Senior Superlatives

I have some pretty great friends, so I thought I'd hand out some awards and give shout-outs to those deserving. After a long, scrutinizing process, where intense mathematical equations were used, the following were determined to be the most exemplary.

Most Athletic: Ashlee Pistorius and Jason Meyer

Most Likely to Succeed: Diana Davis and Daniel Weizel

Funniest: Gail Macklin and Justin Wolfshohl

Best Dressed: Annie Burnett and Chad Peter

Most Creative: Kate Mailen and Spencer Green

Most Gullible: Alex Lee and Parker Dalton

Most Eccentric: Suzzette DeVloo and Ben Bitner

Most Mature: Rachel Sok and Matthew Jones

Sweetest: Acacia Littrell and Kent Gray

Most Competitive: Nicki Mechem and Nathan Li

Biggest Flirt: Natalie Currie and Andrew Hopewell

Class Clown: Kelly Wilmoth and Andrew Key

Cutest Couple: Amber Gnatzig and Kirkland Rivers

Most School Spirit: Sarah Foster and Michael McGuire

Hottest: Melissa Garey and Patton Bedford

Best Smile: Ashley Raisor and Michael Fermier

A Fleeting Dream

I guess it's time for me to give up on one of my dreams that I've held so passionately to the past 3 years: it looks as if I will not be marrying an Aggie. Hopefully my Aggie friends who read this will sympathize with me on this fact, because we are really the only ones that truly understand and grasp how special it is to be an Aggie. But I'm sure all my unfortunate, I mean non-Aggie, friends out there are probably rolling their eyes and thinking I take this whole A&M thing too far.

Today in my Prep anatomy course that I am taking (I've already been labeled as one of the nine "stupid" kids in my med school class who has to take this Prep course while the rest of our class is enjoying their summers), I told the guy I was sitting next to that I graduated from A&M. He responds, "A&M?". I had to then explain that I mean "Texas A&M", and then he just nodded his head, like I might as well have said I graduated from Wyoming. People up here have no idea about Aggieland. It kills me. I'm suffocating up here in Wildcat country. The ignorance is alarming.

I wear my Aggie ring proudly every day. I still carry around my A&M Nike soccer backpack, and today I wore my Texas A&M Soccer rain gear. I really am a walking billboard for my alma mater. And I don't see that changing any time soon. But I am starting to see that not only do people not care that I graduated from A&M, but many find it annoying that I would even sport anything other than UK gear around campus. They hate when I whoop. They don't want to hear how magical Kyle Field is. Really, the only positive feedback I get from people is, "Oh, we stole Billy G from y'all." Of course, I take full credit for that.

So I am throwing in the towel for my dream of an Aggie marriage, of sawing varsity's horns off at the wedding reception, of raising little future Ags who want to follow in their parents footsteps, and of having A&M paraphernalia plastered all over my walls in my house. It's a sad day for me. I feel defeated.

There's no hiding

The stalking capabilities on the internet are endless. I am not saying that in a creepy way, but in a fantastic/I wanna kiss whoever made up the internet* kind of way. Unless someone lives in a remote village in the rain forests of Brazil, there is a high probability that you will find something about their job or location if you search the internet hard enough.

My family used to be really close to the Clarke family. They were native Australians that moved to the States for a couple of years so that Steve, the father, could go to Asbury Seminary. We ended up going to the same church as them and our families instantly bonded. My older brother was in between ages of their 2 oldest daughters, Trisha and Kate; I was the same age as Joanna, and Andrew was the same age as the youngest daughter, Sarah. We all hung out like one happy family for the majority of my childhood. We went camping with them to Canada. We had cookouts all the time. When they finally moved back to Australia we promised we would come visit, and sure enough we did a couple of years later. They were outgoing, loud, and definitely not proper, which made them so much fun to be around.

Well after the parents divorced, they dropped off the face of the earth. We completely lost touch with them and have not been able to find where they are or how they are doing. We have thought of them often over the last ten years, and tried searching for them on the internet, but were unsuccessful. I've tried searching for Joanna a couple of times on Facebook but couldn't find her, and Andrew has tried the same with Sarah. Well tonight we decided to give it another try. We searched and searched Facebook for a Sarah, Kate, or Joanna Clarke in Australia, but tons of profiles came up and we couldn't tell if it was them. We hadn't seen them in 12 years, so that didn't help. So Andrew decided to just write a message to all the Sarah Clarkes in Australia and I did the same with Kate Clarkes. We were hoping one of them would respond and say it was them.

I also tried googling Sarah, Kate, Joanna, and Judy Clarke but wasn't able to find anything. After searching for over an hour, I gave up and was just counting on getting a reply to one of the messages I had sent. My mom then came upstairs and wanted to get in on the search, so she gets on the computer and types in "Steve Clarke Australian pastor" and BOOM, she gets a hit. It takes her to this female blues singer myspace page, Fiona Boyes. She is looking through the page and sees at the bottom to contact manager Steve Clarke "The Pastor" if you have any questions. We don't know if that is THE Steve that we need, but it is ironic that he comes up on an Australian lady's page with the nickname of "The Pastor" behind it, especially because last we had heard about Steve was that he had married some famous musician and was touring the US with her.

