Time: 8:19am
Task: (re)write a 5000-word essay about why I want to be a physician without typing the words "to help people" or any variant phrase.

Time: 9:48am
Word count: 1795
Procrastination: Breakfast, coffee, shower, Live! with Regis & Kelly, Drudge Report, email to my neighborhood council re: putting speed bumps on our street.

Time: 10:49am
Word count: 1956
Quote from the book I'm reading: "The everyday act of oral narration includes a criterion of reportability. I do not narrate to anyone the story of how I got up this morning, brushed my teeth, and ate my bowl of breakfast cereal... The act of narration implies that the events narrated are somehow worth narrating." Touche, Howard. What kind of douchebag would bore people with such mundane ridiculousness?

Time: 12:24pm
Word count: 1760 (I know, I know)
I'm struggling to set myself apart. Maybe I'm struggling too much. Everyone says "just be yourself" (which I am pretty sure is incorrect use of the reflexive pronoun), but they don't really mean that. You have to filter out the unappealing things -- even though those are the parts most of us obsess over (and therefore the parts we're most familiar with). And this is why my word count is decreasing. Okay, back to work. I'm going to read for inspiration first.

Time: 2:10pm
Word count: 2329
I just looked at the UCLA Medical School website and started getting dizzy. I'm so intimidated by this whole process right now. I look at the photos of the students and it's like looking at the Mars rover. How did those people get there?

 

Former Boss: "Have you been writing?"

"No."

Pause. Uncomfortable silence.

Former Boss: "Have you been watching Grey's Anatomy?"

"No."

Pause.

Former Boss: "They don't have any gay doctors on that show. Although there's a lot of racial diversity."

I cannot watch Ellen Pompeo* and I don't understand why we can't all agree that she. is. a dealbreaker. How is it possible that in a discussion re: that show, "they don't have any gay doctors" seems like a valid criticism when THE LEAD IS A ZELLWEGER WANNABE WITH A FUCKING LISP?!?!

I'd rather talk about how I've stopped writing and lost nearly every creative impulse under the immense pressure of studying physics and organic chemistry than talk about Grey's Anatomy. And it just won't go away. Everyone is watching it. It's like Forrest Gump all over again.

I only watched it twice, and I didn't hate the show as a whole. Only her. I hate her as a character and as an actress. And from what I've heard from that set, I'd also hate her as a person.

* I'm not sure if that's how you spell her name, but I can't bring myself to google her to find out. I dislike her that much.