Agree to Disagree

One man's trash may very well be another man's treasure, but can these men be friends? To form a great friendship, you have to have some things in common. They should hate some of the things that you hate (strangers, talking on the phone with strangers), and they should love some of the things that you love (This American Life, my dog Teddy). We happily agree with each other that our taste in movies, music, clothing, and even toilet paper is generally more awesome than the taste of all the losers around us. Most of my friendships proceed like this indefinitely until we inevitably discover we cannot agree on something. Will this something tear our friendship apart? When these disagreements pop up, most friends will take any of the following actions:

1 - Drop/change the subject: I guess I might vote for Obama... your shirt is super cute!
2 - Make fun of me for my position until one of us moves away/becomes deaf/dies: It's okay, vote for Obama. I always knew you were an elitist who hated the working class. :p
3 - Start a civil debate: This is why I'm voting for Obama, why are voting for Clinton?
4 - Aggressively argue for their own position. These are the kinds of friends you can't bring up politics or religion around because they will take over the conversation. If I say I'll vote for Obama, will you shut up?

Those individuals who find themselves in the fourth category too often don't make friends easily, or I should say they don't keep friends easily. If you truly disagree, somebody has to eventually drop the subject or risk going from category three to four, where feelings are hurt. If you get too aggressive about your own opinion, I'm liable to stick my fingers in my ears and yell, "LALALALALALAALA!" until you stop talking, and I wont want to hang out with you anymore. (That's why I haven't hung out with Tom Cruise since he called Matt Lauer "glib") An occasional discussion in the third category may be a welcome intellectual discussion, but it carries a danger of escalating and ruining friendships. This is why Trivial Pursuit can be a very dangerous game. In this battle of wits, people will argue anything to get their pie piece. (I still think "the tube"="the underground" you competitive bastards out there!! I want my pie piece! *sob*)

I've started to realize that every good friendship also has a healthy element of disagreement. It keeps things interesting. I've also realized that if Abby or Mariam gives me a food suggestion in a restaurant, it is the exact thing I should NOT order. At least I got to try a lot of interesting foods I didn't like on the road to this discovery. Abby and I recently discovered we might disagree on more than we thought. We went to see Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day in an empty theater, where we could talk as loud as we pleased, and had the following conversation:

Farrah: That guy's pretty cute.
Abby: He's okay... *silence*
F: Oh no, that guy's cuter!
A: *silence*... um, he's not my type
F: Look at him play the piano, he has to be growing on you.
A: I'm starting to realize we have nothing in common

Fortunately, our friendship falls into the second category, and I've progressed to telling Abby a friendly, "You're stupid," on a regular basis. I think friendships are happiest in the second category. I know I'll never convince my friend Brittany to like South Park as much as I do, but I can just make fun of her obvious hatred of all fat comedians (Cartman, Chris Farley, Jack Black) because she's a "fatist." Next time you find your friend on the verge of offending you, just tell them how their shirt is super cute (or make fun of their ugly shirt), and go on your merry way.

--By Farrah, who found she simply can't focus when it's so nice outside, so she hopes it rains today

Am I a White Person?

If you are my friend, here is what a typical interaction consists of:

Mariam: Hello infidel white person!
Jack: You are as close to a non-white person I've ever gotten! Saracens aren't too bad, I guess.

Or something like this:
Mariam: When I was growing up, amongst white folk, and I was the only brown person, and my mom made me kabab sandwiches instead of turkey, it was really hard on me. Yay Pakistanis!
Abby: I'm a WASP, and I went to Lehigh, where diversity goes to die.
Sarah: I am figuratively and literally very white.

I also enjoy saying things like, "I had one white friend in college. She was a cheerleader in high school!" as if the latter fact is some affirmation that she was a normal, mainstream white person American. And so, the bottom line is this: my day consists of reaffirming white people's whiteness, and my own difference as a brown person infiltrating this hegemonic whiteness. I.e. I am so foreign, so different, so exotic, look at me, I had weird experiences with immigrant parents and strange, smelly foods.

