Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow...

... creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle!

Macbeth may have been describing his resignation to the barren futility of life, but this, my favorite of all Shakespeare quotes, is apt in describing my own resignation to the futility of my own fate:

Tomorrow I take the boards.

However, unlike Macbeth, who goes on to be attacked by an army disguised as a forest and then decapitated in a fierce dual by the man whose entire family he had murdered on a selfish, power-hungry whim, I hope to enjoy a more successful outcome. I will fight with determination and honor. And oh, it will be a long, tiresome battle that may push me to the utmost end of human reserve, a battle that will consists of sitting in front of a computer screen for 9 hours, frantically answering question after question after question. To this fate I am resigned.

I wish I could say that I felt more prepared. I have been studying, yes, but, as you know, I have also struggled with procrastination and distraction and an acute case of 5th year senioritis. To make my own situation more difficult, I decided to take 4 days off right before the exam and attend the national conference of the American College of Emergency Physicians in New Orleans. New Orleans!! So what was I doing this past weekend when I should have been studying and taking practice tests? I was walking around the French Quarter, and eating beignets, and attending lectures on pediatric rashes, and seeing the governor of Louisiana give the opening address, and meeting with residents of programs I am applying to, and getting beads thrown at me from balconies on Bourbon St (without exposing anything, I promise), and sitting in dark jazz clubs, and wandering around centuries-old cemetaries, and developing a sense of pride and belonging in a specialty that I will soon call my own. And let me stress that this was completely and entirely worth it.

I might not be as confident in my medical knowledge as I would like to be, but what's done is done. I am here. I will review my notes today, I will take the nasty test tomorrow, and then I will develop my photos from New Orleans. And there is a good chance that while staring at the bright, subtly flickering screen tomorrow for hour upon hour I will begin to hallucinate, perhaps about horses going insane and devouring eachother's flesh.

So if you think about it, dearest urban honking community member and/or internet friend, send me some good luck vibes tomorrow. I will most certainly need it.