#she also tells me that i waste my time by not studying for the mcat but its like how can i when this entire summer

[fluffyhunnie]

.

[renjunfromthestars]

more than

Pairing: Mark + reader, Bestfriend! Mark, Childhood friend!Mark

Genre: Fluff, angst, honestly a little bit of crack LOL

Song recs: Best friend + Untitled + Waiting Room (Rex Orange County), Sofia (Clario)

Warnings: Mild swearing and mentions of alcohol

Word Count: 7.0k (my longest fic yet, wow!)

Summary: You’ve known Mark for all your life, and it only takes one drunken night (plus a little intervention with Haehcan) to think that you wouldn’t mind getting to know him a little better...

Notes: The fact that I actually had the patience to sit down and to write something above 3k words,,,,absolutely astounding, amazing, unique, never been seen before…. Mark is a little awk and always works so hard (poor bby), so imagining him as a super stressed pre-med major and oblivious best friend absolutely wrecks me thank you goodbye

----

When you first meet Mark, you’re eight years old, and it’s at church. He’s dressed in his Sunday best: a light blue button up, khakis, and shiny dress shoes. He looks stiff as your mother introduces you two, with his shirt buttoned all the way to the collar.

It’s not that you dislike him, but you think he might dislike you, with the way he avoids eye contact, eyes tracing the floor, your shoes—anywhere but your face.

You see panic flash through his eyes when his mom gently pushes him towards you, telling him to take you inside and reserve a spot in the pews while she catches up with your mom. 

He shuffles awkwardly, and wordlessly, you follow him into the building.

The pews are almost empty, with the bulk of them being filled in the front by the old people that usually have nothing better to do on their Sunday mornings. Although your local church is on the smaller side, it feels unusually large with rows of empty pews, almost eerie. You shudder at shadows the walls make with the stained glass, and hurry to your usual spot towards the middle.

If Mark notices your apprehension, he doesn’t say anything. He’s oblivious, actually, not noticing your absence until he’s almost at the end of the rows. When you see him stop and search for you frantically, you stifle a laugh. 

He eventually finds you, and after shuffling awkwardly between the pews, makes his way to you. 

“This is kinda far, isn’t it?” he murmurs.

“Huh?”

“I mean,” he stammers. “I usually sit closer to the front. ”

You peer at him from the side. “You actually want to pay attention?”

He scratches the back of his head. “Well yeah, isn’t that the point?”

“I guess,” you say, looking at the ceiling. With the sprawling arches and patterns, the designs are pretty, you think. 

“You should at least try, it’s kinda interesting,” when you turn your head to look at him he turns away. “Only if you want to, of course.” he adds, fidgeting with his hands.

When you tell him that maybe you will, you see him crack a small smile.

It becomes a routine, almost every Sunday, with you and Mark sitting next to each other.  Whether it’s closer to the front or the back, it’s a whole debate. You usually give in, because when you walk in, Mark is already waiting for you in the front. 

….

“Do you still go to Church?”

You’re laying on a green bean bag in Mark’s dorm room, procrastinating on the midterm paper you were supposed to get started on, well, a week ago. 

You think for a second, hand raised to rub your chin, just to tease him. “What’s church?”

“C'mon dude, are you serious?”

“Barely,” you say, standing up to move to sit on his bed. “You should really get a new bean bag, it’s kinda deflated.”

Mark ignoring you, reaches over from his desk to fluff up the bean bag. “It’s because you sit on it so much.” 

“Are you calling me fat?” and before he can defend himself you finally answer him, “I stopped going in like, middle school. It would be hard even if I wanted to, to find a whole new congregation, and I’m just busy. Also, it’s so boring, I could cry.”

Mark perks up. “Not if you go with me.”

You groan dramatically, and Mark chuckles. 

“Good to know that you haven’t changed since you were eight.”

It’s just your view on church, that hasn’t changed since you were eight. First thing things first, you were 19 now, going on twenty. You’re in University now, your second year. It’s been a blur assignments, partying, coffee and term papers- you don’t have time to think about anything else right now. Except maybe actually starting your paper but-

Mark interrupts you midthought, breaking the silence. “Are you still with that guy?”

“Huh? Who? Yuta?”

“Yeah,” Mark responds sheepishly, avoiding eye contact.

You roll your eyes. “No, we haven’t been together for a while. It wasn’t that important so I forgot to tell you.”

You can tell he's surprised about how unusually calm you are for talking about your first serious breakup, but he doesn’t say anything, instead just scratching the back of his head awkwardly in typical Mark fashion. “He was an asshole anyway,” Mark murmurs.

“What did you say?” you ask, acting shocked. “Mark Lee? Talking shit?”

Mark, embarrassed, refuses to repeat it. 

“I’m just saying, he wasn’t the right person for you.” he protests.

“As opposed to who? God himself?”

“I can think of a few,” he sighs, but you aren’t paying attention, instead laughing your ass off on his bed.

“You’re insufferable,” he says, standing up to open the door. “C’mon let’s go, I’m hungry. I know you’re not starting that paper anytime soon.”

…

It’s a routine, seeing Mark on Monday afternoons for lunch. Not Friday, because you were busy getting wasted, and consequently not Saturday, because you were too hungover. Not Sunday, because Mark had church, and you, well, were busy praying to God that you would be able to finish all the work you’d neglected over the weekend as a result. 

“I still don’t understand why you choose the worst day of the week for this,”  you say over your Kale caesar salad, pushing the leaves around aggressively. The University had a lot of healthy options, which you were grateful for. Grateful for you were not, were for the student loans you had to pay off every month, the exorbitant amount you partially owed to all the local and expensive organic produce the meal plan featured for the sake of being sustainable and health conscious.You could really give a rat’s ass about whether your salad was organic or not; if your weekends said anything about you, no amount of kale could help you (or your liver).

“It wasn’t really up to me,” Mark points out. “Maybe if you weren’t too busy being-”

“Ta ta ta,” you tsk, waving a finger around. “I, unlike you, actually have a social life.”

Mark frowns. “I have a social life.” 

Mark definitely had a social life. He was popular, even. As popular as you can be, being a preoccupied Pre-med with perfect grades. Mark is likeable. It’s not like he doesn’t have the opportunity to go on weekends if wanted to, he just chooses not to, deciding to slave away at biological functions, orbitals, and lab results instead. Even now, as he takes his glasses off to clean them, you notice the imprint they leave on his face from how long they’ve been sitting on his face, and doesn’t take you long to find the dark circles that grace the skin under his eyes: he’s exhausted.

You frown too. “You should really get out more Mark. You seem stressed.”

Mark gives you a small smile after putting his glasses back on, and then resumes typing on his laptop. “I don’t know how going out would make me less stressed,” he says, distracted. “I would only be more stressed, knowing the work I have to do.”

“Yeah, but you're pretty organized.” You point your fork at him accusingly, kale falling to the side. “Don’t you usually finish things early too?”

“Yeah, I do.” he admits,  and before you can press onwards you’re interrupted by a girl you recognize to be his lab partner.

Goggles in hand, you can see the marks they leave around her eye area, but she’s somehow still annoyingly beautiful, with her glossy straight hair and long eyelashes, but that’s not why you dislike her. She might be the most stuck up girl you’ve ever met. 

“Did you do the calculations yet?” she says, turning to Mark. ignoring you. It’s only when you cough in your seat that she turns to you. “And hello, (y/n).” An afterthought.

“Hello Yebin,” You give her a wry smile. “How's the lab?”

“The usual.” she glances at Mark, who seems to be doing some finishing touches on said calculations. “How’s Chem 2?”

Boy, does she really grind your gears. 

“It was fine, I actually placed out because I took it in high school.” Not to mention, it was a class for freshmen, and you were in fact, now a sophomore. 

Before she can say anything back, Mark claps his hands in celebration. “Done! Sorry it took me so long, I just had to double check some things.”

“It’s no problem,” and with the way her voice drips with a sickly sweetness, you want to gag. It’s so painfully obvious. “Are you still down for tomorrow?”

Poor Mark, always oblivious, stops typing on his laptop and looks up in confusion.  “Huh?”

You silently laugh at the expression Yebin makes when she realizes Mark has no idea what she’s talking about. “For our study session? The MCAT is just months away.”she reminds him.

Mark remembers. “Oh yeah, about that, I was thinking we could also invite-”

“Great!” she chirps, “See you tomorrow!” and with a flash of her white lab coat, she's gone. 

Mark scratches the back of his head. “I guess she had somewhere to be.”

You roll your eyes for what it seems like the 100th time this week, anymore and they might be permanently stuck to the back of your head. “She definitely likes you.”