Many people who are foreign but very assimilated spend time telling me that I am not foreign because I was born in America (Granite City, IL, which could possibly about as middle-America as you can get). People like Shlee, who is Persian, but considers himself an American, say things like: "I am not foreign. For example, my girlfriend is white." I think that's excellent that Shlee is doing well for himself in America, but if I were a white person, I would look at his dark hair and beard and think, not American! Maybe that's just me, though.

Anyway, one day, my entire identity was called into question. Last week, I stumbled onto a really cool blog called Stuff White People Like after reading about it in the New York Times. Mocking whitness was a clever idea, but then, things took a very dark and sinister turn. I realized I liked 41 out of the 95 top things white people liked.

This seemed excessive so I asked Jemily, my favorite medical school power couple. Emily cheerfully told me not to worry - the blog was mocking her, too! Easy for you to say, you are white, I thought meanly. Jack argued that these were merely "people interests." I personally thought that of course, he would think this - white males always tend to think that the their interests are the world's interests.

An identity crisis ensued. I prided myself on not being mainstream - I even stated as much on my Facebook profile. I was proud of my varied, decidedly unique interests (David Sedaris, English lit, Michael Gondry, Whole Foods, incidentally all things on said list). And I was proud of my ethnic heritage - always showing off about being Pakistani to make white people aware of their own inherent homogeneity. And ironically, this, too, was on the list. The blog made me realize not only that I wasn't very unique, but that I was almost a parody of the typical, upper-middle class, educated white person.

A mere blog made me realize a fundamental truth about myself - that I was more assimilated than I thought I was. I had white friends because I was just like them - I wasn't exactly the threatening picture of difference people often associated with foreigners (for example, Elvis, who came to the US in 1998, asked me what a "dreamboat" meant). All the white people thought they were being diverse and liberal by befriending someone from a different cultural background (extra brownie points because I was from a recently maligned religion and country), but in fact, they were just becoming bff with someone just like themselves.

In high school English, we learn about a hero's tragic flaw (or hamartia) in classic Greek tragedy - and I guess I found mine - hubris. I had such pride in my difference, my browness, standing proudly in a sea of white, and then I realized I wasn't so different after all. Because ultimately, you are a product of your environment, and hanging with all of these white folks had rubbed off on me.

--By Mariam, who went to Pakistan and had to experience the pitfalls of a "developing nation" for her summer vacations. Take that, white people!

When Drug Naming Goes Bad

It's a pity that we are supposed to memorize the generic names of drugs rather than the brand names.  The drug companies have fancy teams of marketers to make sure the newest drug brand name is unforgettable and rolls of the tongue in a phrase like: "Doctor, why haven't you tried prescribing me Requip?  I saw an ad for it the other day on my television."  They might follow up and provide you with their own diagnosis: "I didn't know my shaking leg was a disease!  I always thought it was because of my 18 daily cups of coffee. I have Restless Leg Syndrome, and you can treat it, what a relief!"  It's much easier to say Requip than its generic name ropinirole - that's 4 extra letters!  It's completely unreasonable to expect the American public to say a word that long.  Sometimes brand names have a handy way of remembering their drug's function, for example the drug Procede is supposed to keep your bald husband's hair from receding, catchy!  The generic names of drugs don't provide this luxury.  It doesn't matter that I remember the name Minoxidil because there are no hints revealing its function - it takes brute memorization to remember that it is the highly advertised hair loss drug Rogaine. 

Abby and I have both started to pay attention the drug ads on TV because it's a little bit of studying hidden in our marathon of watching The Hills.  Watching TV the other night, we noticed the newest drug for acid reflux.  Before I give you the name of the drug, I want you to think of the board game Mad Gab where you get a card that says "Eye Mull Uvma Chine" which you repeat over and over again, until you finally yell out "I'm a love machine!"  The name of the new drug is AcipHex.  You know like acid effects on your stomach, only they used pH in the middle of the word (you know, like a measure of acidity!), and you pronounce it "ass effects."  With this revolutionary drug, you can eat the entire plate of food shown to the right without the bothersome effects of acid reflux... or if you pronounce it my way, without the bothersome effects of flatulence.  

