First things first, I've set this journal friends-only for the indefinite future, including back entries. Sure, cat's already out of the bag on most of that, but it makes me feel a bit better. If you're not on The List, let me know if you want to be. Non-LJ users, get in touch with me and we'll figure something out too. I'll likely be writing here more as the med school roller coaster progresses.

That said, I hereby would like to file for Social Bankruptcy.

I'm not sure what to expect of my life once the curtain lifts and school starts, and I don't want to overcommit myself to my friends. I'd much rather be a deadbeat than a liar. I've tried my best to not commit myself to any social or professional engagements during the upcoming academic year, at least until I have a handle on school and what I need of myself to kick its ass.

I'm not dead, I'm not dying, and I'm not ditching everyone I love; I just have to make sure I can bring my A game between now and June, and this involves resetting my commitments as of now, and figuring it all out once school gets rolling.

If this is indelicate, I apologize for that.

Give me a call sometime this week, especially if we haven't talked in awhile. Classes start on the 11th, and this week is all Orientation and class socials. Meeting my new classmates and de facto family for the next year or few has been adventurous so far, with many delights and isolated landmines. There's still about 2/3 of the class to meet!

Tags: med school, social bankruptcy
Current Location: my room, Davie, FL
Current Mood: Ready.
Current Music: TV On The Radio - Staring at the Sun

Another year, another Burn, only this time I'm several time zones away. This is definitely a new one for me. considering how much That Thing In The Desert has inverted and perverted my reality and priorities. This year, instead of being dusty and mindblown, I'm having to keep my shit in check with the threat of exams starting in two weeks.

I wouldn't have decided to go to medical school had I not been Out There, working with the Emergency Services Department. I chose to not hide my freak flag when I applied to medical school, going as far as having one of my professional letters of reference come from my supervisor there, my personal statement story being about an emergency call on playa, and I even submitted my application from Gerlach.

BRC led me to Katrina with BWB, and then a Wilderness EMT course. These both led me to doing medical relief work in Ecuador these past two years, which further concreted my desire to be a physician. A definite chain of events that came from me heading to this fucked up thing in the middle of nowhere, a patch of barely-survivable land that is about as close to Where I'm From as I can call anywhere nowadays. Sitting in my air conditioned suburban apartment, preparing to go to my air conditioned lecture hall with 200+ people in identical scrubs, subjected to the unrepentant barrage of lectures, overheads, powerpoints and jokes, I have to hope it's all worth it. Nothing felt real for at least a year after leaving Pearlington, but I'm realizing how much of my life has revolved around That Thing In The Desert.

I kind of dived headfirst into the logistical underpinnings of BRC, volunteering with Emergency Services each year and even working for the event in 2006 and living in Gerlach for 3 months. Last year, during the 'premature immolation', I was dispatching 911 for the city. I went to Pearlington and got neck deep in BWB stuff, an idea and an organization that's changing the nature of that entire culture, hopefully for the better. I like to think that I got under this thing's skin as much as it got under mine, and we can take a break from each other for a bit without becoming total strangers.

I've frequently said that it's the best and the worst week of my life, each time around. I'm physically and emotionally redlined, always on edge because I feel like I'm missing the coolest things, never feeling cool enough, working, recovering from work, trying to coordinate plans and people in an environment built to thwart such endeavors. I have much more fun in the weeks preceding or following than I typically do when all the tourists show up. Regardless, I still feel all that each year, and yet I can't wait to go back.

Any of y'all out there already or making your way there, do something selfless, beautiful and bizarre on my behalf. I'll make my way there in the next few years, I'm sure of it. I'll just have to make medical school suitably surreal for the next year or few.

Tags: burning man, med, med school
Current Location: my room, Davie, FL
Current Mood: routine
Current Music: none