I’m not going to bother talking about exactly what the fight was over; that doesn’t matter. It usually doesn’t.

Her final words to me were “U are all full of urself. U only care about u and only u. You have to demand everything from everyone. Im sorry that the world dont revolve around u and im sorry that you think ur shit dont stink and im sorry that your a self centered cunt this is the worst you have ever gotten grow up and look at urself for a change ur not all that hot and not everyone wants your nasty ass sorry.”

I think more than anything, I’m furious with her. I don’t know why it took me so long to see everything. Looking back, I realized that my friendship with her wasn’t really a friendship so much as it was me bending to her every whim and letting her walk all over me. Every time she’d ask for a favor, I’d help her without hesitation. When I had first received my driver’s license, I shuttled her to and fro; so much, that my dad had to draw the line, forbidding me to be “the cab driver” for my friends. Whenever I confronted her about one thing or another, she’d turn it around on me and make it my fault for whatever it was. If I got mad at her, it was my fault.

I kind of wonder if she ever noticed when I stopped being open with my life, when I stopped telling her things. I knew that it was fruitless to try and get any kind of support from her; whenever I’d come to her seeking a comforting shoulder, her sympathy would last about five seconds before she would launch into her own world of misery and drama. I never told her how I felt that she didn’t care about me at all. Instead, I played the role of obedient friend and listened to her woes, gave her advice when I could, and backed her up with most anything.

At first, when I had received that text, it hurt. Slowly, over time, however, I’ve grown completely outraged. Not because of the text itself, because of the fact we we have known each other for nearly ten years. We were supposed to be best friends, and yet it’s like she didn’t know me at all. And maybe that’s my fault for never telling her anything. I thought she was more observant though! I can’t believe she didn’t realize that whenever I compare myself to another person, it wasn’t “I’m so much better than them.” No, it’s more like “I wish I was as good a singer as she is,” or “I’ll never be on his level at soccer,” or “Kimmie’s boobs are bigger than mine,” or “I can’t get myself to look more adult like Kasedy can” or, “I’m not as good as this person” or “I wish I was more like this person”. Hell, I didn’t even need to compare myself! “I hate the way my legs look,” “My hair’s too frizzy,” “I suck at this and that”, “I can’t do anything right!”

I wish I was prettier. I wish I was smarter. I wish I could compete on their level.

How? How is that egoistical? How am I being full of myself?!

It was the “you’re selfish and no one wants you” thing that really got to me. I’m selfish, yet I put aside my own happiness and quietly suffer, just so I could focus more attention on you? I got into trouble with my dad numerous times over the car, because I would lie and use it for taking you places instead of wherever I said I was going. I stopped bothering going to you for consoling; instead I bottled up my pain so I could try and heal yours. I would give you all kinds of advice, I listened to every one of your problems. I comforted you when you needed a shoulder to cry on. I kept every last one of your secrets (though I can’t say the same for you and my secrets, thanks for nothing), and I will keep them till the day I die. For God’s sake, Kasedy, I stood by and said nothing, NOTHING, when you and Steve were dating behind your mom’s back, and hung out at my house! In front of me, where all I could do was just watch you and the guy I liked hang all over each other and kiss each other and tell each other how much you cared. And I hated you for it, but I still didn’t say anything, because you were supposed to be my best friend. I cared about you and wanted you to be happy because you were someone important to me, even if it meant sacrificing my own happiness. And all that, all of my unwavering loyalty, to the point of allowing you to treat me like shit, makes me selfish? So what is it, I wonder, that I’m supposed to do to make you take that back. Shall I kill myself? Take a bullet meant for you? Am I supposed to just shut up and be your slave? Treat you like the queen of the world?!

And you know, the thing that was drilled into my skull the most during that high school drama? Yea, it was “Nobody’s going to side with you, because nobody cares about you.”

