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.

Pakistani People and Jane Austen

"EMMA WOODHOUSE, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable
home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings
of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with
very little to distress or vex her."

And so, begins Jane Austen's beloved novel that countless generations have enjoyed, especially recently given her recent revival amongst women prone to liking romance under the restrained setting of empire dresses and candlelight. What is the appeal of Jane Austen, I am sure many males have wondered. The specific struggles of the women in the novel are not at all universal, especially within American society, where mating rituals are much more relaxed, having the advantage of alcohol as a social lubricant to free the tongue and loosen the inhibitions. Her appeal, I think, lies in the fact that Americans can examine romance in the Regency era with a museum-like fascination, where reticence and social convention overruled the wild passions of the heart.

Little do these readers know that such a society exists where Jane Austen's archaic, nineteenth century values still thrive. Welcome to Pakistani society, where marriage is run in a very similar fashion to Austen's society. Of course, this is a rudimentary social theory that I have developed, so one can dismiss it with elaborate counterpoints, but if Malcolm Gladwell can get on the New York Times best seller list with a similar endeavor, then I should be welcome to pop sociology on a mere blog.

I have never been an ardent fan of Jane Austen, mainly because I am a literary snob, and I heard that many critics dismissed her as the 19th century-version of chick lit (you know those books that are pink and have aggressive shopping bags on the cover). I made this casual dismissal of Jane Austen fairly early on, despite Virginia Woolf devoting an entire essay on her. However, in 1996, I saw Sense and Sensibility with Emma Thompson and slowly realized the eerie similarities with the ways my fellow Pakistanis went about the marriage endeavor.

For instance, if one has five daughters like the Bennet family in Pride and Prejudice, the matriarch of the Pakistani family spends an aggressive amount of time befriending other ladies who have eligible doctor sons. Doctors are the modern-day equivalent of a first born son of an earl or a bachelor with "12,000 pounds a year," like Mr. Darcy. Doctors are one's preference because all Pakistanis are fundamentally bourgeois at heart- they have a stable income (upward of $100,000/year), keeping the daughters in nice handbags and modest split level home in the 'burbs of Chicago, as well as elevated social status. It seems paradoxical to me that doctors are the son-in-law of choice for Pakistanis because these days, most girls do have careers (or at least they do initially before the obligatory babies come into the picture). It's not like in Austen's time, where Lizzy or Marianne Dashwood were penniless and marriage was means out of a life of destitution. I guess being colonized by the British has lasting psychological effects.

Also, amongst conservative Pakistani families, the courtship of a high-spirited girl and her eligible bachelor is done very delicately and with great propriety. It is not considered proper etiquette to be left alone with said male due to religious considerations. However, unlike Austen's time, no one goes for strolls outside (in the Regency era, it was only proper for men and women to socialize privately out of doors). Hip Pakistanis favor hookah bars (halal and very chic) as a great place to get to know the opposite sex.

Just like in Austen's novels where Mrs. Dashwood and Mrs. Bennet, both were actively engaged in finding their children a suitable match, Pakistani mothers also actively get involved in their offspring's search for "love." "Love" is narrowly defined as "person who very strictly confines to family's idea of good match - i.e. steady job and good family." A very popular phrase amongst Pakistani parents is, "There is no such thing is true love. You grow to love, just like us!"

Now, no theory has credence until it is backed up with empirical evidence, so I began a rudimentary experiment on my mother. After watching Mansfield Park, I called and my mom and asked, "Mom, say you have a daughter who married this really boring old dude, who is kind of an idiot. She's not happy so she has an affair with a really hunky Lothario and runs off with him. Would you be shamed forever?" My mom is often confused by hypothetical "What if" games I like to play. Most foreign parents, arguably, are as they look on at their child as they are strangers and think,"Wow, my child is so weirdly American" Nevertheless, my mom says, "Yes, marriage is forever. She ruins her family's good name." See, we are just like Jane Austen's novels! And so, my theory of Pakistani society being behind 200 years has some credence.

And so, dear blog reader, if you like Jane Austen films and novels, look no further, just take a glimpse into Pakistani society.

