The long stagger to the finish line

We are in our final few weeks of medical school, and have one big exam before it is all over.

I'm spending quite a bit of time just reading over things. Partly for the exam. Partly because I think they are things that I should at least refresh before next year starts.

In a few weeks, God willing, I will be a doctor.

I will be free of the medical school, but back in the clutches of the hospital system.

It will be interesting.

For now, I'm just stumbling along during the last phase of it all. I could probably pass without study, but the thought of tripping and falling at this point just scares me too much.

I'll write more once the exam is over. After that, who knows.

Testing for old bitterness

I looked up my old high school on Wikipedia today. Just for fun. It had the usual drivel about mission statements and mottos, which was probably cut and pasted directly from the school website.

It also had a list of Notable Students. The list reveals a lot about what the school values, and why many of us could not take it seriously or had our egos crushed as we grew up within its confines.

The list includes a car salesman, a lawyer and a couple of mid-level athletes. It also includes a journalist who recently wrote some home truths about school life in the public sphere, and has been removed from the official school website listed as a source for Wikipedia. He has been blacklisted, I guess, for not representing the school's ideals.

Who else doesn't represent the school's ideals? The medical specialists who have graduated and now work within the hospital system, along with all of the other health professionals who are prominent in their fields. None of us count.

The university professors don't count, either.

Neither do the artistic, the service men or women, or the internationally successful musicians. There are some astoundingly successful people who have graduated from my school, but you wouldn't know it. I guess they just don't fit the mould.

When I read the people they have listed on their site, it seems completely incongruent that they have lauded their chosen few while ignoring the rest. What sets these people above the others? From what I can tell, it is three things:

1. They stayed in the small town after school;
2. They have donated money and/or awards and been present at awards nights; and
3. They have personal family connections within the school community.

It all makes me very glad that I left high school behind a long time ago. Thank God I now live in the wider world. It is liberating.

Just for fun, you too can look up your old school on Wikipedia just to see if the rejection you felt in high school has lost its sting. It is a handy litmus test to tell just how much bitterness is left.