So thanks, Kas. Thanks for telling me how you’ve felt over all these years. I should’ve realized it sooner, since it’s what you say every time we fight. I can’t believe I was so stupid and naive and thought you, of all people, could be considered a friend, you know, someone I could rely on and trust. I can’t believe I wasted so much of my life being your bitch, babying you and taking care of you and making sure that the world paid attention to you, because you’re SO worth it, right? I can’t believe I LET myself give you chance after chance after chance, ever when it was obvious that it wasn’t worth it.

I’m even more angry with myself, for being afraid to ditch you, because I didn’t talk to or hang out with my other friends all that much. I was afraid of rejection, and sometimes, I still am. I even let your words get to me! “Do they really care about me?” I’ve always pondered this, ever since I ditched my so-called “friends,” and made real friends. Logical me knows that they (meaning my present friends) do, but the rest of me, the loser, insecure me stoops so low as to question it. Because of what happened in high school. And now, because of you.

So here, I’ll be so kind as to do you a favor. Since I’m such a narcissistic bitch, how about I just cut you out of my life for good? Besides that, you’re a waste of my time. I’m better than that. Good luck with that baby, I’m sure you can find one of your friends to help take care of it (or take care of it for you, since I can’t fathom you being a RESPONSIBLE HUMAN BEING). And I’d wish you luck with the rest of your life, but I’m pretty sure that even my blessing wouldn’t be enough. Was that self-centered enough for you, or should I try harder? You’ll have to let me know, KASEDY, since I don’t know if I’M MEETING YOUR FUCKING EXPECTATIONS!!!

To put it simply, it started out very well, and then proceeded to get worse over the course of the few weeks I’ve been home.

Here, I made a graph to illustrate my point better:

… >.>

… Look, It was Microsoft Paint. At least the words are legible, damnit.

Anyway, I’ll go over what’s happened and whatnot:

Christmas was good, for the most part. We got a tree, decorated it and the house, stuffed our stockings for a change, and had a… well. I’d like to say we had a “decent” dinner, but yea. A certain someone was in a pissy mood and took it out on me. I got a gift card worth $85 to Rue 21. Kimmie did as well so that weekend we went shopping. I got a few really cute tops so that majorly satisfied me (I also got a couple of new pairs of jeans from JCP. Ahhh~ I love that store).

New Year’s probably would’ve ended better if Ricky isn’t such a stupid airheaded douchbag. I had forfeited my part of the game we were playing in because his inability to shut the fuck up pissed me off, and I went to bed promptly after. I couldn’t even get a buzz! It sucked.

Originally, my New Year’s resolution was to “buy a car by then end of the year”. It’s changed. Now it’s “get my ass down to El Paso to visit Steve.” At first glance I bet you assumed the reason why I’m going out of my way to fly down and visit is because I like him or something. Well, that isn’t all that important of a reason. He’s my best friend, and someone I can trust. That’s one reason. The other reason is, I need to get the hell away from here.

This house in which I come back to from school shelters me, and the people that have raised me continue to keep me fed, clothed, and healthy. But this house, this place that’s supposed to be my home, doesn’t feel like a home to me anymore. And no, it has absolutely nothing to do with “getting ready to leave the nest” bullcrap. Before I came back for break, I couldn’t wait to get out of there. I wanted to be back with my family, back “home”. Now, there is no feeling of home to me. I can’t explain it. What I can say is that I was stuck here for a little over a month; I had no friends to go to, really. There was volleyball every Thursday, and Jess and Steph and Kas rarely. But it wasn’t the same. When I’m not here, however, I’m at school. I haven’t had a chance to get away. And I need to get away, because I don’t want to leave my family yet (although they aren’t even starting to feel like a family at this point either), and I know I’m not ready to be on my own.

This post took me a little over three hours to write. I just finished the brunt of packing. I’m going to bed.

Mom accidentally broke her wine glass. It was a wedding gift from 25 years ago. Somethings happened after that, and she ended up going upstairs and crying for several minutes. It’d be hard to describe other than to say it was ironically symbolic.