“Who? Yebin? No way.” 

“Yes, Yebin, and yes way.” You fling a walnut from your salad over to his side, and he cringes.

“What is your problem?” he grumbles, and resumes typing on his laptop.

You drop the subject, because you know any talk on girls is completely lost on him. As you set aside your salad, you peer over at Mark, palm supporting your face. He’s focused, eyebrows slightly furrowed, with his lips mouthing over silently whatever science journal he was reading on his computer screen.

Mark has always been good looking, you think. You don’t know why you’ve never really noticed it before. His nose bridge gently slopes over his face, and his jawline is sharp, having lost his baby cheeks years ago. He works out often too, although he barely talks about it (maybe out of fear you’d tease him for being a gym bro). And with the way he’s so adorably awkward,  It’s no surprise really, that every girl friend that you’ve met of his seems to be completely smitten. 

Shaking your head, you snap out of it. It’s dangerous to think of Mark that way, you think. You’ve known him too long.

“My problem? I think you’re the one with the problem here. I’m surprised your hair isn't completely gray by now.”

Mark ignores you, probably mad at the fact you tried to start world food war three with him with a walnut.

“Hey.” you flick at his forehead to get his attention, and he flinches. 

“There’s a party this weekend at Johnny’s fraternity, you should come.” Johnny, being both your long time mutual friend (who’s demeanor is way too nice to fit the stereotypical frat boy image, really) who has since stopped asking Mark out of respect for his “med school grind”. 

“I’m already planning on it,” he responds, and you’re surprised. 

“Since when do you actually accept party invitations?”

“Since yesterday, because I’m tired of Haechan bothering me about it.”

You silently cheer, of course, you expect nothing else from Haechan.

…

“I never knew it was so hard to get booze.”

“It’s not hard if you’re 21.”

Scoffing, you turn your head to face the boy across from you. As if he can feel the burn of your gaze on his forehead, Haechan stops typing on his Macbook and lifts his eyes to meet yours. 

“No shit Sherlock, but last time I checked, we both weren’t 21.”

The sun had set a half an hour ago, and despite having spent the whole afternoon together, you and Haechan have had yet to come up with a way to secure the drinks you promised your friends for tonight’s pregame. With both of you being certified schemers representing your respective friends, you guess it wasn’t that big of surprise that the responsibility was left on both your shoulders. It beat scavenging alone, and spending time with Haechan wasn’t so bad either, when you two weren’t trying to kill each other. 

It was already late, and Haechan had deemed Ubering to the nearest packer store that sold Soju (the sweet sweet liquid of choice) was too much work. You on the other hand, had dismissed that option for a completely different reason. The issue in question was the flimsy, borderline pathetic excuse for a fake ID Haechan planned to use at the packer store. 

“Hey it works!” he protested. “You just act like you’re already legal and they don’t even card you. Easy.”

You roll your eyes as Haechan theatrically reenacts his last trip to the packer store.

“I asked him how he was doing, and he told me school sucks. I say to him, ‘Tell me about it,  thank god this is my last year!” and as if to emphasize his next point, he flicks his wrist in the air, ID snuggled between his index and middle finger. “And I was on my way. No issue at all.”

“That’s because he didn’t even see your fake I.D stupid. He would’ve called you out on your bullshit in an instant.”

Out of all the different options available, you could not fathom why he chose his fake ID to show that from all the places in this world, he was from freaking Hong Kong. There were fifty states to choose from, other English speaking countries, and he chose to pose as an  international student on a student visa. He could most definitely look the part, but after looking at the ID he proudly slaps on the common room lounge desk, you deadpan. The yellowish tint to the card was way too suspicious to be taken seriously.

“I wish we could just ask Mark,” you sigh, and Haechan looks at you like you’re stupid.

“He’s 20, ya dimwit.”

“I know, that’s why I said I wish. You have serious hearing problems.”

Haechan stops typing on his laptop to shoot you an especially heated glare, and you’re reminded again why he’s #2 on your fight list, right above Yebin. First place was taken by the girl you almost actually fought at that one University party a town over, wherever she is you hope she’s having a terrible day.

“If it were not for the rules of this land, you’d be dead right now Haechan.” 

Haechan places his head in his palms, and flutters his eyelashes disgustingly. 

“But you love me.”

“Yes, as much as Mark loves social events. Speaking of Mark, how on earth did you get him to leave his cave?”

“It didn’t take much,” and before you can call him out for lying, he shushes you.

“Okay, maybe a few days of nonstop begging.” Haechan says as his eyes dart across the laptop screen. You raise your eyebrow. “And I might have threatened to release pictures from the photoshoot his mom made him take when he was younger.”

“I expected nothing less from your evil, evil, mind.”

He scoffs. “Hardly. Just resourceful.”

Resourceful he is, because Haechan is the one who ends up finding a plug for the alcohol that night. 

…

A can of four loko, a bottle of soju, and a few shots later, you should be hammered, wasted even. But after 14 months, 2 weeks, and 5 days into college, your tolerance is pretty high, so you’re really just plain drunk. Even so, you’re a little messy (no surprise). You’re not in a state to be trusted with any errands, so you don’t understand why Haechan asks you to pick up Mark along the way to Johnny’s fraternity. 

“Why do I have to do it?” you whine, putting your hand over your forehead, and Haechan only laughs at your dramatic display of despair. 

“Because Johnny messaged me that Mark isn’t there, and there’s no way in hell I’m letting him flake on me this time. ”

You point a finger at him, and he stifles a snort when you’re off by a couple inches. “Letting him flake on me, me, me as in you! It’s not my problem.”

But there’s no use in arguing with Haechan, and you know it. That’s why you find yourself stomping your way up the second floor of Mark’s dormitory like you’re in elementary school again, having just been scolded by your mom and being forced back into your room.

You knock at his door impatiently, and it feels like forever until you hear some shuffling, and see the door knob twist open. To be honest, it’s probably just a few seconds, but time is different when you’re intoxicated.

Before you even see him, it smells faintly of  shampoo and detergent, so you’re not surprised when he opens the door and you see his hair is still half wet from the shower. He’s definitely party ready, and when you mean party ready, he’s wearing the same loose black tee and grey joggers he wears to sleep. His socks don’t match and you try not to laugh, because it would be a bad look for you, to show up intoxicated, and apparently crazy. 

“Oh (y/n), what are you doing here? Oh shit is today Friday? I totally forgot, Haechan is going to kill me-'' He looks at you and then pauses, scrunching up his nose. “Have you been drinking?”

“No.” you say sarcastically, but it definitely falls short of Mark because he looks at you like he does not believe you. Good, because he shouldn’t.

He sighs, and ushers you in his room. It’s dark, with the only light emitting from the little steel lamp on his desk, which is covered with his notes, pencils, a textbook, and some highlighters. When you finally make your way to his bed (with difficulty) he sighs again, and you silently scold yourself for having that mini drinking contest with Haechan. If you thought you could handle your alcohol well, Haechan was an absolute monster. 

You nearly screech when Mark flashes a mini flashlight in your face, and he tells you to calm down before someone thinks he’s committing murder. He holds your face still with his index finger resting on your cheek and his thumb lifting your chin. You try your best not to squint when he tells you to, instead focusing on his face. He’s so close, you can feel his warm breath on your face. If you weren’t already so flushed from drinking, you suspect you’d look beet red now. 

“Well, your pupils still dilate normally, so I don’t think you have alcohol poisoning-”

The world is moving a little, so you plop backwards on his bed— albeit a little harder than expected because he rushes over to you and looks concerned. 

“-but I don’t think that’s the problem here.” he finishes. 

Your eyes are closed, mainly because his bed is really comfy. “I’m here to pick you up.” and as if to emphasize your point, you wildly start pointing in all directions, hoping it would land on him. 

You open your eyes when you feel him grab your finger and turn it thirty degrees to the left, just  stopping at his chest. Your sense of direction must be really bad, because it turns out you were pointing at nothing. 

“I don’t think we’re going anywhere for awhile”

“Noooooo” you wail, and Mark lets go of your hand to sit back down on his desk, and unsurprisingly, begins reading his textbook again. How he is able to focus with you in the background, you don’t know, but it must have taken years of practice.

At this point, you decide to take matters into your own hands. You shove yourself off the bed and grab his arms from behind him. His roller chair scoots a few inches before he stops it.

“You’re not exactly making great case for yourself here”

“Stop making excuses!” 

You aim straight towards the armpits, and you’re confused at the lack of reaction, so you reach over to squeeze his knee. Almost immediately, he crumples over, almost falling off the chair. 

“Can you-” he says mid laugh, “please” he gasps, “Stop that!”

