Nobody wears a white coat any more...

Pharmacology exam. Brain hurts.
Lots of questions with lists of drugs, just what I was fearing. But I think I did all right. I hope I did all right. The best he's seen come back from it was 91/125, he says. And I only have to place in the 15th percentile or better to pass. 85% of the persons who take the exam pass.

USMLE Step I registration is $420. I have to pay four hundred dollars to spend eight hours in front of a computer, staring at test questions and praying that I do well enough to pass the National Boards. And that's just to keep going in med school. (Deadline to have taken them: June 9) There's an additional ass-reaming after fourth year, with the Step II ($420), and then the Step III ($590) sometime in my first or second post-grad year, after I have my MD. Pluuuus....
They're introducing a Clinical Skills Exam. With luck, I'm going to miss that and its $950 (plus transportation) fee. Coming in in mid-2004 at the earliest, but it's probably going to be delayed a year. I hope so. I really hope so.
Then, I can be a real doctor. I want to be a real doctor. I really, truly do. I don't want medical school to make me cynical and tired like this.

I'm going to go home and play Final Fantasy. I'm so tired.

Talked to Iwona coming out of the test. She's sick, poor girl. Now she can take the night and sleep, though.
Bought myself a box of mac and cheese as a reward for being done with Pharmacology...and then made a mutual Christmas present purchase with Angel to buy year-paid-accounts and have all the spiffy features to play with (there you go, Mom. Angel's username is 'lakos', so just change the 'ayradyss' to 'lakos' in the link). Abused the 'friends of friends' long enough to see if there was anyone out there that I might know by association. Added a name or two to my friends' list.
Merry Christmas. So, if there's anyone out there who wants a code, we have a bunch between the two of us to play with.

Got into Michel-ange (Michel-ange is my 1987 Honda Accord, whom I love dearly despite his 230,000 miles. It's French for Michelangelo (however you spell it), since when I bought the car my father insisted that a car with a stick shift must be a Boy Car, but he has purple tinted windows and a "Warning: Protected by Faeries" sticker on his window, so we think he's gay. Hence the artsy name. Before Michel-Ange I had a scab-coloured Honda whose name I've forgotten, sadly. But I ran her into the back of a minivan before I'd really had her all that long. And before that was Esmerelda, who was a 1977 Accord with less than 100,000 miles on her. And we sold her to this huge burly guy after a while. I loved Esmerelda too, because she was the car that Jo and I got to change the water pump on. But I digress.)
Oh, and my mom's Honda is named Daria, but on Tuesdays and weekends she goes by Fred.
I got into Michel-ange and turned on the radio, to hear the opening chords of "Bad to the Bone"...so I cranked it up but good to hear it on my really-quite-mediocre sound system. B-b-b-b-b-b-b-bad!

Think I'm going to go play FFX now.

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And back to FFX.

I want a hardcover copy of Zelazny's Donnerjack, Gibson's Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive, and all of Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series, except for Bearing a Red Sword and With a Tangled Skein.