Before

Mania:An excessively intense enthusiasm, interest, or desire; a craze.
The thorough description of who I am in the field of medicine.

Right now, everything is easy. My mind gives me permission to procrastinate because I am sure of myself in these classes. Summer classes.

Four years of the wrong stuff has left me a little cocky, and I am ready to do something that burns my brain to ashes. Part of me hopes this works, so that I finally can visualize my true potential; another piece prays to keep at least most of my mind functioning so that I can make it through this while remaining on top. Mathematics proved itself to be not the most challenging, also not the least (that award went to Communications). In both subjects, I allowed myself to learn loosely, retaining enough to pass and to look good. Check. Now I am diving into an endeavor that challenges me fully. I am going into medicine.

Socially, I am confronted by the obstacle of sympathy. From what I observe, one needs to seem heartless to be a doctor, while still maintaining his or her inner sympathy. I cannot wait to become an actual doctor and be proven wrong.

Academically, I can compare the smartest people I know with other very smart people I know, and they still cannot hold the same light as a doctor. Nobody else voluntarily sits for that many hours, retaining that much information, without that much sleep and still declares himself or herself sane enough to stand over a patient for hours at a time, searching for a pea-sized flaw among many pea-sized certainties. It's like looking for a needle in a needle-stack.

Spiritually, the paradox of turning one's back on God to having the power to heal like a benevolent god would want to is emotionally overwhelming. I never want to develop a god-complex. I want to stay simple me, while still performing the magic that will be medicine by the time I am a doctor.

Chronometrically, all these years that I might have been climbing mountains and writing books, I'll be in school. 'Nuf said. (Also note the last time I give myself the opportunity to write the words "nuf said.")

These are the challenges I face. These are the challenges I love. These are the challenges I aim to beat.