--By Farrah, who is sorry. She phoned this blog in because she's starting to feel the pressure of board exams looming like the bleak gray skies of Toledo.

Summer Camp for Dorks

Sometimes, I look around the darkened classroom of HEB 110, where my medical school classes are held, and think, How the hell did I end up here with these people? I have cooler conversational talking points than these people who have dedicated their lives to getting papers published on the loss of function of the p53 gene leading to cancerous growth. I like cooler things - i.e. One Republic, This American Life, and the troubling prevalence of art theft in Europe. I don't belong here, I think, Get me out of here! After all, Medical school is a place where right-brained creativity goes to die.

Then yesterday, I had an epiphany. What if I wasn't that cool? I perished the thought. But then I reflected upon my life, filled with a lottery of dorky episodes, and I realized, of course, I would end up in medical school.

While Clique A all jettisoned off to Europe to have romantic adventures during the summer, I attended dorky summer camps for the academically gifted. Examples: Summer Ventures in Science and Math, Bridgewater Leadership Camp, and my personal favorite, YADAPP, an anti-drug camp that Students Against Drug Driving (SADD) nominated me for. I told people that I wanted to go to "drugs are bad" camp because it would look excellent on my college applications, but who was I kidding? I wanted to go to YADAPP because deep down inside, I was a hard core dork.

YADAPP stands for Youth Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention Project. SADD sent me and three other members to this summer conference in northern Virginia. Anyway, I realized right when I got there that this camp was going to be extra-loserish, even for me. I had secretly been looking forward to going to the conference, since I had pledged not to drink or use tobacco products for SADD leadership (easy since I was a devout Muslim), and I wanted to inflict my view upon the less-devout masses (hmm...sounds sort of like American hegemony?).

There was a long line of teenagers from various Virginia schools, and from the looks of it, mostly urban, public schools, which was frightening for a rural hick like me. On the opening day ceremony, they played the song "Lean on Me" and made us go through these pre-determined hand motions. Anyone who knows me will say, "UM OMG I cannot picture you doing that, Mare" (Bushra). Well, I had to, and it easily the most idiotic experience of my life, because the song was not only horrifically dorky, but the hand motions added a level of embarrassment that I cannot even describe. We had to sing this song every morning and whenever we encountered another YADAPP group out on the quad. Here is a video of the YADAPP crew singing the song with hand motions. Seriously, a must see:

lean on me

Things only got worse. Our group was one of the only one in the entire camp that was filled with only white people (+ one brown saracen). When we were told we would have to do a skit to exemplify our feelings about YADAPP, I grew even more agitated. For some reason, the white people decided it would be a good idea for us to make up a rap while clapping to a beat that Heather, my cheerleader friend, created. Nevertheless we made up a corny rap, and my line went something like "Makin' new friends and being together till the end."

We were one of the last groups to go up on stage in front of a crowd of 500 people. Well, our rap was, shall we say, culturally different than the rest of the acts. The other groups did elaborate step performances, which were amazing. Since I was from preppy Carlisle, where I was the poster child for diversity, I had no idea what steps was but found it as exotic as the Bedouin tribe that picks up Ralph Fiennes in The English Patient. Well, we suffered through our dorky white people + 1 brown person rap, and I remember hearing laughter from the crowd (yes, laughter at a rap that was meant to be decidedly earnest and not funny). Afterwards, Heather blamed me for "messing up the beat during the rap." At this point, I realized that I could never look at this girl the same way again - she was reaching a level of gunner that even I could not fathom.

I put YADAPP on my college applications, and I highly doubt it helped me get into UNC. And while there were traces of nerd within me, as my friend Naadia continually likes to point out**, I ultimately realized that even dorks have a threshold.

