Two more paychecks

My name is Derrick Antoniak, and this is my blog about almost being a medical student.

I have known for a long time that I would be giving up paid work when med school orientation rolled around, but it has just come to my attention and begun to sink in that I will only be getting two more paychecks from Keystone Glass this year, and that will be the end of my income for the next (at least) nine months. I guess I will have to be the lame-ass mooch on our New-Year's-Eve trip to Colorado, a trip that I am not honestly looking forward to with quite the fervor of some of my fellow ski/board buddies. It's not that I'm not excited; it's going to be an awesome trip in an awesome spot with my ridiculously awesome friends. It's just this pending pesky 21-credit-hour semester that seems to be occupying all my attention.

As I'm sitting here looking at the orientation schedule I just got via email, I'm starting to actually get nervous about being able to handle it all. Interestingly, this is the first time this thought has entered my head. I remember in the fall of 2003 when I was a senior at UNO with 105 credits and nowhere near graduating or knowing anything that would make me valuable as an employee. At that point I was doing the research (and soul searching) that would end up making me decide on medicine, and there was just no doubt in my mind that I could ace every class and become this phenomenal physician. Four years later, I have (so far) done just that. I literally aced everything since starting pre-med classes in the fall of '04, and if I look across the room right now I can see on display bachelor's degrees in both Spanish and medicinal chemistry. And NOW I'm getting nervous? When I had nothing but potential (see quote below) I wasn't nervous, but NOW I am? That can't be right, maybe I'm just dehydrated. It's pretty hot out.

I've hit you off with some pictures from our Wisconsin trip this summer.

"Potential means you ain't done shit yet." -Odious Lee, Bellevue West High School, c.1999