I Take Comfort in the Fact That…

Tonight is most likely the last night I’ll have to worry about Organic Chemistry grades.

OChem is the Joker to my Batman, and it’s been great.

But it’s about damn time we finished this.

The Whiteboard is Talking to Me

Found this in the library today where I did most of my studying.

I couldn’t answer it. So I just plopped down and proceeded to review for my Physio midterm next week.

Just thought it was mildly interesting.

It’s 6:34 AM

And I just finished Bioshock Infinite.

Holy shit.

Mindblowing ending.

I gotta process this before I write a coherent post.

Oh and sleep. That too.

An Exercise in Probability

Now I’m admittedly pretty bad at math…but I think even I know that the odds of today’s events actually happening were next to nothing.

On the other hand, I also ran 5.1 miles today, which breaks my previous PR of 3.28 miles by a pretty good margin. And if you told past-me a couple of years ago, who was probably on the couch playing video games,  that I’d be able to run 5.1 miles without stopping, I’d tell you the odds of that happening are also slim to none.

That’s the funny thing about the odds though. They’re just numbers.

And all I need is a chance.

Fleeting Meetings

In my experience, and maybe because I’m a bit of an introvert, most college relationships, be it a friendship, group/work-partners, or even romantic relationships are fleeting.

The whole college experience is set up this way, with classes only lasting for a semester, and lots of people coming from out of state. Every semester is a fresh slate, with fresh classes, fresh teachers, and fresh faces. So it really forms this artificial bubble in which people, on average, introduce themselves to strangers for two to three times a day but might remarkably never meet again in the wide expanse of campus. I can’t think of any other place in which you continually meet new people on daily basis that you might never see again. Obviously, people still have that core group of friends, and this usually extends no further than roommates or apartment-mates, with other close friends coming from other extra-curricular activities that are constant from semester to semester.

I’m not a people person; I don’t consider myself one, although I’m not an outright misanthrope. I still value good relationships, friendships, and interesting conversations with people, but i really feel like there’s a lot of wasted opportunities, effort, and time in cultivating relationships with people in college that I might never see again in the future.

That might sound harsh, and I’m tempted to revise that statement as I write this, but I’ll try to explain: I’m from out of state, Hawaii (HI) specifically. I’m currently studying in California. In a few years, I hope to attend medical school (in HI), and hopefully practice there as well. I have no intentions at this point of living in California, or anywhere on the mainland for that matter, after I graduate. Essentially, this means that there is very little chance that the friends I make in college will be a vital point in my life after the college bubble is popped and I go back to HI. Aside from the visits to HI when they get married, or if/when I take my family up to California for Disneyland visits, there is very little overlap in our lives.

I’m not sure if this next statement would sound entirely selfish, but as an introvert, I really like to pick my friendships and relationships carefully. Social activities exhaust me both mentally and physically. I’d like to know that when I’m cultivating connections with people that it actually means something and does not have an expiration date at the end of the semester. 

I realize this is not true for everyone, and of course, those that are in-state students might not be in the same boat, but even then, with the way life swings sometimes, I doubt that aside from their closest roommate, people would actively meet up with their college acquaintances on a weekly basis if fate doesn’t literally make them collide on the streets on the way to work.

But as for me, I feel like this situation doesn’t offer any good solutions. I’ve met a lot of cool and interesting people in my three years here, and it really sucks sometimes to know that, this won’t extend into the future. I’ve also experienced that phenomenon in which people are close for a semester or two, but drift away slowly over time, ultimately amounting to awkward hello’s when randomly passing by on the way to class.

Maybe it’s a personal problem with myself, or it’s an inherent problem with out-of-state students, or even an accepted fact of life. Whatever the case, these scientists and engineers really need to speed up the invention of personal teleportation systems.