--By Mariam, who urges you to YouTube YADAPP and experience the Hallowed Halls of Dorkdom for yourself.

** This coming from a girl who tabbed her law school books to every inch of their life.

My Anti-social Generation

I never liked to talk to strangers on the phone.  When my mom would ask me to do something simple like order pizza, I would push the task on somebody else.  I was intensely shy as a child, often hiding under a blanket when my parent's friends would come over, so that's my excuse. I decided the task of talking on the phone was a task for adults, so I refused to do it as a small, corruptible child.  I never managed to grow out of it.  I will now call strangers when absolutely necessary, but I will make excuses to put it off - like my preceptor probably isn't working on a Friday afternoon, so I better wait and call on Monday. As I started living with my peers in college, and now in medical school, I found out that I'm not the only one.  

Even my social friends will avoid talking to some whiney, acne-afflicted teen working the phones at the local Domino's.  My college roommate, Anna-liisa, admitted that she didn't like phone interactions anymore than I did.  Abby, my med school roommate, and I will exclusively order from Papa John's pizza because their online ordering allows the least stranger interaction as possible.  Anna-liisa pointed out when I was home for spring break that it's our whole generation.  We hate talking on the phone.  You know that's got to be the main reason Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan have assistants.  It's not all of us - when I was younger I could assign phone tasks to my less intimidated friend Brittany, and Mariam will always volunteer to call a retail store to explain their transgressions against her and to demand discounts.  But even Brittany has recently pushed awkward phone conversations to me.

I wonder if the main culprit here is the internet.  When we were finally old enough to talk to strangers, the web started to explode with information, eliminating the need to investigate by phone.  That can't be the only problem here though because I am never hesitant to ask for what I want in a restaurant or from a sales person at the store.  Maybe it's that my generation needs to be in control of what they are provided, and wants to eliminate the need to depend directly on another person to get their order right.  I was forced to overcome most of my phone phobia when I started working at the testing company Kaplan.  I had to call students when they were halfway through their test preparation classes to ask them if they were satisfied with their experience.  I hated the task, and I had a feeling that many of the students I called, also part of my generation, hated the phone calls as much as I did.  I could here some of their exasperation over the phone, with a tone of voice that implied you're taking me away from my very busy schedule of smoking pot and watching South Park. I think it will be telling if this trend continues into the next generation.  As this series of tubes that is the internet gets bigger and bigger, hopefully the silly need to talk to strangers will be eliminated.

--By Farrah, who switched over to Apple during spring break... that's right, she's a "new soul in this very strange world"

The Dark Side of Flirting

Everyone has the Moment in their lives - a Moment of pure clarity, where one realizes exactly where their lives are headed. Their previous existence of directionless meaninglessness finally comes to a halt, and a Path is provided. The latter sounds like an inspirational poster, I realize. But it isn't lame and cheesy when it actually happens to you.

My big Moment was in high school. It was senior year, second semester. Senioritis had set in, and I sat in AP Macro Economics, the last period of the day. I aimlessly stared at the chalkboard while I waited for Mr. Keefer to stroll in from flirting with cute blond girls. At the front of the classroom, I watched with boredom as Jenna, my bff and neighbor, flirt with Hunter, a popular soccer player who didn't speak much beyond a few monosyllabic grunts.

Hunter, in a hormonal haze, pretended to strangle Jenna in a general display of boyish tomfoolery. All of a sudden, Jenna turned blue, but Hunter didn't notice. She lost consciousness and collapsed onto the floor. I guess Hunter underestimated his own strength and realized that flirting can have a dangerous side.

What I remember most about the Moment is how all 19 students in AP Econ became quiet. Everyone stopped their after-lunch chatter and merely stared at Jenna in gaping, uncomprehending silence. Then, I heard Elizabeth say, "Wow, I don't think she's kidding." I got up and yelled, "OMG!" I sprung to action and ran into the hall.