I watched the scene unfurl with my own eyes, and replayed it in my mind over and over. And the only thing that I could think at the end of it was: there is no hope for salvaging this at all.

She’s doing better now. I feel rather hopeless and indifferent… numb at the moment. More than anything, my head’s been buzzing incessantly and I seem to feel rather enraged at the moment. The buzzing comes and goes whenever I get pissed off or calmed down. I kind of feel like I’m moving along the line to snapping — something that’s never happened to me before. It seems that over the years, my anger’s been building up and building up and now the only left for it to do is overflow.

But that was my Thanksgiving. I suppose that event at the very end could be called a buzz-kill. All I know is, it ruined my semi-good mood.

I just haven’t been able to get myself to do much of anything. Gotta love those crippling issues.

Anyway, I’m officially on the prowl for a therapist. Yea, I thought I was gonna be the only mentally healthy child of the Baker clan, but I’m suffering from a rather bad bout of depression, not to mention some crap I have to deal with to boot.

It’s not just the high school crap I went through that has been bothering me, I think. That’s a part of it for sure; ever since that Andy!drama back in high school, I can’t get myself to trust new people, even if they are very obviously trustworthy. Infant didn’t help much, Dale kind of didn’t either. It seems Dale only wants to hang out when he expects me to screw him. And so, I haven’t hung out with him in months. But there are some really cool people whom I talk to; like Alyce and Amanda, and Gabby and Kelly. But I can’t really open up like I’d want to. So they’re pseudo-friends as opposed to actual friends. I mean, how can two people be friends if one can’t trust the other? It’s the fundamental backbone of friendship — trust.

The second thing is issues with the family. At the moment, I’m currently not sure if I can divulge, so I won’t, but I guess the best way to put it is this family doesn’t feel like a family, and I suppose any hope of saving that is pretty much gone. We all live together, yes, but there’s no real connection. It just feels like we’re a bunch of people under the same roof, who just to happen to be related to each other. Well, minus Derek, but yea.

The holidays aren’t the same anymore. The only time we actually resemble a loving family would have to be Thanksgiving, and even then, the majority of the day is spent with the men room in their respective rooms on their computers, and Mom cooking Thanksgiving dinner, with the occasional assistance of Kimmie and I (though I plan to help her A LOT more come this year’s turkey day). Natalie is going to be spending her Thanksgiving with us — it’ll be her first ever REAL Thanksgiving meal, the poor child — so maybe it’ll make things a little more fun, but who’s to say?

Christmas might be a little better if they existed in our household. Ever since, oh, I don’t know… when I was 15 or 16, we stopped being able to afford Christmases. For Christ’s sake, we couldn’t even get a tree. Last year we were able to, and that’s only because I was paying for it out of my pocket. It was present to the fam. I might do it again this year because it’s just so depressing without one. The presents last year weren’t from the family; it was a special giveaway thing from Kimmie’s school. So I have the feeling that this year, there will be no tree (unless I get one), there will be no decorating (because I can never seem to get people to help me with decorating around the house — it’s like if there isn’t a tree, then they don’t even care), probably no presents from the parents, I don’t know if I’ll be able to afford presents for the parents, and, as usual, no real family together time.

It’s insanely heartbreaking to watch this happen that way it has. I think that’s the major part of this whole thing. When Millie died, it just triggered the depression, but I have a lot of stuff to get out.

Now if only I could just find an actual therapist.

I haven’t heard any good things about the counselors at the Health center, and well, I wasn’t expecting much, considering one doctor was convinced my once-fractured and still-dislocated coccyx was a cyst (I got x-rays, even though it’s dangerous for my baby making parts, just for the sake of PROVING I WAS RIGHT), and that another doctor thought my deformed clavicle was an overuse injury caused by playing volleyball once a week (turns out there WAS a hairline fracture, like I suspected way back when I first had it, as opposed to a plastic deformation. Hairline fracture makes more sense too). My Personal Essay professor, who frustrates the hell out of me at times, recommended one Susan Compton, who just so happens to not take my GHI insurance. Wonderful. But she told me she’d reach out to colleagues to find someone for me and get back to me. I’m supposed to be expecting a phone call from her today, so *crosses fingers* hope for the best.

