ode to the dramatic

The dream is dead


you figure it out

bye.

What is it all about really? Part 1

Medical School.

A scary thing to have in front of you. After a series of side paths along my 31 years on this earth I find myself returning to the one thing that I have wanted to be when I was ten years old. The journey began when I first looked at a copy of Gray's Anatomy. I became enamored by the complexity with which we circulate fluids, move our bodies, and breathe. I spent many hours and days sifting through the pages of the 36th edition of the 1918 tome. This interest translated into taking a physiology class in high school as an elective and massive amounts of reading supplemented by the PBS specials "The Brain", and "So You Want to be a Doctor". The latter, a special look at ten medical school students at Johns Hopkins, dissolved any doubts that I may have had about entering the profession.
Shortly before I completed my high school education, I had been accepted to UCSB. The university had a fantastic zoology program that I felt would provide a solid background for my future studies in medicine. My matriculation, sadly, was not to be as a number of financial shortcomings were not attended to. Namely, as I was filling out the numerous and complicated financial loan/aid applications, my parents decided that they could not lend their signatures on my behalf and being all of 17 at the time with no credit rating to speak of and a minimum wage paying job at a local fast food joint, there was no other option available to me. To be perfectly honest, I was devastated as I had worked very hard in high school to get into a well regarded university and it seemed like it was all for nothing. In a more positive light, I imagine that I would be a very different person today if that path did not end the way it did.
The following fall I matriculated at a local community college. Still disgruntled and bitter, I began classes with the attitude that I shouldn't work hard at all anymore. If hard work got me nowhere, why should I continue working hard if it is still going to lead nowhere. It was very immature way of handling the situation. My grades were less than spectacular and I withdrew from a lot of classes. These W's and C's tarnish my academic record to this day. I can say that I did end up completing nearly every class that I withdrew from. (I left the school before I had the chance to take "beginning direction" again.) During my time at this college, I started taking acting classes and found that I enjoyed it a great deal. I was surrounded by a number peers and instructors who seemed to recognize some kind of talent in me, enough for me to audition for a major film and an acting conservatory in New York City. My plans for medical school were put on hold in order to explore this new and exciting path.
My audition for the conservatory must have gone very well. In addition to being accepted, I was also awarded a four thousand dollar scholarship. Two days after my 21st birthday, I was on my way to New York City.