So then I get on Facebook and search Fiona Boyes and ask her to be my friend because I wanted to see her profile, hoping to get more clues. But then I remember that I can look at her list of friends, so I pull that up and sure enough, two of her friends are Sarah and Joanna Clarke. We found them!!! We actually found the Clarkes! After a decade of no contact, we are now waiting on them to confirm our friendship requests! We ended up finding a picture of Fiona and Steve together, and it is definitely the Steve Clarke that we know.

It's a small world after all. Thanks to the internet.

*not Al Gore

Revelation #2

Since my freshman year of college, when Sarah and I were trapped in the dungeon commonly referred to as Kirwan IV, we openly shared our revelations with each other, even marking them on our calendars to go down in history. To count something as a revelation, it has to be ground-breaking and monumental. For example, Sarah woke up one morning convinced that she was going to marry Trey Moeller, a family friend whom she had not seen since she was in 8th grade. Obviously this is not going to happen since she is marrying Kent this fall, but at the time it was revolutionary because Sarah had never dated, nor had she been seriously interested in doing so.

Earlier this semester I decided to start making my revelations public again, for posterity's sake. If you recall, I had a revelation that I am going to marry a nerd. Just for clarification, that doesn't mean a suspender/bowtie/thick glasses-wearing kind of nerd, that just means someone who is intelligent and loves to learn and isn't ashamed of it.

Well I just had another revelation last night.

I've always thought my younger brother was the bomb. He is good-looking, smart, funny, athletic...just a dream boat. I never understood why the opposite sex was not falling at his feet. He has everything in the world going for him. Well this summer we have spent a lot of time together, more than we have in years. And I have found that we have been getting on each other's nerves a lot. Half of our conversations end with someone saying something smart, and even occasionally ending in a slap. I started to think maybe he isn't such a prime catch. But then it dawned on me. It's because we're the same person. We have very similar personalities, so of course when we are together for extended periods of time, we start to clash. We both want to make the funny joke, or be chosen first at pick-up soccer games, or be seen as the "poster child". We are one in the same.

So using simple logic, if A=B, and B=C, then A=C. Which means, I am the bomb. Just a dream boat for the opposite sex. Now that's a revelation! :)

Great Expectations

Expectations are a double-edged sword. If something/one lives up to them, then you experience the fantastic feeling of having your desires met - the way you've always dreamed. But if expectations are put too high, you are only setting yourself up for failure and disappointment. So what do you do? Enter into situations without any expectations? Impossible.

I figured I would lay out my naive, ignorant expectations of medical school now, so that I could look back on this and get a good laugh in a couple of years.

I fully plan on everyone in my class becoming good friends. My parents' med school class gelled quite fantastically, and I want nothing more to have a cohesive class that can find fun in all the madness. For instance, my parents class made up a student, Nick Pavona, that went through all 4 years of school with them. Classmates would trade off taking the tests for him. His scores were posted along with every one else's. The teachers had no idea that he didn't exist. The funniest part about it is that during their rotations, people would page Nick Pavona over the hospital loud speakers, telling him to meet up with Dr. so-and-so pronto. Classic. Example #2 - one of my parents classmates, Louis, married a girl in the year behind them after his 2nd year. One day in his wife's class they were discussing topics of sexual nature, and the teacher asked how big a typical male penis is. His wife, a newlywed, eagerly raises her hand, dying to give the answer to something she had just discovered. Of course the teacher calls on her, and she confidently says, "9 inches". Rumor spread, and for the remainder of Louis' medical school career, he was called King Louis the IX.

I expect to be quite busy, but still have free time. Some friends have told me that if you study all afternoon after you get out of class, then you will have most nights off to relax. While others say they study almost 10 hours a day, with breaks only for meals. I can't do that. For some reason I am expecting medical school to greatly enhance my social life. I envision me hanging out with my new friends at my apartment, having Grey's Anatomy parties, dominating them in game nights, and cheering the Cats on to victory behind BCG.

Speaking of Grey's Anatomy, that's what I expect the hospital scene to be like. Drama, drama, drama. And I say this in a good way. Never boring, trying to figure out who's sleeping with who. And I will find my McDreamy (I am Meredith, for all those who don't know...not Cristina, who some joke that I am because of my super-competitiveness).

I am looking forward with great anticipation to the first day of med school - 4 weeks from today. I am excited about meeting new people, seeing what I am capable of medicinally, and starting a new chapter of my life.

"Now, I return to this young fellow. And the communication I have got to make is, that he has great expectations." ~Charles Dickens