… Well that was a lot of depressing stuff. Um, I suppose the only good I can think of is that I’m generally passing my classes, save for one, maybe 2. Though I think in biomechanics I have a C, and I can probably get that up.

Oh, If you haven’t yet, go read the Judgment Day post and review; comments are still open!

Saying that I’m broke is an understatement. I can’t afford any of my textbooks, and I actually need at least of them for sure (my biology lab manual). I want to buy the textbooks for my more major specific classes, like AT techniques I, and Advanced P and C, and I’d actually keep those books for reference material in the future, but I don’t have the money. I can’t afford it. This next paycheck coming in I know already that the majority, if not all of it, is going to be going into my phone and possibly my credit card, if I can afford it. I owe a friend of mine, Chen, around $55 for covering my share of the car that we rented for a day or so (it was a very nice car, I might add). I need to save up money, not just for the bills, but to try and get that lab manual at the very least, not to mention I have to try and save up for my trip with Mom next month to DC. (Speaking of which, I need to talk to her about that in regards to how we’re going to meet up to go down in the first place). I would like/maybe need at this point a hair cut. My ends, at the very least, are long over due for a trim, not to mention I’d like to even out my length, since it looks rather ridiculous when I straighten it out and find that on the back of my head, my hair is at least an inch short than the front.

One thing is for sure, and I’m understanding this more and more every day. Colleges are not made for poor people. Especially not a private liberal arts school such as $46k a year Ithaca College. Actually, in all honesty, I’m probably a minority of more than just race here; I’m probably a hell of a lot poorer than everyone else here. At least they can afford buying used books, used! Sometimes I just feel like I’d be better off going to a cheaper state school, even if this school has what I want and need. Find some state some here in NY; I’m sure one of them has an athletic training program. Even if I won’t like it there as much as I do here; when it comes down to money, will I really have a choice?

And at this point, the issue is not what I want to get, it’s what I need to get. And I can’t turn to my parents for money; they’re strapped for cash too. I’m more or less completely on my own. I need more hours for work, but I don’t have the time these days. The workload that comes with taking 17 credits is insane. The phone bill I have to pay is $80 a month. Don’t get me started on my credit card; it’s too horrific to even speak of.

I’m tired, just physically tired. I know that I shouldn’t be complaining so much. And I know that if I have a problem I need to get my collective rear in gear and fix it. And I’m trying, I really am, but I’m getting slightly worried that in the future, I’m not going to be able to afford coming to school here.

Milli was my cat. Or, should I say, I was her human. One of my earliest memories of her, as well as her six siblings was when she was a few weeks old at most; I was around 2. I lied down on the floor and just watched as the kittens rushed by me, perhaps to get food, perhaps because they saw me there, I don’t remember. But what I do remember, besides little kittens squirming their way through my doll house, was that, of all the kittens we had, I played with Milli the most. I don’t know what it was she saw in me, but whatever it was, it was enough for her to choose me. And from then on, we had a special sort of connection. Whenever I cried or was sad, she’d always be at my side, nuzzling me and comforting me because she somehow knew, she knew that something was wrong. We’d play with my pink feather boa (and with her playing, it didn’t last too long).

She hated being in something that moved when it wasn’t her. She escaped in an elevator and ripped up all the occupants flying up and down the walls. She’d yowl miserably when in the car with us when we were moving upstate. It took her a while to settle in the new, and much bigger house, but like the rest of us, she settled in rather nicely in the end. By that time, she had really picked the family as a whole, her “harem of humans”. She cared about us just as we cared about her.