--By Mariam, who is very excited about the political activities in Toledo this weekend!

Traumarama: Cake does NOT get you off the wait list

I had a full year before medical school started to play guitar, take my dog on daily five hour walks, work in a trendy coffee shop, and teach MCAT classes. It was during my year of relaxation that I realized the terrible nature of medical school applications. I always knew it would be competitive, but I never considered the strategy and research involved. I quickly discovered Studentdoctor online forums where students compulsively called admission departments for the status of their applications. Not a very forceful person, I relied on the aggressive nature of my fellow applicants to supply my information. I knew which schools I had applied to in vain (U. of Washington - out of state, never would've happened), and which schools had late interviews. I reluctantly added MCO/MUO/UTCOM because my sister moved to Toledo with her husband who started his residency. I didn't have any desire to live in Ohio. From the outside looking in, Ohio looks like all the other flat, humid, Midwestern states I couldn't identify on a map. I don't really believe in fate, but my sister is somewhat convinced she's the reason I'm in medical school. This last minute Midwestern addition was the first school to request an interview, and I was fortunate enough to be accepted by December. I was going to medical school, but I was still holding out for a different location.

Everybody I encounter soon discovers my extreme preference for Colorado over all the other states and territories of the United States. I wanted to stay in my home state for medical school. There aren't very many medical schools in the west, so it gets competitive. Fortunately, I had a confident interview in early January. In March, I was put on the wait list in the 2nd third. I managed to restrain myself to monthly e-mails to the admissions department. As the summer wore on, I started to get more frantic. By June, afflicted with some sort of Stockholm syndrome from studentdoctor network, I was sending daily e-mails. I was backpacking through Europe that summer with my position on the wait list adding to the weight on my shoulders. When I finally came back from my trip, I had progressed to daily calls to the admissions office. My conversion was complete - I had become one of those crazy obsessed applicants from the online forums.

It was during the peak of my obsession that I was unfortunate enough to get some advice from my brother (a once obsessive law school applicant, now a successful lawyer!). I found out from one of my dad's sources that I was 5th on the waitlist to get in, a week before classes started. My brother decided that I would have to make the admissions department remember me. He convincingly argued, "If they have to chose between the applicant that they know nothing about, or the applicant that called every single day and did something memorable like take a cake to the admission's department with their name on it, they will chose the applicant that cares more." With my rushing adrenalin and anxiety over my impending move to Ohio, I believed him. The next day I went to King Soopers and bought a sheet cake, and on it we wrote "Farrah R. hearts CU medical school." I know, I know - I still cringe when I think about it, and it gets worse. My younger sister intervened to tell me that taking the cake to the medical school would be crazy. My brother aggressively argued for the cake, and I was so stressed out that about it that I cried. My brother is the more effective arbitrator, and won the argument. With the support of some of my very best friends, I drove to medical campus.

In the car ride over, my friends argued over the merits of using cake to get off the wait list. It was a Saturday, and Brittany noted, "They're probably closed," and then sat rather quietly.
"Oh no, you think it's crazy don't you," I asked her.
She hesitated, and replied, "I just don't think it will make a difference."
Anna-liisa tried to comfort me and said, "It's worth a shot, and at the very least, it will be a really funny story they can tell future applicants. There's no doubt that it'll be memorable."
I was content to be give the admissions department something that will be memorable and hopefully a little funny, and I figured I could laugh about it one day too. When we finally arrived at the school, it was locked. I was slightly relieved as I was building up adrenalin for my impending embarrassment. Just then, a student walked out of the building - shit.

