The present...

So I finally got around to creating this blog...it was easier than I thought. I used to think I had to relive some of my computer science nightmares just to get this up and running. Thank God for other people that enjoy making such things easy for the rest of us. I am watching CASINO right now and I think its Robert Deniro, or some other dude, doing the voice over who mentioned something about the Holy of Holies...and that solved the naming problem.

This is my story of the journey to my LONG term dream, becoming a board certified physician. Which of course starts with getting into medical school (aka Holy of Holies)...there's a catch though. Its the F-1 version. In case you didn't know, an F-1 student is an international student, yes, we are the ones with the thick accents that have to repeat everything we say at least twice to get across to you. That is of course until we perfect the act of sounding somewhat American, which in itself still solves the problem only part way.

So unlike the average applicant that has about 125 schools to choose from, we F-1's only have...let's see....a little less than half of that. Why? you might wonder, shouldn't all the schools want us? You know, to add on to their diversity quota and what not. For some reason though, they think we should have stayed in our third world countries where we belong. Which when I think about it, would not have been a bad idea...but thats another story for another time. So to deter us people, they put up walls. Huge ones. The tallest of which is that most of them just don't accept internationals period. Of the fraction that actually does, half of them want us to pay our tuition and fees for all four years (~ $200,000) in advance before admission confirmation, yes they want us to pay ummmm...the equivalent of 30 000 000 nigerian naira in advance. To put that in perspective, that is enough money to build about 2 six-bedroom duplexes back home(naija peeps, correct me if I'm wrong). Even by American standards, that is enough for a four bedroom house down south and you actually have 30 yrs to pay this! Personally, I think anyone that pays all this at once without loans should be investigated by all anti-corruption bodies both in the United States and the greater planet earth!

So due to certain circumstances beyond my control, I will not be applying to this "small" fraction of schools that require the equivalent of body parts in payments. As of now I have 21 carefully researched and scrutinized schools on my list and as soon as finances allow ($760, God Help Me!) I will be turning in my primary applications. This has to be within the next few days too because the early birds have had theirs in for almost about a month now. I'm really not liking this rolling admission thing much. Why can't we just have that one blessed day when everything is due so we can all stay up the night before, turn it in at the last minute and hope the system crashes so we get another day or so(lol!). You know, just like they taught us in college.

So I will try to keep everyone interested updated on my progress! I can't guarantee daily posts but everytime I hear something new from my schools, I am bound to put it up here. So in the next year or so, one of three things can happen:
1. I get admitted into one of my 21 schools
2. I get admitted into one of my 21 schools with lots of money in aid and...
3. I don't get admitted all together in which case there would be a systematic change to a PhD program of choice, that is of course after taking the GRE sometime in Novemeber and hopefully meeting the deadline for most of these programs(mid-Dec). (GOD FORBID!!!!!!!!!).

So needless to say, the next year is going to be an emotional roller coaster and all you get to do is read, shake your head, laugh with me and maybe cry with me. Scratch that...let's just say laugh with me, I'm going to try the optimisitic route here.