Her weight flip flopped every now and again, but she was always as perky as ever, defying the odds every time. I mean, once Raphael had died back in, what was it, ‘01?… every year Dad would say “I don’t think she’ll make it through the winter.” And every year, she’d prove him wrong.

I’m not blind; I saw when her age had started catching up to her. She had lost the energy she used to have; no more tearing through the house at break neck speeds, no more playing with randomly pieces of stuffs with or without anyone. She started sleeping a lot more, and she gradually lost weight. I was inwardly concerned; I mean, we fed her a whole can of cat food a day — half in the morning and half at night — and we always make sure to keep her water dish full. But she was so thin. It was one of the reasons why I got so mad at Derek and Mom when they’d punished her for something she did in the kitchen. She was older than the rest of us; couldn’t you be a little gentler with informing her that she wasn’t supposed to do this and that? I had no problem with gently pushing her off the table or herding her away from food.

She lived 17, 18 years, and yes, that’s a long time for a cat. What hurts me the most was that she was my cat; she picked me first, and I wasn’t even there to say goodbye to her as she took her last breath.

Milli: I love you and I’ll miss you so much.

My feet hurt, my knees hurt. I’m so tired I almost feel like I’m high. My body just feels like a sack of lead. My head feels like it weighs a ton. My eyes feel like they’re bloodshot; they probably look bloodshot too.

My head is buzzing like it usually does when I’m depressed. My eyes keep unfocusing. And I’m not even done with all the shit I need to do.

I’m tired. I’m sad. I don’t want to be here anymore. I just want to go home where I can rest. Rest and not have to worry about turning in this paper on time, or finishing those four assignments before going to work, or covering someone’s shifts without taking away too much homework time, or gaining the motivation to do any of this stuff, or budgeting my time so that I have time in the first place.

I don’t really care that I have about two weeks left. I’m ready to be done and away from here. I want to come home.

I just found out that I didn’t make cuts. And it’s probably because of the EXACT same thing that happened when I tried out back in high school; I did good with EVERYTHING ELSE, and then I served horribly.

I don’t get it. I didn’t feel all that nervous once I got warmed up. And usually I have a really good, consistent serve.

NOT TONIGHT! It was so off I was about ready to kill someone, preferably myself, I felt so retarded, and I had a need to disappear. Better to commit suicide than homicide, because you can’t go to jail if you’re already dead.

Gawd, it ticks me off so freakin’ much. So folks, I officially have NOTHING to do for the year. No track, because I work at games on the weekends, which will OBVIOUSLY conflict with meets. No club soccer, because I didn’t make cuts. No club volleyball, because I didn’t make cuts. Intramurals isn’t competitive enough to actually be any fun.

I’m going to be so depressed by the time winter break comes up.

If you all couldn’t tell, I’m very mad. I’m done writing this post. Bye.

Today, in General Psychology, we were discussing a little bit of brain chemistry. We went over the anatomy of a neuron (old knowledge — booooooring), and we went over several neurotransmitters in the brain.

Now, it just so happens that we went over dopamine and serotonin, and I learned some interesting things about them.

One of the more obviously facts about both would be that a shortage in dopamine and/or serotonin results in various problems, one of them being depression. There are difference with each of them, of course; serotonin regulates sleep and mood (insomnia is a result of a shortage in serotonin). Dopamine regulates motivation, the reward system (’If I do this, I get this for it’), movement, and cognition. Since a shortage in either results in depression, would it be possible to have a educated guess as to which neurotransmitter is being under-produced by looking at the symptoms that come along with depression? For example, for a depressed person who has extra trouble sleeping might have low levels of serotonin in their brain.

That’s not the only thing I’ve pondered. I also learned today that a decrease in serotonin leads to sadness, anxiety, food cravings, aggression and depresson.

You’re probably wondering why I emphasized the food cravings in that last paragraph. During discussion, my professor told us that the body will crave foods that contain nutrients which will increase the level of serotonin in the brain. I looked up those foods — both for serotonin and dopamine — and here’s what I found.