We walked down the hall to the admissions department. The man I had been talking to on the phone everyday was working extra hours that weekend because school would start the next Monday. I am sure that this man is a very kind person when he's not rejecting people from medical school, but here we will refer to him as big-fat-stupid-heifer or BFSH. I introduced myself and explained my spot on the wait list and the cake, with Anna-liisa and Brittany faithfully by my side.
"I just thought it would be pretty funny. I don't think I have much of a chance at this point, so I though I would go all out," I told him with the awkward nature of the situation looming.
"I wish I could help you, but there's really nothing I can do. Um... how did you get in the building?" BFSH suspiciously asked.
"A student let us in."
"They're not supposed to do that."
"Oh... uh, sorry. Anyway, I'll just leave this cake here. So there haven't been any openings on the wait list since I called you yesterday?"
"No, again I'm sorry. You can take the cake with you and eat it with your friends. I don't think anybody here will eat it. I can let them know you brought it. You can call during orientation, and I will let you know about the list. But again, I wouldn't count on anything."
At this point, I never wanted to see the cake ever again. At the same point I lost all hope on top of my embarrassment from the over-the-top gesture, Anna-liisa started to cry.
"Don't move away. I really don't want you to move away," she told me through her tears.
"She seems more upset than you are," BFSH interjected.
I ignored him and gave Anna-liisa a hug. It didn't matter how awkward the cake was, or that we had broken into the building, or that I had clearly gone off the deep end, I was really going to miss my friends and family. In this moment of reality, my new found obsessive nature dampened and then disappeared. We thanked BFSH for his time, and left the medical campus.

I spent my last few days in Colorado mellowly hanging out with my family and friends. I had been a homebody in undergrad, driving home often on weekends, so it was unnerving to travel so far from home. I easily adjusted to life in Ohio with frequent phone calls home - it helps that my older sister is here. From the inside looking out, the scenery is dull as I imagined, but I managed to befriend some great people here. I still take any break to fly straight home - what can I say, I need my Rocky Mountains. Anyway, to the kids - just say no to studentdoctor network, or at least use it in moderation.

--By Farrah, who would like to emphasize how much this story makes her cringe

A Cosmo Confession: Internets and Anonymity

Al Gore "invented" the internet in the years that I was in grade school (in actuality, though, according to Thomas Friedman, a primitive form of the internet had been around since the 1950s with a very, very archaic form of IM). Nevertheless, when I was in 9th grade, the internet was still a novelty - with its chat rooms where one could connect to strangers in places as far and mysterious as Texas, and then e-mail, virtual messages that could be received with the speed of lightning (or so it seemed).

It was the summer of ninth grade, and my friends (members of "Clique A") and I were taking physics for some unknown reason. The summers would drag on as we learned about vectors and other things that seemed difficult at the time but now prove to be child's play. One day, we started to receive weird, anonymous emails from "youwillneverknow@hotmail.com." The messages were like horoscopes - weirdly specific and general at the same time. They revealed school gossip without naming anyone. The emails would offer pornographic advice, telling girls they shouldn't be "afraid to explore their bodies because they were beautiful." Youwillneverknow was a precursor to Gossip Girl, except in a decidedly unglamorous locale of southern Virginia.

It was THE summer mystery as everyone tried to figure out who this mystery emailer was, and it offered us an exciting thrill that made me feel like I was in a Sweet Valley Twins novel. My friend Jenna, the keeper of all secrets and gossip at Carlisle, figured out who it was a year later, and the discovery of this mystery rabble rouser's identity proved to be very lame.

Jenna and I, together, were tricksters and started to send emails out to our class with an email address - "YouWillNevaKnow@hotmail.com." Our advice was actually pretty pointed and directed to certain members of the class who we thought needed help getting their act together wardrobe-wise. Granted, I wholeheartedly admit that I was a shallow bitch, but who isn't when they're 15? No one figured it out, but we got people talking.

We took it even further. We heard through the grapevine that my friend Lauren W was being harassed by an anonymous emailer called "gorillaman" (it turned out to be a cute soccer player Nathan W, we would discover later). He would send her cryptic, threatening e-mails, and Lauren received it with a cheerful annoyance that teenage boys construe as flirting.

Jenna and I decided to "flirt" with Lauren, too. We started sending her cryptic email messages from "gorillawoman" in the same vain as gorillaman. Lauren was confused and never did figure out that her close, seemingly-innocuous friend Mariam was the source of said internet harassment. Eventually, we got bored with the entire endeavor, and I never did get the chance to tell Lauren. And here I am, atoning for my decade-old sins via blog.

--By Mariam Q., a student at UTCOM.