Friday, March 16, 2012

Friday Filler: Match Day!

Today is Match Day at medical schools all across America. I work at one of these schools, and this morning I stood in the school lobby and watched a class of 200 students open their envelopes and discover where they'll spend the next four-to-eight years of their lives. It's very exciting, the atmosphere like unto a carnival.

Some graduating seniors do not get accepted into the residency program they want. So while hundreds of students with their friends and families are leaping for joy and celebrating, here and there people draw into themselves and, in some cases, weep openly. Yes, these people are all going to have medical degrees in a couple of months, and even those students who don't get into their program of choice all have jobs lined up for them come summer, so they're lucky, right?

Still, it must be disappointing, to have your hopes pinned on being a surgical resident at Johns Hopkins only to learn that you'll actually be a family medicine resident at Denver General or wherever. That's not what I wanted to do with my life, you might moan, while all around you there are people who are going to go off and do exactly what they wanted to do with their lives. Maybe some folks weren't meant to be surgeons, and that dream was ill-founded in the first place. I don't know. I'm not here to draw conclusions or turn this into a lesson. Mostly, it's Match Day in America, and a lot of people all across the country are having a really good day. Good days are rare, and cool. So have a really good day.

12 comments:

  1. I'm having a good day! It's one of those gray and drizzly days that always seem to make my thinking clearer and the grass look greener and the jacarandas look like they are charged with electricity.

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    1. That's an excellent first two lines for a story! So go write it!

      Keep having a good day!

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    2. Scott, what I'm hearing is that I don't need to rush to finish Cyberlama.

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    3. You need to get your hearing checked, Malasarn.

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  2. I'm 49 and I still don't know what direction I'm heading. If there's a silver lining in that, it would be "I like surprises."

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    1. I'm also 49 and at this stage of my life, what I really want is fewer surprises. And more time to relax.

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  3. Wow, that sounds stressful for med students! I'm having a fantastic day today! I hope to finish my BONDED revisions today and tomorrow and then I'll send them in and I an start my next book. Yay!

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    1. Nobody ever said med school was easy.

      But keep having a fantastic day! Today I'm going to work on an outline for the second half of my WIP. It will be brilliant, I promise. Also, I had a cupcake for breakfast!

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  4. I just baked (and ate a few) chocolate chip cookies, so that's good.

    And the sun is trying really hard to break through the Unending Wet Grayness of Seattle, so that's good.

    I have sleepy warm dachshunds curled by my side, so that's super duper good.

    And there is BASEBALL on the telly! Okay, so it's only Spring Training games, but still. BASEBALL IS BACK!!!!

    I call it all good.

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    1. Opening Day looms on the horizon! Mighty Reader and I will go see more games this year, I swear. The last scene I wrote of my WIP includes a dachshund sleeping on a sunlit couch, nuzzled up against her human!

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    2. Are Doxies able to curl up into balls? If so, I think you should tuck a cookie in each one and make cute bombs.

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