Foods that can increase serotonin levels: chicken, turkey, tuna, salmon, kidney beans, rolled oats, lentils, chicken peas, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, baked potatoes (with the skin), tahini (sesame butter), walnuts, avocados, almond butter, complex carbs (meaning fibers, not starches) a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, and a ton of water.

Foods that can increase dopamine levels: almonds, avocados, bananas, dairy products, lima beans, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, and ESPECIALLY fruits and vegetables (because it turns out that dopamine is very easily oxidized, and fruits and veggies, which are high in antioxidants, protect the dopamine from those nasty free radicals that roam the body and try to mess with your system).

I also read that eating simple sugars, like candies, processed foods, etc, saturated fats (animal fats), cholesterol, and refined foods interfere with brain function. Another thing to avoid would be caffeine. In a sense, it’s kind of not surprising, because all of those things mess with the rest of our bodies, so why not the brain too?

Can anyone raise their hand and tell me what those foods have in common?

Vitamins, antioxidants, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, along with a smaller “dosage” of saturated fats (because it’s a fact that poultry, such as chicken and turkey, are in fact healthier than beef and pig). Good job to those of you that actually tried to guess without looking at the answers.

This brings me to a theory… a hypothesis (because I’ve yet to hear if this has been tested). If clinical depression, or even depression, is caused by a low level of serotonin and/or dopamine, would it be entirely possibly to reverse the effects, and possibly even cure it, by doing something as simple as changing one’s diet, instead of prescribing to them drugs that enhance the brain’s chemistry?

Let’s use my dad as an example, because he is conveniently at the forefront of my mind, and the only person I can think of who is clinically depressed. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone in as bad a funk as my dad. He’ll deny it to you, he’ll say “Oh I’m doing fine.” In reality he’s not. For a while, he was taking Zoloft, and all was good and well.

But, for a while, he’s been off Zoloft, because we haven’t been able to afford the prescriptions (there were like, $80 per refill or something ridiculous like that). And he’s back down in that horrific funk (and then, don’t let him fool you — he may act like everything’s fine and dandy, but before he got this bad, he wasn’t living in his office save for the few moments he’d emerged to go to the bathroom or get food, and the few hours he’d go to his room to go sleep).

There are reasons why his serotonin levels are low; for the sake of his privacy, I won’t go into specifics. But his lifestyle habits contributed very nicely.

Now, let’s look at my dad’s habits;

- he smokes, which in itself is horrible (and he has yet to do ANYTHING about quitting, ahem ahem).

- He drinks a TON of caffeine. I’ve honestly never seen him drink an actual glass of water. When he’s not drinking coffee, he’s drinking Coca Cola, and when he’s not drinking Coca Cola, he’s drinking coffee. In between this is the occasional (more like rare) glass of milk, and every now and then a shot or two of liquor.

- He eats like crap. When he actually eats, he eats more meat than plants, and he eats a lot of pasta (which is actually a simple carb, which means it’s a starch instead of a fiber). I don’t really see him eat a lot of fruits, and he does eat veggies, but again, the majority of what you see on his plate is meat. He has an affinity for beef, too, I might add, and when he’s giving a choice of meat, will usually pick that. He’s tried to get me off of his back about his eating habits by buying these boxes turnovers, but upon looking at the ingredients, I found that they were more processed than anything, and had more trans fats (trans fats = cholesterol) than anything I’ve yet to see (5g to be exact).

- He has a bad habit of bottling up his emotions and problems (though I’m not too much better), and is usually always tense with stress. I’ve never ever seen him do anything to try and relax, and no, Dad, watching anime and reading manga does NOT calm the mind. I’m talking about meditation, exercise, things related to that.

- He isn’t anywhere as social as he needs to be, and believe or not, but social relationships can impact a person’s health, physical mental or emotional. He’s barely social; he doesn’t even really interact with us, his family. As I said before, he’s hiding in his world, his office.

