The Starting Block

60 Days To Go (Until the start of Med School)

My name is Aaron, and I'm about to start one of the most difficult parts of my life. Over the next few months, I'll be leaving my normal life in the US to travel 2,141 to St. George's University School of Medicine on the island nation of Grenada. (On a related note it may not be awesome that it took me three tries to spell the name of the country I'll be spending the next two years in. To be entirely fair, I spent four years of undergrad in Connecticut and I never quite got the hang of that one)

It's not totally unprepared that I've set myself on this course; both my parents attended the school, and while  there are a lot of aspects that frankly scare the crap out of me, it's starting to excite me more than worry me. Well that's not entirely true. (see diagram below)

While I took my fair share of difficult science courses in undergrad, I know they'll be laughable compared to what I'm getting myself into next. I'd like to start off on the right foot, and hit the ground running in terms of studying.

A little background info about me; I'm 22 years old. I grew up in New Jersey. To answer the first question most asked of me when people met me in college- No, my house is not near a garbage dump. And no, I  don't know any of the people on Jersey Shore, nor am I a "guido." I do fist pump probably more than the average person, but that's mainly caused by a severe lack of dancing ability. 

I'm engaged, I met my Fiance in the first month of undergrad, and while we didn't start dating until April of our freshman year, I knew she was special even then. Because she has loans to pay off after graduating, she wont me coming to Grenada until the second semester (the country generally doesn't allow foreigners to work). While it may seem like a long time to be apart, we're used to the lon

g-distance thing during school breaks. She's from New Hampshire (which I have since learned is far more that just being "the one in the way of Maine").

I did Fencing in high school, and played Rugby in college. I was an RA at UConn, involved in student government, and avoided the pre-med society. For some reason, those people always intimidated me. It wasn't really anything specific. The meetings just made me worry about not getting in to med school, made me feel behind and unqualified, and worst of all, made me feel like I wasn't good enough to be a doctor. This blog is a way for me to share my journey from an extremely intimidated undergrad to (hopefully) a competent medical student, and finally to a doctor.

I'm hoping that I can keep this up as a kind of journal, to entertain myself now, but also to be able to look back on myself in four years and see all the important parts (and unrelated musings) that will make up my journey.