You respond by attacking his other knee, and it’s over. He falls off his chair and you go down with him. The difference is that he recovers quickly, and starts tickling you back in revenge. 

You’re sensitive, so it feels like you’re dying. You try to use his arm as leverage to push yourself up, but next thing you know he’s toppeling over you. You close your eyes and wait for your head to kiss the cold hard floor but it never comes, because Mark's hand cradles your head, breaking the fall.

When you open your eyes, he’s closer than ever before, noses touching. Lips a mere centimetres away and in a weird embrace, you resist the urge to close the distance. 

Mark has always been good looking, especially now, so close to you. You don’t know why you’ve never noticed it before.

When he pulls away he’s flustered, and for the first time, so are you. 

It’s an awkward silence, with you still on the floor as he stands up, rubbing the dusk from his knees. He scratches the back of his head and offers you a hand 

“Let’s head out,” he says.

“Yeah, let’s.” you echo. 

…

Although Haechan berates you for being more than a little late to the party, he’s overjoyed that you somehow managed to show up with Mark. Not that he didn’t have faith in you anyways, he tells you. It’s just that Mark is married to his Biology textbook, and she runs a tight ship. By the time you reached the frat with Mark, you’ve sobered up enough to enjoy yourself normally, 

It’s when you wake up in the morning, that you’re not okay. It’s not okay, because you dreamt of Mark, and that’s weird, because you and Mark were just friends, right? And you always will be. 

It’s not a big deal because friends dream of friends. Dreams are a product of your own desires environment, you tell yourself, it’s perfectly normal because you spend so much time with him.

What is not normal, is when you see Mark the following Monday, and are worried about it. You’re nervous the whole time, and it gets worse when you slide the little watermelon filled tupperware container across the table in apology for last Friday. He likes his watermelon cut up into little cubes, you remembered (why do you remember?), and you avoid his eyes, pushing a stray piece of hair behind your face. 

Mark, oblivious as usual, doesn’t really notice anything until 10 minutes in, as if your lack of rambling surprises him. Munching on the cubes, he asks if you’re okay.

“Yeah, I am.”

No you are not. You are utterly fucked. 

…

“But you need to promise me you won’t judge or make fun of me for it”

“Just say it already, Jesus.”

“It’s just so embarrassing.”

“Oh my god, are you in love with me?”

“No!” 

When placing your hands in your face, Haechan grants mercy on you, patting you on the back instead of teasing you further.

“I don’t know what else could be so important that you need to talk to me in person. Unless…. it’s about Mark?”

His hands stop soothingly rubbing your back and instead starts slapping it, waiting for you to laugh along with him. When he doesn’t get a response he gasps. Turning his head sideways to face you, he pries your fingers apart.

“No fucking way.”

“Right?” you moan.

“I was just joking, but I can’t say I didn’t expect it.”

You remove your hands from your face and look at him, confused. “What do you mean?”

“Like, you’ve known each other forever. You spend a lot of time together too. Someone was bound to catch feelings eventually.”

You don’t respond, instead choosing to sulk.

“You know I’m right. You just don’t want to admit it because you’re the loser in this situation.”

Right he is, because you’ve been avoiding Mark for the past few weeks like the plague. You’ve told him that you’ve been busy with your final term paper (you’re not, you’re an engineering major why would you have one?), and although he was a little confused, he was probably also a little thankful because the MCAT was only a month away. 

As you tell him about your plight, Haechan listens thoughtfully, “mhming” and “ahh-ing” at all the right places.

“I don’t see how ignoring him helps you at all. I would say to just talk to him about it, but it’s Mark, he probably hasn’t thought about you that way at all.”

“Thanks,” you grumble. “So I’m basically one of the boys.”

“No really, mans might as well be the anemone from Nemo, I’ve never seen him interested in anyone.” Haechan sighs. “This is a tough one.”

“I’m sure I’ll think of something, but I might have to get creative.”

“I’d like to see you try Hyuck.”

…

It’s 9pm Sunday night, and there’s a knock on your door. It’s strange you think, because it’s a Sunday, and it’s a little late to be doing anything.

When you open the door, there he is, Mark Lee in all his 5’9’ glory, with a little bag in hand, in it your favorite milk tea. 

“It’s Sunday.” you say, intelligently. 

Mark just chuckles. “Yes it is, and your point?”

You step aside so he can walk in, and you’re embarrassed at your current state. For once, you’ve finished your assignments early, so you’ve spent the past four hours in your pajamas watching K-dramas and snacking on honey chips. You must look like a bum.

Mark on the other hand, always looks good, even in some old dress slacks, and an old t-shirt with some holes in it. He smells faintly of antiseptic, so he must have just come from a volunteering shift at the hospital. 

“It’s nice of you to drop by,” you poke the straw into the bubble tea. “And thank you for the bubble tea.”

“You’ve been busy recently so I figured you’d need it for the caffeine content, but it’s not like you sleep anyway.” he jokes. “How’s the term paper going?”

“The term paper? Oh right, the term paper. It’s alright,” you lie. “Just a couple of pages left. Beats having to take the MCAT though.”

Mark looks tired, with his hair slightly overgrown and his dark circles hallower than usual. You feel bad—he has a habit of overworking himself; you’re usually there to check on him but lately you haven’t, and he’s kind and thoughtfull enough to bring you something because he thinks you’re stressed.

“Yeah tell me about it,” Mark takes a seat next to you on your bed, head hitting the wall with a soft thump. “It’s going to be all over next week though, I can’t wait. I’ve missed you though.”

Busy silently cursing at yourself for the way your heart flutters at his admission, you forget to respond. Mark frowns, places his hand on your thigh in an attempt to soothe you, and it has the opposite effect—you think you might go into cardiac arrest. 

“Is something wrong?”

“N-no.” you stammer. “Just stressed. ”

Mark makes things worse by leaning in closer, gently placing the back of his hand on your forehead. “You’re kinda hot.”

“I am?”

“Yeah, like I think you may be running a fever.”

He hops off the bed, and rummages around in his little black bag, and pulls out a thermometer. He places a little sleeve on the end, and motions for you to open your mouth. When it beeps, he takes it out of your mouth and looks at the result.

“Your temperature is fine, but you should rest. I’ll see you soon okay?” He pats your head. “Take it easy, I know you’ll do great.”

…

You might not have a term paper, but what you do have is a physics final. 

The desk area is littered with eraser dust, crumpled paper, and half filled styrofoam cups of coffee that have since gotten stale. You swear to god that Physics was a subject meant to torture, not enrich the lives of college students. At this rate, you were seriously debating dropping out to become a stripper. 

Haechan, not sensing your dismay, disrupts your plans to drop out by telling you something that puts a damper on the rest of your day, as if Physics wasn’t doing that already.

“Have you noticed that Mark’s been hanging out a lot with that one girl lately? What’s her name? So-bin, Yee-ben, Ben 10, ”

“Yebin,” you snap. “And don’t ever disrespect Ben 10 like that again. ”

Haechan lifts his hands up, “ I agree she’s a total bitch, but man is she hot.”

“Aren’t you supposed to make me feel better, not worse?” 

Haechan’s face softens and for once in his life, looks a little sorry. “All I’m saying is if you don’t do something soon, someone might do it for you. I overheard her saying something about her and Mark going to spring fling together.”

He’s not wrong, but Mark, at Spring fling? At a Darty? Willingly? His idea of a good time was studying.

“You’re kidding,” you scoff.  “As if he’d be caught dead at something like that.”

“I don’t know (y/n). He doesn’t really have much else to do now that the MCAT is over.”

Right, the MCAT. He took it last week. You mentally slap yourself for not asking how it went. 

“Speak of the devil.” Haechan says quietly, motioning behind you.

There she is through the glass, Yebin, pulling a seat next to Mark, not before sneaking up behind him and planting a fat kiss right on his cheek.

…

Maybe if this were a movie, you’d cry all weekend and he’d make it up to you; But this is real life, so you secretly cry for a week and sulk for the rest of the month, blaming your puffy eyes on seasonal allergies (In real life, Mark can’t make it up to you because he did nothing wrong. He’s also not even aware that you like him, but that’s besides the point).

Despite Haechan’s attempt to convince you that it could’ve been just a friendly kiss, a greeting kiss, a whatever kiss, you insist that you’re done with your little crush, that it had shriveled up and died. Although not so convinced, Haechan drops the subject all together and instead resorts to comforting you in his own way, which mainly just consists of making fun of you about other things.

Mark is a touchy subject, and you’re still avoiding him. Why? You don’t really know. You know it’s not fair to Mark, who is probably very hurt and confused at your lack of communication. Nonetheless, he doesn’t question it, and is so infuriatingly mature with his emotions that you suspect that he even respects it, because he stops texting you after a while. 