While I have no idea if he’d be willing to actually do this, because he’s said that he’d try something, tried it for about a week and then went back to his old ways, but if he changed his lifestyle around — changed his little, went out a little more, engaged his mind more, and talked to people — chances are, his condition would get better.

But here’s the thing, and this is the problem with EVERYBODY. They will usually only keep these lifestyle changes until they feel that “everything’s better” and then revert back to their old habits.

Unfortunately, folks, this isn’t that case. These changes are PERMANENT. If you ate more serotonin-rich foods and got rid of your depression by increasing you serotonin levels, chances are that when you stop eating those foods, your serotonin levels won’t be sustained and therefore will decline.

So, Dad, this is how it goes. You want to stop being depressed, no? If you don’t, you have a LOT of things to change. Start off by ceasing with the waste of your money to buy soda that really isn’t necessary. Honestly, I don’t care if it’s a “treat”. It isn’t even a treat. You always have Coca Cola. Treats are occasionally, not every day. Drink more water. Go on more walks. STOP READING SO MUCH MANGA AND WATCHING SO MUCH ANIME. Come out of your office every once in a while, and talk to us, and I mean talk as in having intelligent conversations (like talking seriously about hyper-extending knees instead of talking about aliens). Stimulating your brain will help too. Stop eating such crappy food, and eat more healthy, organic foods. For example, replace those shit apple turnovers with real apples. And if you’re worried about the kids eating them, then keep the apples in your office. Simple as that.

If you need to go someplace not all that far away, then walk, or bike, instead of using the car. QUIT SMOKING. And you absolutely have to continue drinking water, eating more greens, walking instead of driving, and etc. Even after you feel better (if you feel better… this is still only an experiment). Going back to your old habits will only pull you back down in to depression, because your serotonin transmitters are so fucked up, they can’t continue to maintain those levels of serotonin without help.

So, questions, comments, thought? Leave a comment. Let’s start a second intelligent discussion. And for the record, that one before it, about the knees, is still open fr discussion of anyone has a thought to add.

‘Well, what is it that you want to do?’ you might ask. Maybe too much.

I want to graduate with a B.S. in Athletic Training (maybe I might try to get a M.S. too, if I have the money), and use that background in sports medicine when (if) I go to med school and specialize in Orthopedic medicine. I want to be an orthopedist who can competently and specifically help athletes with injuries.

Of course, at this point, I’m behind in the AT program; I started out here at IC a HPPE (Health Promotion and Physical Education) major, and a ton of the things I took for that program don’t carry over in the requirements for this one. In the AT program, you immediately start out in your freshman year with the specific curriculum. And for the pre-med program, I still need to take a year of biology, a year of physics, and two years of chemistry, both general and organic.

It’s already certain that I won’t have the time for these pre-med courses, since I’m barely going to have the time for the AT requirements; in order to graduate on time I need to take two required courses this winter, and since the cost of doing just that is near $4,500, it looks like I’m going to graduate a semester late (and that’s if we can afford it… if I recall, they stop financially aiding you once your 4 years are up).

Not just that, but in order for me to become an ATC (Athletic Trainer Certified), I need to take the national exam to get my license… and will a B.S. be enough? Or will I need to go to graduate school and get my M.S. too?

In between doing that, getting a job, and then preparing for the MCAT, I need to get those pre-med required courses, which I’ll have to take either during the summers between now and when I graduate or after I graduate and get a job. Will I get a good enough job to afford those credits? Not to mention paying for practically everything when taking the MCAT, applying under the AMCAS and then twice more under the individual med schools, along with going to interviews should I get accepted…

And this isn’t half of what I’m a little worried about. Specifically, grades. What if I don’t do good enough and then get rejected from med school?

All of this is probably unnecessary stress and all, but, looking at what appears to be the odds (academic performance, money, and time, specifically) that are stacked against me and my goal, it kind of looks like it won’t happen in the end.