Just getting started

So, I've decided to blog this current year... I have big changes ahead, some huge goals, some challenges, and hopefully a whole lot of fun.

I am thinking about medical school. Am I completely insane?! I'm 31, i have to take Physics and the MCAT (this spring for the MCAT, Physics all year long), which means that I can apply in the Spring for Fall 2008. I will 33 and my daughter will be almost 5. Which means that I will be finished with medical school and residency when I'm 40. And Lucy is 12 or 13. Oy! Yes, I am certainly crazy.

But I've been rotating around this one for a long time. I know I love science. I know i love learning about the human body and Physiology and its chemistry. And that I would be good at it. Goddammit, I KNOW I would be good at it. I keep trying to talk myself into other things that would be less demanding, or at least less all-at-once-and-for-fucking-ever. Like Nurse Practitioner - it's just NOT the body of knowledge that I want to have. Naturopath - not enough clinical practice. I'd feel unprepared. I thought about research - i NEED to work with people. So... I keep coming back to this.

Did I mention i have a toddler/preschooler at home? Not to mention, a very high-energy little girl who loves her mama and needs her a lot. And I love her and need her, too! I know it will be hard, but I also really know that I need to do something that makes me feel fulfilled, and also to show her that she can do whatever she wants, even if she comes to it late or from a "nontraditional" place. I love her more than I can possibly say and our relationship is so important to me, I am very worried that our relationship will suffer when I'm overloaded with studies or in long rotations where I am missing out on big events in her life. Not to mention my relationship with my (as yet) very supportive Todd. If my relationships suffer too much, I will put it off or change my direction, it is that important to me. But...

And then there is the thing of my martial arts. I am a brown belt in Kajukenbo/Chuan Fa Kung Fu, it has taken me about 8 years to get here and I am very focused on my training. Kung Fu is what gives me the power and energy to get through all the rest of my life right now and I don't know if I could stand to lose it. But I try not to think about that right now, there are 2 years where I will only be in school part-time and will be able to continue my training completely. If I am in med school, I will need the balancing effects of my training to remain sane, but I will certainly not have time for it, especially once i get to residency. But of course, I am thinking far far ahead of myself.

First things first, getting in... Oy again!

I am going to be taking an MCAT class starting in October. Considering I won't have had any Physics until January, that should be quite interesting :/
Then Physics in Spring and Summer, finishing out the year
Biochemistry in Fall and Winter of the next year
I am going to take the MCAT in May and begin the application process, which consists of
Sending in the application to AMCAS for my selected schools and waiting for requests for secondary applications
Sending in secondary applications to the schools that request them, which will include my beautifully crafted letter of intent and letters of reference from Very Important People.
Then I will wait until someone requests an interview. At which point I will go out and buy a suit and get a haircut (and lip and chin wax... tee hee)
I will wow them at the interviews with my stunning wit and thorough knowledge of their academic program.
Then I will wait.
And wait.
And check the mail.
And wait some more.
And hope against hope that I don't get on a waitlist for a school that could call me 2 weeks before school starts to get me AND MY FAMILY to move out of state. (C'mon, you don't think I'd actually get into UW, do you?!)

So, that's the plan.

Meanwhile, though no date for my black belt test has been set, my brown was in March and I expect to be testing for black sometime next Spring. So I am starting big big training now. Right now, I'm going to class as much as I can, teaching a bit, self training once a week, going to the gym once/twice a week, and working on some hardcore stuff with some other advanced belts twice a month. At least that's the plan.

Just got back from PAWMA last weekend, it was awesome as usual. I am awestruck and inspired by the myriad of women who have devoted so much of their lives to martial arts training and to sharing their arts with other women. I love PAWMA. I love spending 3-4 days training 6 hours a day, getting tastes of other arts and meeting other women who are as passionate about sharing their arts as I am. I'm still high from the experience.

Which gets me back to: am i completely insane?! Part of me thinks I should can the whole med school thing, pursue my kung fu training, and someday open my own school. But I get as lit up from learning, from studying, as I do from learning my kung fu. I wish there were 2 of me sometimes.

My current plan is to move forward on the whole med school thing and do what i need to do for that. I am going to be volunteering at Harborview, starting soon, and I will be taking that opportunity to see what it's like to work in a hospital, and to find out if there are other health care possibilities that excite me, or whether I really feel compelled to be doctor, which is what i think now - I know there is a lot of glory that i'm casting over the idea of becoming a doctor, and I want to make sure that is not what is compelling me to do it. Working in the hospital for a while should let me know that, I think.

And I have 2 years to train in kung fu with all that i have.

I am scared. I am excited. But I am scared.