I went back to MIT for Thanksgiving, and it got me thinking about how different life is nowadays.
I go to class from 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. with a lunch break in between. Sitting through twice as many hours of lecture is incredibly difficult for someone who thought 3 hours in 10-250 (5.12, 7.013, and 18.03) was torture. By the end of the second hour, I’ve thoroughly read the BBC, MSNBC, CNN, NYT, and Newsweek. I then leave Moore with a thorough knowledge of what’s going on the world and a pocketful of half-hearted promises to myself that I’ll re-watch lecture when I get home.
I don’t. I suffer from some serious a-motivation here, preferring to burrow into my bed, roll around in PJs all day long, and make faces at Fan over Skype. While this does wonders for my own personal happiness, it does nothing for my own productivity.
No matter, though. Here in med school land, I feel like I’m still waiting for the axe to fall. I’m still waiting for the dean to jump out behind my anatomy table and scream SURPRISE! STARTING NEXT WEEK, YOU’RE GONNA GO BACK TO SLEEPING 4-5 HRS A NIGHT. TO SCHEDULING TIME IN OUTLOOK TO SHOWER. TO SLEEPING IN THE ATHENA CLUSTER, TO SPENDING 8+ HOURS ON PSETS, TO WONDERING WHY THE HECK YOU CAME TO THE SCHOOL. They really are coddling me here: there’s no homework, material is memorized easily the week before exams (I always think to myself: Wen Hui, you never would have pulled this crap at MIT), and I eat free food all the time. I walk to the admissions office every day and help myself to candy, coffee, or tea. I am still wondering when they’re going to start kicking me around fo’ realz. What I really need is for Professor Movassaghi or Professor Fu to teach all my classes. Not only would I be terrified of falling asleep (lest I miss 6 terrifying, filled chalkboards during my five-minute nap), I would definitely get my act together (so if Professor Fu random terror-called on me I would have a more clever answer than uhh… steric hindrance?).
I think Lumiere says it best in Be Our Guest:
Life is so unnerving
For a servant who’s not serving
He’s not whole without a soul to wait upon
Ah, those good old days when we were useful…
Suddenly those good old days are gone
Ten years we’ve been rusting
Needing so much more than dusting
Needing exercise, a chance to use our skills!
Most days we just lay around the castle
Flabby, fat and lazy
You walked in and oops-a-daisy!
This by no means indicates I’m great at memorizing/kicking butt in med school (you need some extra curve-killing motivation for that, and I’m pretty sure mine died in 5.08).
In keeping with my a-motivation, I’m only involved in 4 extracurriculars:
(1) STATS: Teaching kids about/how not to get AIDS. I get to demonstrate how to put on a condom for middle schoolers using a life-size wooden penis. And no, this is not something I envisioned happening when I came to med school, but I guarantee this shall make for some amusing stories later on in the year.
(2) MIT Interviewer: I interview kids that apply to MIT for undergrad. Yes, I hear you chuckling… and I know you’re thinking Wen Hui? That girl who used to whine about how much she hated MIT whenever she was stressed out (::coughEVERYDAYcough::)? They tell me about their lives, I rate them on personality and fit, write lengthy, detailed interview narratives for the admissions office, and tell the applicants that MIT IS THE BEST PLACE EVER AND YOU SHOULD GO THERE OMGOMGOMGOMG!!!!11111111 TEAM TIM-THE-BEAVER!!!!!11111
(3) Saturday Neighborhood Health Clinic: or, the three hours during the week I feel remotely useful as a medical student. I do the same things I did on the Washoe Tribal Health Clinic, only now I do it with an $120 stethoscope and a too-large whitecoat.
I’m always surprised at how honest people are and how often they make unsolicited confessions. It is terribly awkward when someone tells you that he’s/she’s had 300-400 sexual partners. Or that she’s on heroin because of her STD-passing ex-boyfriend. Or when she starts crying because her husband left her for a prostitute.
(4) Dis-O Food Section co-editor: We have a guide called Dis-Orientation that is handed out to all interviewees. It covers aspects of med school life from classes to entertainment and most importantly, it includes a guide of good places and things to eat. My duties involve hounding people for articles and correcting their grammar.
But back to MIT…
One of the first times my parents sent me back to the airport to catch a JetBlue flight back to Boston, I had a meltdown and started crying in McCarran International, begging them not to send me back to that “horrible place.” I remember being embarrassed and puffy-eyed, sitting next to the window on the plane as my neighbor leaned over and cooed Oooo, that’s the Mandalay Bay isn’t it? It’s so pretty! To which I replied impatiently, No. That’s South Point. The Strip is on the other side of the plane.
I remember landing the next morning, trudging through the Infinite, and thinking #$^@#%&^#%$!$%!!!!!!
But over Thanksgiving as we circled for landing, I thought about how beautiful the view was from above. I thought about how clear the water was, how soothing it was to watch the waves gently crawl back and forth on the shore. I thought about bowl, living in Next House, Fan, every hilarious disaster I had in lab, the classes I pwned and the classes I didn’t… I thought about how, even though I was never the smartest person in my courses, I was proud to have gone to school with some of the brightest, most selfless people I’m going to meet in this lifetime.
How much life changes in a matter of months…

























Macaron
Macaroon
