Almost exactly one year ago, i came to California for an Immunology conference. It was held in Monterey, one of the most beautiful places i have ever been to. We flew into San Francisco, rented a car and drove down highway 1, stopping to eat Mexican food, take pictures by the ocean, watch the sunset over the Pacific. I distinctly remember passing Stanford on the highway in both directions; the sign for the university as well as the medical center. It was before I started my med school applications and I clearly remember thinking that it would be a waste to even apply there; it's one of the top medical schools in the country if not the world and my scores and grades are really not that impressive. When I started this whole process, and to some extent it is still the case, my only goal was to get into a medical school. I had no expectations, well, let's say very little, in terms of interviews and acceptances. The only reason I ended up putting down Stanford on my application after all was superstition. At the time, there was a postdoc from China in our lab, a deeply spiritual woman. She went to medical school back in China and we used to talk a lot about our dreams and life plans. She told me that in Chinese tradition, 24 was the luckiest number and she was absolutely certain that if I applied to exactly 24 schools, I would be very successful and happy. Not that I am a superstitious person at all, but in some instances I feel that it is better to just go along with these things. In this case, it only cost me a couple 100 extra dollars (my original plan was to apply to ~20 schools). So after I had come up with a list of 23 schools, I got stuck. I didn't want to apply anywhere I knew I would not want to go or had absolutely no connection to the location. So, I thought, what is the one place where I would love to go but I never really considered it? It was Stanford: west coast, seemed too far, too dream-like, too good to be true. So that ended up #24 on my list.
By September, I had a few interviews lined up and by Christmas I had a couple of acceptances. I was beyond happy already. Then during the first few days of 2012, I received a surprise invitation from Stanford. Wow!! I had thought that I was done with interviews, and I certainly did not expect to hear from them! Now my expectations are quite different. Especially after having spent a couple of days on this paradise-like campus. On the night before my interview, I was wondering around campus - which at times feels like taking a walk in the woods, but lined with palm trees - looking for the med school building. I had a few hours to kill before the welcome reception put on by first year med students. As I walked along Palm Drive from Palo Alto towards the main campus, I was suddenly taken over by emotions. I just couldn't believe I was really here. I stopped to look around and make sure I really wasn't dreaming this whole thing. A few minutes later, I saw a girl walking in the opposite direction. We looked at each other for a long time, realizing that we had met before, then finding the correct memories, the names that went with the faces. I said "Olga?" She said "Julie?" OH MY GOD! Olga went to Northwestern too, we were in the same year, had some classes together and she lived in a dorm that had a coffee shop where I worked for a year. So we sometimes chatted over coffee. We once realized that we had both hooked up with the same guy and we both remembered just one thing about that experience: a certain body part of his was less than adequately sized. How strange to run into someone from a past life (it had been 8 years or so, we think, the last time we saw each other). After college, she had gone off to get a PhD in Boston (at BU, of all places, which I am not considering for med school) and now is a postdoc at Stanford. I love love love it when things like this happen.
That was when the train arrived to take me from Palo Alto up to San Francisco. Some pictures I managed to snap while touring the campus and going for a late afternoon run after my interviews were done. I couldn't help myself when I passed this School of Medicine sign on my run; even though I don't think my interviews went terribly well, just being there was something great. Sometimes when our expectations towards ourselves change and we realize we might be able to reach much higher than we had thought, it's important to keep our feet on the ground and take a good look at the whole picture. Whatever happens this spring, I am happy, and there is still some hope that #24 will be the lucky one after all!
I spent three more days in the Bay Area after my interview, visiting family and friends near San Fran. It is such a beautiful place I can't even begin to describe. One morning I set out for a run in the Berkeley Hills: found a place called the Blake Garden, which is a public space that belongs to the University of California, I am not sure if anybody actually lives in the huge house in the middle of the garden, but it sure would be a nice place! It's off the beaten path a bit, had to climb up pretty high to reach it, and it's on a little side street, which wasn't the easiest to find (thank god for smart phones and GPS!). It was quiet and peaceful up there with a view of the bay. Could have spent the whole day there! But instead, I tried some delicious desserts at Janice's favorite pastry shop in Berkeley, where I got this cake as a gift for visiting them all the way from New York! People are so nice in California!!
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