You feel bad about stonewalling him, leaving him in the dark, but really, what would you say to him? 

“Sorry-I-haven’t-been-talking-to-you-it’s-just-that-I’m-in-love-with-you-and-I’m-butthurt-that-you-have-a-girlfriend-of-course-it’s-not-really-your-fault-but-”

You shudder at the thought, because it’s just plain embarrassing. 

But really, you’re not the best at expressing your emotions—you’ve never been. Frankly, you’re tired of expressing your emotions because it never got you anywhere. Not with your mom, not with your dad, and definitely not with Yuta, who you dated for a year and half a year just to dump you like you were nothing. 

It’s not worth it, to put your emotions on the line for anyone, not anymore. You locked your heart away a long time ago, and you were a fool to let it come out last time, and you like to think you learn from your mistakes.

At least, that’s what you think, until you return home one Sunday night from the library and see a little cup of your favorite milk tea at the door, with a straw neatly balanced on the top. 

…

When spring fling rolls around, you still haven’t spoken to Mark, and if your friends catch on, they don't mention it. They know by now that you prefer to deal with things alone, to digest them for what they are and then promptly moving on—you know, like processing a death. 

It doesn’t really matter, you think. You and Mark have always been friends, and will always be friends. Nothing more, nothing less. And when you get over yourself, things will be fine. 

But really, how can it be fine when your whole world stops every time Mark looks at you?

You try not to dwell on it, even now weeks later. You’re busy getting ready to go out, blotting your lipstick on some tissue paper in your friend Yuna’s bathroom. 

“(y/n), you look amazing.”

When you turn to look at yourself in the mirror she’s right; The mascara you put on your lashes really brings out the color of your eyes, and your skin (thanks to Yuna’s highlighter compact) is literally glowing. You feel really pretty.

You turn to smile at her. “Thanks to you.” you tell her, and she gets bashful, pushing you out of the seat and ushering you out the door. You make it down stairs no problem, but she calls you as soon as you walk out the door.

“Yes, I have blotting papers with me, and no, I am not dating Haechan I’ve told you thousands of times-”

“What about me?” 

You turn around to find Haechan leaning against the dormitory wall, already waiting. 

Embarrassed, you tell her you need to go and hang up the phone. 

“How long have you been standing here? Hopefully not too long.” You apologize, but he assures you it’s all right.  

“Are you sure your friends are fine with you leaving them early to go with me?”

“Yes Haechan, they’re just happy that I have someone to go with.” you sigh. “Almost too happy.” 

He laughs, after looking at you, he pauses. “You look nice.”

“You do too, Hyuck.”

If you didn’t know any better, you would say he seems embarrassed at your compliment. 

When you walk into the venue, you’re not surprised at how spacious it is. You’re used to your school going all out, from the kale salads and now, spring fling. They might as well call it spring semi-formal, because everyone is dressed their best. 

You see Johnny at the end of the punch table, and he waves, motioning for you two to join him. 

“And my favorite couple,” he greets you two, and you almost smack him upside down the head. 

“Relax, I’m just kidding.” and he leans in for a hug. “How are you (y/n), I haven’t seen you in a second.” 

“I’m good, just been super busy. You were so right, Professor Kim has been really keeping me on my toes in Physics 430,” you laugh. “Every time I walk into the classroom I can feel my life flash through my very eyes.”

He laughs, and you all laugh with him. Johnny tends to have that kind of effect on people.

“How’s Mark?” he asks, and you cringe. “It’s been a while.”

You laugh nervously  “ I haven’t seen him in a while either.”

“Oh really. Don’t you see each other every week?”

“Well we used to,” you panic. “Just not anymore because, you know, I-”

“Because you’ve been so busy,” Haechan finishes.

Johnny gives you two a strange look but continues talking anyway.

“Well that’s life. Poor boy’s been studying for the MCAT like his rent is due tomorrow.”

“More like everyday.” Haechan snickers. 

Johnny doesn’t hesitate to flame Haechan for his insolence, and begins teasing him for almost failing Calc II (Calc II was kind of hard you admit but that is an admission that will die with you), meanwhile, you’re whisked away by Yuna and her entourage. You glance at Johnny and Haechan, who bid you farewell with a nod of their heads.

It’s fun, you’re having a great time dancing, and eating mini hot dogs on a toothpick (you guess your university had to cut corners somewhere). When Roxanne plays, you and Yuna go wild, nearly knocking over a waiter over with a silver tray. You have so much fun, that you forget that Mark Lee exists until you make eye contact across the floor. 

It's no surprise that he’s with Yebin, who looks annoyingly prettier than usual, with her makeup all done and satin dress. She’s pulling him in the opposite direction, but Mark seems to pay no mind, instead staying in place, looking at you. A moment passes, and you see him excusing himself. When he begins to head your direction. You panic. 

Before you can even react, you feel an arm wrap around your waist, pulling you close. When you finally turn to see who it is, you’re nose to nose with none other than Haechan.

“What are you doing?” 

“Just go along with it,” Haechan whispers through his teeth. Your hands are pressed against his chest, and he grabs one of your arms, placing it around his neck.

“Go along with what? Have you lost your mind-” 

Before you can finish your sentence, his lips press against yours and your mind goes blank. He tastes like peppermint and aftershave, with his lips soft in the center and just a little chapped around the edges.  

When you two finally part, Mark is nowhere to be found, and you don’t know how to feel. 

“Haechan I-” you stammer. “I need to go.” 

You hurry off, and he doesn’t follow you. 

…

When you’re outside, it’s  cold; the air is brisk and definitely doesn’t help steady your breathing, it only makes it harder. It’s a lot to process, Mark, Yebin, Haechan. It’s a lot, and you feel like you’re in emotional overdrive, with all the feelings you’ve been trying to keep in for the past few months coming back to bite you.

You sit down at the edge of the fountain outside the venue, and you nearly get soaked. It misses you by mere inches, with the ceramic fish looking at you almost mockingly. You don’t care, with all the thoughts running through your head right now, you think you might go insane. 

You don’t know how long you’ve been sitting there at the fountain when you feel something wrap around you, warm like it was just taken out of the dryer. It smells familiar, like cologne and faintly of antiseptic—it smells like Mark.

You don’t look at him when he sits down next to you, legs open, hands crossed. And he doesn’t look at you. It’s radio silent.

“So you and Haechan, huh.”

“So you and Yebin.” you echo. 

Mark looks at you for the first time, confused. “What are you talking about?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Oh that.” He shuffles awkwardly. “I don’t really like her like that.”

Your head raises in surprise, and you face each other for the first time in months.

“I thought you guys had a thing.”

Mark scratches the back of his head. “Well we do, but it’s just in her head” he says, and you can’t help but laugh. “She came onto me last week, so I finally set things straight.” Noticing your reaction, he just shakes his head. 

 “I don’t think it worked though,” he adds.

“I would think, you’ve always been too nice for your own good.” 

“I just didn’t want to hurt her feelings, you know?” he murmurs. “I feel terrible.”

“You’re not a terrible person just because you don’t like someone back.”

“Maybe not, but I believe not wanting you and Haechan to be together does.”

It takes a moment for his words to register within you, and even after you process them, you’re not sure what to say.

“We don’t like each other like that.” you interrupt him.

Mark looks visibly confused. “Then you and Haechan aren’t??” his voice falters.

“No more than you and Yebin. I promise you it’s not what it seems like.” you tell him and it finally clicks. You’d have to thank the idiot later. Right after you slap him.

Mark doesn’t question it, not even when you start crying. You don’t question it either, unsure of why you’re crying. 

“You’re so stupid,” you sniffle. “I’ve liked you for so fucking long.” 

Mark pulls out his pocket square to gently wipe the tears from your face, and places his hand on top of yours. 

“You’re ridiculous, you know that? You could have just said something.” his says softly

“I didn’t want to ruin anything. We’ve always just been friends.”

“I think we’ve always been just more than that.” he says, leaning in, hands cup your face gently. 

 “Just took some of us a little longer to realize.”

....

“That was very nice of you,” Johnny says. 

“Yeah. Very nice.” Haechan echos. 

“How long has it been, that you’ve liked her for? Three years?”

“Two going on three.” 

Johnny lets out a low whistle, and looks down at the younger boy worriedly. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

Haechan glances at you and Mark through the glass, outside the venue. With Mark whispering in your ear and you laughing, you seem so happy; happier than you’ve ever been with him.

“Yeah, I am. More than okay.”

[earlgreyandadderall-blog]

Hellooooooo!