"Mr. Keefer - Jenna! Jenna!" Mr. Keefer looked at me with distaste as he always did when I spoke, probably because I was disrupting his mood of frat boy complacency. He took his time walking into the classroom to tend to Jenna, who was slowly regaining consciousness. "Go get the nurse!"

Eliz. B and I ran to the middle school to find Mrs. Wagner. I rarely ran as I hated physical exertion, but yhe adrenaline had kicked in. Jenna was ultimately okay, and I saw Hunter leaning against some lockers, crying - the entire incident had an emo, after school special-ish vibe.

I was just proud of my quick reflexes in an emergency. As all my classmates watched the scene unfold in stunned silence, I heroically jumped from my seat to find help for my friend Jenna. And that is when I realized I'd make a great doctor.*

You may be wondering about Jenna and Hunter. Well, after that weekend, they started dating for the rest of senior year. I guess almost killing someone with your bare hands can lead to an inexplicable attraction.

--By Mariam, who seriously hates Duke fans who don't go to Duke. Lame!

*= Facetious statement of self-aggrandizement

Hipsters and Retards

In this New York Magazine article, Chuck Klosterman says in response to how nerdy guys get girls, "You used to be able to tell the difference between hipsters and homeless people. Now, it's between hipsters and retards. I mean, either that guy in the corner in orange safety pants holding a protest sign and wearing a top hat is mentally disabled or he is the coolest fucking guy you will ever know."

Today, Farrah, Sarah, and I were talking about movies. I admitted that I liked Save the Last Dance on a very fundamental, visceral level (my favorite line, when a tertiary character emphatically declares, "I don't got no 10.0 GPA"). Sarah had enjoyed all three Bring it On Sequals (Bring it on Again, One More Time, and Let's Milk this Cash Cow for All its Worth). Farrah was a teen movie veteran as well, having watched parts of the Prince and Me 2: The Royal Wedding, while secretly wishing a Dutch prince would sweep her from her life of Midwestern drudgery. Empirically, this may seem tragic and quite pathetic that we relished watching the so-bad-it's-good genre.

Because on one hand, this could be the saddest thing you had ever heard (that I actually liked the shows on ABC Family). But it could also mean something else entirely - that we were slacker cool, which is fundamentally ironic because medical school beats the slacker out of even the most unwilling lazy ass.

After this movie conversation, I realize that I had the potential to fit into Chuck's proposed dichtomy of "hipsters" and "retards." So, I posed this question: were we the type of people who don't do much with their lives but have a wealth of knowledge on arcane topics such as famous art heists and the career of B-list actors like Johnnie Lee Miller? Were we armchair philosophers? The "coolest fucking guy you will ever know," and cultivating this inherent hipster coolness, and all the while, sitting on our asses in our La-z Boy armchairs and rotting away beneath a pile of old Entertainment Weeklies and New Yorkers and bags of artificially flavored Doritos.

Anyone who fit the mainstream criteria of coolness would deem having an intimate knowledge of famous art heists, for instance, "retarded" and decidedly uncool. Because cool within the mainstream stems from going to the hottest bars/clubs, drinking chic shots, and mastering the art of random hook-ups. (Notice how I lack even the adequate language to express the terms of mainstream coolness, so far removed am I from that world). These individuals looked down on grimy hipsters with an air of disdain as they wear strange black and white stripe flats that don't match with anything (Farrah) or read the latest revisionist treatise on the Feminine Mystique.

At the same time, though, maybe Chuck has a point, or at least I hope I'm the "coolest fucking guy you will ever know," and not some tragic slacker anachronistically left over from the early 90s, fulfilling the prototype of the greasy, disillusioned, Gen-Xer, scowling at corporate greed and filthy consumerism as my yuppie friends put down a down payment on a NYC brownstone.

--By Mariam, whose journey to North Carolina was as torturous as Inman's in Cold Mountain.