Lent

It's sunny in Portland today.  Which means that people are walking around looking at the ground because they can't see with all of the brightest around that they're not used to.

I'm not Catholic but I've always liked the idea of Lent.  Mary Helen says that it is about giving something up so that you can then be free to go after something you want.  It sounds to me like a more realistic version of New Year's Resolutions: there's a trial period, if it doesn't work out, you can always come back to what you gave up at the end of the 40 days, and there is a fundamental understanding that to get something, you've got to give something up in return.

In thinking about and preparing to apply to med schools this spring, I'm thinking a lot about what I want.  It's simultaneously humbling, daunting, and empowering to realize that, where I am right now, the only thing standing in between me and getting into A medical school, even not the one of my dreams, is me.  If I buckle down and do everything that I know needs to be done and I throw myself into it, there is no way that I will fail.

Yesterday during Fat Tuesday I got a slap-in-the-face reminder of that when I got a lower grade on a paper than I wanted.  But during Fat Tuesday the world is supposed to be turned upside down, to remind us which way is up and why we want to keep it that way normally.  That's why I'm giving up video games for Lent this year.  So I can go after what I want, and not stand in my way.