Hi there Internet people (or most likely like, five friends, my mom, and my aunt who are reading this because I posted it on Facebook), and welcome to my blog!

If you didn't link to this directly from my Facebook, and can’t tell by my blog name (which maybe you can’t, because a fancy tea and a drug people take to pull all-nighters is a super vague name for a website), this blog is all about my life as a girl who has ADHD. I’m twenty-two years old, in my final year of my international relations degree, and will be starting law school in September. I’ve always been a top student, did competitive Irish dance from grade one to grade twelve, have worked in political activism since I was fifteen, and hope to one day work on Track II Diplomacy and truth and reconciliation initiatives in Northern Ireland. Two months ago, I was also diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Lemme tell you- that explained A LOT. Like, A WHOLE LOT. The last two months may have been the most important of my life, as I’ve finally started getting effective treatment (four years after the first time I saw a doctor for my mental wellbeing). Now I start my day with 10 mg Adderall XR, and have spent a lot of time figuring out not-medicinal ways to further improve my life and make my world work the way I need it to. I’ve been thinking about starting a YouTube channel or a blog for the last week or so, so- here I am!

What made me decide to start this blog? There are three reasons.

#1 - NEW EXCITING PROJECT! ADHD brains love new exciting projects.

...there’s nothing deeper to this. I just really wanted to make a blog.

#2 - There are so few resources out there for women and girls with ADHD, and the articles and studies you will find are super super boring and just repeat the same information over and over again. “Many girls with ADHD aren’t diagnosed until post-secondary!” “The needs of girls with ADHD get overlooked because they aren’t disruptive and often do well in school!” Yeah, tell me something I don’t know. Honestly, I learned more about my own experiences and what I’ve been struggling with my whole life from one woman’s YouTube channel (HowToADHD is absolute MUST for women and girls with this diagnosis; it changed my life) than I did from my psychiatrist, psychologist, and every article about ADHD in girls that I could find on the internet. I wanted to create content that’s fun, relatable, and actually helps other girls like me understand what’s going on inside their heads and how to deal with it.

#3 - Honestly, I wanted to create a more positive representation of ADHD in girls than what I’ve been seeing on social media lately. What I’m about to say might not go down well with everyone in the mental health/disability community, but frankly, I don’t care. The general mental illness community on social media is toxic as hell. I first encountered this in high school, when I briefly had a recovery Instagram while I was struggling with anorexia. (By the way, did you know that girls with ADHD are at a higher risk of developing an eating disorder than other girls?) For every account that genuinely encouraged recovery and celebrated their victories while being transparent about their struggles, there were four accounts asking for tips on how not to gain weight when you’re hooked up to a feeding tube. I’ve heard from other people that there is a similar toxicity in the community around chronic illness and chronic pain. I follow this super brave and strong girl named Daisy on instagram, who has Ehlers-Danlos and Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (which apparently is literally the worst pain the world). She recently shared that she had to leave all of the “support” groups for chronic pain that she was in on Facebook because they were breeding a culture that encouraged people to stay at home in bed and mope rather than to continue seeking out the best possible treatments and live the fullest live that they possibly can. I hate to say it, but lately I’ve noticed the same sort of trend among people who have ADHD. It’s almost hard to believe that me and some of the people I’ve observed on Facebook and Tumblr have the same diagnosis. This is harsh but I’m just gonna say it- there is an awful trend of people with ADHD refusing to take accountability for their behaviour or to realize that just because you have a neurodevelopmental disorder does not mean that you can never ever be the person in the wrong. ADHD is an explanation for certain behaviours, not an excuse. Because of my ADHD, I have done things and treated people in ways that I am not proud of, but having ADHD does not excuse this behaviour. I was overjoyed to finally get an explanation for why I act the way I do sometimes- especially one that is as highly treatable as ADHD is. I wasted no time looking into strategies for coping with the unique struggles that I have and working on the resultant bad behaviours. There was not one moment of sadness over this diagnosis- just a relief that I finally had somewhere to start my journey towards being better. Beyond just using it as an excuse for everything, I’ve also seen a huge trend of people being more focused on self-pity than on self-care and self-improvement. These are the moments that I am really, really glad that I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 22. Do I wish I knew about Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria before I let my experience with it push away my best friend to the point that he blocked my number for six months? Of course I do. Do I regret losing an entire academic year because I couldn’t motivate myself? Do I wish I knew I wasn’t just being lazy, because maybe then I wouldn’t have been ashamed to ask for help? Obviously. But despite that, I’m glad I wasn’t diagnosed as a child or a teenager. Why? Because I grew up believing I was just like everyone else else. I grew up without a reason to think that I couldn’t do anything anyone else could do. I’m glad I didn’t grow up with an easy excuse for every mistake I made. I’m glad my parents never felt the need to go easy on me and I’m glad I wasn’t weighed down by this idea that I was inherently incapable of achieving my lofty goals. Was it really, really, REALLY hard sometimes? You bet. Did I often wonder why I couldn’t focus like everyone else could, or why relationships were so hard for me? Of course I did. But I’m glad I never had the opportunity to sit back and say “well I just can’t do it because I have ADHD and that’s that.” Would I have graduated high school with a 95% GPA if I had been diagnosed as a child? Would I have pushed myself to take a full French program in university when I only had grade 12 core French? Would I have written the LSAT, and scored a 162 even though I barely studied for it? Probably not, because looking at the ADHD community that I’m a newcomer to, I have a sinking feeling that I wouldn’t have pushed myself half as hard as I did. Being forced to muddle through and try to keep up with no help for as long as I did instilled in me the best gift possible: a positive attitude, and a firm belief that I can do anything I set my mind to.

So what does that have to do with this blog? Well, I wanted to create a space where ADHD is not seen as something that necessarily holds us back. I want to encourage approaching life with ADHD with a positive attitude. I want this to be a space where fellow ADHD brains can come for tips on studying for the LSAT and MCAT, share the workouts and sleep hygiene that help them focus, and talk about how they prepare things the night before so they don’t forget anything in the morning- not a space where people come to complain about how unfair it is that your boss wasn’t understanding of the fact that you were 25 minutes late for work. I’m not saying having ADHD isn’t a huge challenge, or that sometimes, despite our best efforts, we aren’t going to mess up. Because we are. A lot. And I’m not saying it’s not okay to be bummed out about those mess ups, or to sometimes feel like life isn’t fair. But instead of focusing on the negative, I want to focus on encouraging, empowering, and helping each other to never give up and to not let those occasional mess ups become what defines us.

I’m going to try to post once a week, but with exam season upon us, I can’t guarantee that that will happen- at least not right away. However, despite the ADHD tendency to abandon projects, this is something I’m really passionate about, so I’m going to try to post here as often as possible. In the next couple of days I’ll be making a post about common ADHD symptoms in girls that are often overlooked if we don’t fit the “typical” disruptive, hyperactive image of a kid with ADHD.

Until next time!

[officialcolumbiauniversity]

20 Questions I Get Asked on Every Tour

I’ve been postponing publishing any IPs lately because I was very adamant on finishing this one; I forgot to post it as a logical sequel (or pre-quel) to my 20 Questions to Ask on a Tour post. If you don’t want to scour my Previously Asked tab for the answer to one of your questions, this post is for you. So, without much flourish, here we go: My Most Frequently Asked Questions.

What the fuck is the Core and how do I avoid it? Well the Core takes up about a third of all the classes you ever take here so you’d be hard pressed to find a way to avoid it. Also, the Core is highkey the only thing that makes Columbia truly unique, rather than just rare, among all other American colleges, so I have no idea why you would want to come here if you don’t like the Core. And for what the Core is, you should definitely check out our website for a good definition as well as a list of all the Core classes. However if you want a one stop shop for my experiences with the classes, right here is a link to my Core in Review series, where I write a one-pager about each Core class as I take it, along with tips to help you ace the class.

Do people generally live on campus and stay on the meal plan all four years? Yes. About 95% of students live on campus all 4 years, and idk the statistic for the meal plan, but it’s also high. We have great food. (This girl on one of my tours was raving about our dining hall after I took the group through; she was like “I’ve been on so many tours and none of the cafeterias smell as good as that one smelled.” Damn right.)

What’s up with stress culture here? Are students happy here? Check out my response to an anon’s ask here.

How supportive are students here of each other? Kind of linked to stress culture. I’d say students are about as collaborative as at any other college. The standard “omg thank god I’m not the only one who didn’t do the reading,” mild academic dishonesty floating around, and lots of study sessions completely organized by students. Yeah everyone here is super aware of the fact that everyone’s stressed so we help each other out. It’s cute.

Why did you choose Columbia? I did in fact already post about that (and other reasons you should come here!) in this ask.

