I LOVED. After the movie, we were going to go to my friend's friend's gastropub downtown called Jekyll and Hyde's for dinner and drinks but the food inspector hadn't come yet so they couldn't serve food. We grabbed some greasy burgers from a place down the street (not good enough to even remember the name of the joint) and then went back to J&H for beer. I had the Lancaster Strawberry Wheat and Tom had the Southern Tier Hop Sun- both very tasty and summery. The strawberry flavor was not overpowering and was just the perfect hint of the scent and aftertaste.

My flight home was just as uneventful as my flight there was eventful, which I was grateful for. If you actually read that whole thing without falling asleep halfway through it, kudos. If not, that's okay too. Hopefully, this made up for my lack of regular blogging. Have a good 4-months-till-I-turn-24-day!