Is it hard to get into classes, as a freshman but also in general? Eh, it depends. For the most part freshmen get into most of the classes that they want to take, but classes fill up quickly, and if you have a rubbish registration time, you might not get there in time. Some classes, like Music Hum, you just won’t be able to get into as a freshman unless you explicitly stated a major related to that class on your application. After freshman year, getting into classes gets easier because of seniority, but even then there are classes you just won’t take. Self-Paced Running has a waitlist that you’ll never get off of. Even in 8 semesters.

What’s up with the phys ed requirement, and the swim test? I am one hundred percent sure the admissions officer giving the information session talk puts you guys up to this, because someone asks it on every tour without fail. Check out this post for the full story, history and all, about the swim test.

What’s the most touristy thing you’ve done in New York since coming to Columbia? Honestly, most Columbia kids never do touristy shit even if they’ve never been to New York before, just because one, we don’t have time, and two, word gets around pretty quickly that it’s a huge waste of time. However, as a tour guide I give night bus tours of the city to the admitted students for Days on Campus, so that’s the most touristy thing I’ve done. Especially when I don’t have to actually give the tour, because another tour guide is doing that, and I can just sit and watch 5th Avenue and Times Square and the Empire State building fly by.

Can you double major in CC and SEAS? You can study two things in CC and two things in SEAS, but you can’t study two majors across colleges. You can, however, minor or concentrate across colleges.

Where should I go for lunch? Glad to hear you’re staying in the city for a while! Check out my post on places to eat (and bars) nearby. My personal fave is of course Strokos.

How hard is it balancing [two majors]/[major requirements and a pre-professional track]/[academics and social life given everything that you do]? The main thing I tell people is that it’s not so much a whole lot of extra work; after all, I’d end up taking the same amount of classes over my four years, it’s just a question of whether or not those classes are electives or for a second major. So balancing two majors, or academics in general with social life, isn’t so much a strenuous intellectual task as it is just a time-management one. You have to get really good, really quickly, at prioritizing what you want to do and when you’re gonna do it, otherwise you’re just not going to succeed. In whatever you’re trying to do. I didn’t believe this for a long time: at the beginning of high school, my dad had the foresight of forcing me to complete a daily timetable before I got to start on my homework. I, however, would do it as infrequently as possible. I preferred to just do my homework for as long as it took me, forgetting that I tended to go on Facebook during that time, and I would end up wasting a whole lot of time. But doing a lot academically means you have to schedule your time really well. Which I learned the hard way, first semester freshman year. I won’t be making that mistake again, if I can help it.

Is the orchestra hard to get into? Weird that someone asks this on almost every tour. But no, not at all. If you’re competent on your instrument you should be able to get a position. The question is whether you want a good seat: we have a habit of attracting all the Juilliard people that didn’t want to go to conservatory for four years, and Exchange students are allowed in our orchestra, so positions like concertmaster are wicked competitive.

How hard was it to get used to the city? Especially coming from suburbia? It’s hard to say either way. For those of you who have been followers for a while, you know that only this summer (summer after freshman year) did I really start going out into the city of my own volition. For most of the year I didn’t take the initiative that the city requires of people that come here, because there’s so much to do. I was very afraid of getting lost, because it was easy to get lost in my city back home and I also never went exploring back then. I just assumed I would have everything I needed at school and didn’t go to any of the events around the city. The part that was easy getting used to was definitely the layout of the city; I really appreciate the grid structure. I think in some regards it’s very easy to get a handle on NYC, and in some regards you never get used to it. I don’t think anyone ever “gets used to” NYC, we just kinda appreciate what we can do here.

What did you do in high school that you think prepared you both for college and for Columbia’ application process? I did IB in high school, so I credit most of my academically smooth transition to college to IB. It was invaluable both in college-level rigor and in subject material, because a lot of the classes I took this year were exactly the same as the classes I took in IB. And for things like Crime and Punishment, or organic chemistry as a subject, the only way you really understand it is if you let it stew for a year or two and then come back to it to relearn it. So I was definitely at an advantage there. For the application process, I definitely devoted a lot of my time to writing the essays, and although I didn’t have them peer-edited I re-read them myself, letting them sit for a few weeks and then coming back to them with fresh eyes. I think I was best prepared for the standardized tests because I took my first SAT spring of sophomore year, which I really recommend. You don’t really have time to study for the SAT as properly during junior year.

What’s your least favorite thing about Columbia or one thing you wish you could change? That for all of our talk of letting you do your own thing, I’ve found a surprising amount of people shaming me for not being into literature. I appreciate how much literature shapes modern society but I don’t particularly want to read Foucault in my spare time. And yet I get a lot of heat for not being familiar with philosophers, or not having read certain books like Invisible Man. Columbia’s full of intellectuals, but that community tends to foster faux-intellectuals that want to police everyone’s opinions and beliefs. I also?? don’t fucking like that our school is highkey problematic but I have managed to not hear about any of it. I didn’t know what gentrification meant until the beginning of this summer, but Columbia seems to not be worried at all that we’re displacing people of color who live here just because we’re wealthy, and then not telling us about it. (But there’s also a whole lot problematic with the definition of gentrification, and I don’t see much discourse on it.)

What’s being pre-med like? Tbh it’s pretty non-noticeable. I think for a lot of students being pre-med is less about preparing for med school and more about being able to say that you’re pre-med. Besides the actual classes we have to take I don’t see a whole lot of unity or similarities between pre-med students. Which might definitely be a good thing, because we’re all such individual people that there’s a wide variety. It’s pretty nice here in that you can just decide to be pre-med by taking all the required classes, you don’t have to “declare” you’re pre-med or apply into a program or anything. I honestly think being pre-med is the least of my problems right now. The hard part comes when you have to prepare for the MCAT, or get internships, and our offices are good at getting you internships but I haven’t seen much about MCATs. Of course, I by no means am in a hurry to study up on the MCAT yet.

Do you find yourself going out into the city often (as a pre-med student, or as a double major, or both)? I personally definitely don’t go out a lot. And I’m always inclined to say on tours that it’s just a me problem, but the reality is that I often feel guilty going out because I know there’s so much to be done back home. With my particular situation, being a double major in demanding fields, I can’t really afford to have fun in the city the way I dreamed when I was applying to a New York school. So I try not to get FOMO when I have to do the chem homework that I didn’t get to do because I was behind on CC readings because I had to finish up a music composition.

What’s the freshman orientation week like? Let me break it down for you.

Oh you just finished freshman year? How did you like your first year on campus? Beat you to that one too.

What do you know about [insert certain major or program here]? One of the best inventions of all time is the motherfucking Internet, which you should use because I am not a walking version of the Columbia website. I’m just a tour guide. We have a Bulletin that lists all our majors and actually lists the classes required to get a degree in each. Check it out here.

And that should be twenty entire questions. :)

It’s good to be back, guys. Hopefully I can get back into the swing of posting IPs now that summer classes are almost done. I am really looking forward to going home again, really, really looking forward to going home again. And I’m looking forward for school to start up again. And who knows? I might move in early, in time to catch some of you at NSOP. Just maybe.

[medkltty-blog]

The Integrity of Medical School

I’ve been in medical school for a little over a semester and I have become very disillusioned with medical school as an institution. I’m glad I’m in medical school and I know how lucky I am to be in medical school, however, I’m struggling with the ethics of medical school as an institution.

It took me six years to get into medical school. In that time I got a bachelor’s degree, a graduate degree, I worked full-time and volunteered nearly 20 hours a week. I took the MCAT and went on interviews and paid for my applications. In that time, I also probably spent well over 30 thousand dollars trying to get into medical school, not including the student loans I had to take out to pay for my pre-med and graduate classes. The cost of my applications, alone, was 5 thousand dollars. And that was the second time I applied. The cost of my interviews were also easily 5 thousand dollars as well. 

When I got into medical school I was excited to become a doctor. I was proud of myself and felt vindicated that all of my hard work paid off. I was ready to start learning how to be a doctor. My first semester was absolutely miserable. The morale of my class was extremely low. We go to a school that heavily emphasizes wellness but a slew of new changes based on feedback from students ahead of us created a schedule that was unsustainable and didn’t leave time for any self-care practice or wellness at all. The idea of wellness became a running inside joke in our class where people would proudly state that they participated in self-care by taking a shower for the first time in two days or by sleeping in past 7am on a Saturday.

But we got through that first semester, propelled by second year students telling us that it would be all downhill after that and that once we started organ systems second semester, we’d be so much happier and have so much time to take care of ourselves and study (because our schedule was so jam-packed that it left very little time to study and our attendance in class is required). We had third year medical students telling us how they would rather repeat their entire third year of medical school and all the crazy rotations that go with it than repeat their first semester. And so we took all of our finals and set off for winter break looking forward to next semester.

Our second semester started a little over three weeks ago. News that we lost six of our classmates spread through the class. They chose to leave or weren’t allowed to come back by the administration. It was an elephant in the room that none of us can talk about because of privacy rules. Still, morale is higher when we start up our organs systems classes.

And that is when I realized what a money scam medical school is. I am required to go to class if I want my class rank to be high not because our classes actually teach us information but because your grade is connected to your attendance, so poor attendance = a poor grade = a lower class rank. I sit in class for up to 9 hours a day and have clinicians read powerpoint slides word-for-word to me, none of which are interesting or helpful to my actual learning and all of which I could have read to myself at home. I am told by our academic administrators to buy resources like First Aid to study for Step 1, they bought us a Q bank but we have to pay for everything else. $900 later, I have subscriptions to Pathoma, RX, Sketchy, and Firecracker. I wanted to buy a set of clinical case books recommended to us but the price on Amazon was $653. By the time I take Step 1 I will have taken out 150 THOUSAND dollars in student loans ON TOP OF the student loans I already have from two bachelor degrees and a master’s degree. 

I will need to pay the fees for the Step exams on my own. I am expected to join various professional societies and pay their yearly fees because it will make my residency application look better even though joining those professional societies has no impact on what kind of physician I will be, how much I care about others, or my Step 1 score. And, of course, those professional societies are so generous and give you a discount because you’re a medical student, so instead of paying $500 you’re asked to only pay $150. But isn’t it worth it to add some fake prestige to your residency application by saying you went to the AMA conference one year? The AMA that endorsed Tom Price for HHS secretary? The AMA that endorsed someone who wants to remove the ACA and condemn 43,000 additional people to death due to lack of insurance every year. Sign me the fuck up, right?

I am disgusted with the cost of medical school. I knew it would be expensive but I feel it is unethical to ask students to spend so much money applying to medical school and taking the MCAT and then asking them to pay EVEN MORE. Especially when there was so much hand-wringing from the AAMC and NBME about how to make medical school more affordable and how to increase the diversity among students and increase the number of first generation physicians (since studies show that children of doctors tend to be worse doctors than their first generation peers). I have an idea:

Get rid of the first two years of medical school. Make Step 1 the admissions exam for students. Get rid of application fees and the MCAT altogether. Start students up in January, give them a ten week course in gross anatomy, followed by a two week intensive clinical skills course and a first aid/CPR certification, and start them up on wards in April, a full 2 to 3 months earlier than most schools. This gives students 5 to 6 months to explore specialties after their required rotations instead of 2 to 3 which aren’t even really used for students to explore since those are the rotations they need to do in order to get the letters of rec they need for their residency applications (may be the lack of time to explore specialty options is why 60-90% of physicians hate their fucking jobs). 

And then, of course, you have to spend thousands of dollars on your residency applications and travel for interviews, which are not factored in to your student loan awards. 

This will never happen, though, because the AAMC makes billions of dollars in application fees, MCAT fees, and official test prep materials. The NBME makes billions of dollars off the backs of students paying for their exams and the LCME makes just as much. None of the organizations that could change the system have the incentive to do so because they are too busy milking medical students for all the money they have.

I know it sounds like I’m too money focused. The truth is, I’m not. I gave up hope of ever paying off my student loans years ago. I will never pay them back and I didn’t want to be a doctor because of the salary. My disillusionment with medical school as an institution is due to the ethics of it all. When I was applying to medical school there was a huge push to improve medical class diversity and encourage more minority and lower class students to apply. You can get fee waivers and financial assistance to cover the cost of your MCAT fees. But that doesn’t go far enough. Those application fee waivers don’t make booking flights for interviews any cheaper, they don’t lower the cost of having to rent a car or buy a suit for an interview. 

How can we expect students living in poverty to drop 5 grand on interview costs just to get in to medical school? How can we expect students living in underserved communities to afford the cost of Step 2 and the price of travel to and from the 6 locations in the country you can take it? Underserved communities NEED students who understand what living in those communities is like to go back and be their doctors. And, yes, there are scholarships and small-scale help, but I’m arguing that the entire system, right now, is designed to keep students who can’t afford to pay for medical school admittance out. Is a student whose family is on food stamps really going to have $150 to pay for the MCAT? No. 

I look around at the people in my class, which to my school’s credit is exceedingly diverse in race and religious background, however almost everyone in my class comes from a family that was middle class or above. Half of my classmates have parents who can afford to pay for their tuition and living expenses. I am part of the other class that has to take out loans. But when I was applying to medical school and there was a mix up with my teaching assistant stipend that lead to it being delayed, my dad was able to loan me the $2500 I needed to submit my AMCAS application on time. If I had not had a full-time job as a graduate student, though, I would not have been able to afford the cost of interviewing, and a third of the interviews I went on were local. 

In class, we are asked to think about treatment plans for patients and discuss them with each other. The girl sitting next to me says she thinks this ethics class is a waste of our time. The patient is an overweight child who we need to counsel, she lives in a run down part of a large city. We work together on her treatment plan and my partner comes up with a list of groceries to buy. I point out that the patient in question is a minor and likely not in charge of her food and that the education needs to be directed towards the parent and the patient. I also point out that due to the income level of the area they live in, the patient’s mother is likely relying on food stamps. I go over the grocery list and not a single thing is realistic. I point out that food stamps cannot be used to buy milk. My partner is shocked, her eyes widen; when I tell her how food stamps in my state can’t be used to buy rice, her entire world is turned upside down. I voice this in class when we are invited to share. A male classmate who is openly gay and voted for Trump comes up to me and asks me to explain why food stamps can’t be used to buy milk. I do and he doesn’t know what to say.

I look at my classmates who do not understand what poverty looks like in reality and I think about the people I know in rural towns who blew their entire savings trying to get into medical school only to be told when they didn’t get in that they needed to go take the MCAT again because the 29 they got wasn’t good enough, they needed a 30. The people suggesting this to my friend recommend taking an MCAT course not realizing the closest one would be two hours away and that the nearly 3 grand the course costs makes that impossible, not to mention the cost of taking the test again. It doesn’t matter, though, because she wouldn’t be able to afford all of the resources for Step 1 let alone the cost of THAT exam once she got into medical school. She works as a CNA in a nursing home.

How can we put such a financial burden on students applying to medical school? How can we ask medical students to pay so much money for residency applications, licensing exams, and tuition? How can we do that and then ask them to enter a profession that requires them to get permission from insurance providers and hospital administrators to order a damn chest CT? How can we ask them to pay so much money and then ignore the fact that there aren’t enough residency spots available for all of them to train in? How can we ask pre-med and medical students to pay so much money when the health care system is in shambles and the only people making money are hospital CEOs and insurance companies? How can we expect medical students to pay back their massive student loans in a system like that? Why are institutions like the AAMC so comfortable setting so many medical students up for failure?

Because my school emphasizes wellness, we have mandatory wellness classes we have to attend. Because, in medical school, giving students time to practice self-care isn’t as important as requiring them to attend a four hour class telling them they need to practice self-care and get lots of sleep, all while requiring them to be at school by 8am and making us sit in class until 5pm, giving us five hours of the day to study before we do it all again. And, of course, in those five hours of study time we also need to fit in time to exercise, feed ourselves, and maybe speak with our loved ones for five minutes to make sure they are still alive. Because self-care!

I wouldn’t say I’m jaded about medical school this early on but I am questioning why this system is in place. Why pay for two years of medical school when everyone just uses First Aid and Step resources to get a good score? I think medicine, as an institution, is really stuck in this idea of “well, I had to do it so you do, too” which I think is a really dangerous way of thinking. I think if medical students have extremely high rates of depression and anxiety (myself included, however mine was with me long before medical school) and it just gets worse through residency and becoming an attending there’s something wrong with the system. And if something isn’t working, why shouldn’t it be fixed? “Because I went through it and you should, too” isn’t a good enough answer for me. It’s also not accurate, right? The doctors who are saying that bullshit excuse went to medical school in a different time, where they could actually make decisions about patient care without having to call an insurance company for permission first. They went through medical school when it was actually affordable. They went through medical school when the idea of a woman being a doctor was either not allowed, unheard of, or looked down on, because who would take care of their kids at home while they went through residency if their wife was in medical school? 

So, yeah, they went through medical school and worked all of these hours and paid for medical school but the context was different, so I still want to know why such an archaic system that is already financially unattainable for people we NEED to be doctors and is quickly becoming financially unattainable for anyone who doesn’t have a trust fund is allowed to exist. I want to know why a 60-90% dissatisfaction rate is considered acceptable among physicians without any examination of the system that makes them into physicians.

[liliumwallichianum]

just an update

I haven’t written in a long ass time, like actually written and not just venting writing, but I feel like writing is important. Even if I’m the only one reading it, it’s important. So here’s the good and bad of the past couple weeks (maybe months?) cause I have to write if I’m at a Starbucks amirite amirite. 

So let’s start with something that’s on my mind the most - MCAT. Ironically, the one thing I should be doing right now as well... lol. I haven’t gotten the ball rolling and I’m a little worried.. I feel like I should be doing way way way more and I’m not. I think I need to move back home but like all of my stuff is at wayne. my life is at wayne. my home is wayne and I’m scared to let it go. This doctor/nurse/health care professional popped into starbucks right now btw should i talk to him? probably wont since im writing. but anyways, I really think I should bring a bunch of my essentials back home for a while and just fucking MCAT. i need to MCAT. i need to i need to. it’s pointless for me to be wasting precious studying time at Wayne getting high or cuddling with my fucking useless boyfriend instead of fucking grinding. It’s stressing me out a little. but I know I will do it, and I can. I need to start having more faith in myself I feel...

The next thing I think about a lot is my fucking gas issues mainly cause i’ve been burping SO GODDAMN MUCH. I hate this. I hate not being in amazing health conditions. I love where my body is at right now and I love where it’s going, even though it’s going kind of slow, but this burping is making me second guess it. I feel like since i might not being eating as much as I used to, my stomach is (hopefully) shrinking but because of that I’m burping so much because of all the empty space. Not sure how to fix it but hopefully it’ll be better soon. I also started putting menthe and coconut in my oil (jk today is the first day cause I facetimed ajji and appa and they told me to do this) but hopefully i’ll start getting my hair back as well. I’m trying really hard to have my life together, but everyone keeps saying that I shouldn’t be worrying about that right now, but I’m curious.... did Ajay have it together? Did Anita? Did they break down and cry about silly things at night? were they insecure? how do successful people handle their insecurities and how do they still manage to be successful without focusing on their problems too much?!? Need to know. sigh. 

The last thing I want to talk about is the album 17 by xxxtentacion. This. effing. hit. me. like. a. tRUCK. like BRO. I think the reason I like it so much is because in the midst of all of this hype and chill music put out, it’s raw and real and depicts my emotions. I realized therapy did absolutely nothing for me because none of my real insecurities were addressed except maybe the mcat stuff but besides that nothing was really addressed. I didn’t talk about how I think about death all the time, how i think i have some type of ocd that is really fucking annoying, how i have the same anxiety from my mother which really bugs me because I see myself turning more and more like her, how my boyfriend doesn’t try to talk to me about what happens in therapy even though I’ve told him so many times I have issues, how i really want kids but probably will talk myself out of it because I can see myself becoming my mother and the last thing I need is a child if I’m like her... is my mom a bad mom? no she’s the best. My upbringing was amazing - my sister and I are amazing children. we’re respectful, we have amazing morals and values and we were raised amazingly, but look at what it did to our parents. My dad is trapped in a land he doesn’t want to be in, he just wants to be at home with his parents in his home land. My mom is at a job she doesn’t care for and tries to fill her void with religion which maybe brings her happiness, but I can tell she stresses about things unnecessarily because of my and preethi. All of her worries are from us and I don’t want to be like that. maybe it’s selfish not having kids, but I’ll probably do it for my mental health which is fair. See I’m sitting here worried about stupid shit getting anxiety about stupid shit that I shouldn’t be focused on, and I think it’s because of the anxiety. I just overthink all the time and it fucking sucks. But I think that’s why I love this album. It’s real and it’s raw, it makes sense to me. I feel his pain when I’m listening to it, and I feel like he can hear mine. Thanks XXX, i love you.

To the one person reading this post aka urself, ily stay good stay strong stop thinking about dying love ya

p.s. I think weed is making me indecisive and also makes me talk to myself and I really wanna stop goddamn but I feel myself addicted and it’s bad. I need to stop 

[whatshouldwecallmillenniald-blog]

Case 17: MD PhD (almost)

When: August 10th and 19th, 2018

Platform: Coffee Meets Bagel

Who: R (I think my first R!) is 23, easily one of the most attractive guys I’ve gone on a date with, and probably one of the smartest. He’s staying in the area temporarily doing research and studying for the MCAT. In about 2 weeks he’ll be leaving across the country, so obviously this wasn’t going to end up being a long term thing-- I don’t believe in starting something long distance after so short a time unless it’s REALLY special, and hardly anything is ever that extraordinary.

Anyways, we went out the first night for dinner and drinks at a local wine bar, and we ended up having fantastic conversation-- probably the most intellectually stimulating conversation I’ve had in a while (thanks Case 16, and no, I’m not bitter, I promise). Meanwhile, we’re both getting fairly wine drunk, and we end up going back to his place, drinking more, and hooking up. Oh, he also casually mentioned he had an on-and-off ex-girlfriend of 3 years that he’s “finally broken things off with for good” and so I didn’t feel weird about hooking up. In the morning, he was sweet and we had breakfast and watched some TV together before I left (after more sex, of course). 

He’s busy and not a great texter, so I don’t think it’s that big of a deal when we don’t really text for a week and the next time he texts is to hang out the following weekend. He also mentions at this point (over text) that he just wants to hang out as friends, not hook up, because he has a “weird conscience” about what we did before-- presumably because of his “ex”-girlfriend. I agree, that’s fine, and I go over the next weekend to watch a movie. Despite being extremely smart and honestly pretty funny and interesting to talk to once you get him talking, he’s not the smoothest. Or maybe I’m the one who’s lost her touch at maneuvering these situations? Either way, we start watching the movie, he brings out a bottle of wine, and after a while neither of us are paying attention to the movie. OBVIOUSLY I can tell where this is going and I don’t want him to do something he’s going to regret the next day, so I continuously ask if he’s sure he wants to “go upstairs and listen to music” or “have another shot of whisky” but he keeps saying he doesn’t know what he wants and then PROCEEDS to continue with the hook up. After we’re done, it’s pretty clear he wants me to leave, but I drove to his place and I’m a little too drunk to drive home. He’s a gentleman and says it’s totally fine if I stay, and I honestly should have just slept on the couch and then driven home early the next morning. Instead, I told him I feel weird sleeping in a different bed and asked if it was okay if I just slept in his bed, saying we wouldn’t do anything. He said he didn’t care either way, and he was going to play video games before sleeping so I should sleep first or stay awake, whatever I wanted to do. Let it be known on the official record, I asked *multiple times* if it was okay and he said yes. So naturally, I went to sleep in his bed, kind of fell asleep but not really, and when I woke up a few hours later at 3AM after not really sleeping, I realized I was in his bed, a l o n e. I can’t quite articulate why this was so... hurtful? Jarring? Just plain shitty? But it left me feeling cold and empty inside (not to be dramatic) and I just got up and drove home at that point. What was the fucking point of staying? Anyways, he texted me the next morning saying “Hope you got home safely! Thanks for hanging out” and we exchanged a couple messages where I told him next time just tell me what you want, aka, that you don’t feel comfortable in the same bed and we shouldn’t hook up. He basically brushed it off and sent some cheery response. 

The Good: He’s smart, attractive, pretty funny, considerate, politically and socially similar to me. Aka, on paper, he’s great. And I feel like we could have good chemistry. If he were emotionally/geographically more available I would definitely let myself like him-- in fact, I probably already do like him right now despite everything. But, I’m getting ahead of myself:

The Bad: He a) is too polite or too scared to just say what he wants/needs in situations because he wants to “be a gentleman” or “not rock the boat” or something along those lines, who knows exactly; b) has no fucking clue what he wants besides the fact that he knows he can’t give his ex/current girlfriend the attention she wants but is still in love with her so he feels bad about seeing other people but clearly wants to get drunk and fuck because he’s lonely both physically and emotionally and just uses me to fill those voids (and I’m a complete fucking moron for letting him); c) is moving across the country. 2,000 miles away. Fucking. Super.

Why it didn’t work: Because, as I should have learned with Case 16, I cannot allow myself to expend energy in these situations where if it were a friend, I would tell her to run the fuck away as fast as possible because I know where this is going and it’s not fun or healthy. LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES.

The Lesson: If a guy tells you he doesn’t want to hook up with you and then does and promptly regrets it, that means he’s emotionally confused and immature and weak and you should not give that piece of shit idiot the time of day. STOP WASTING YOUR EMOTIONAL ENERGY.