Epiphany

I think I had an epiphany today. This morning, during my Cluster discussion, this girl in my class just stands up and sort of sways her way over to the door. She stops when my TA asks her if she's ok, then collapses to the floor. Before I knew what was happening, I'm next to her and shaking her awake. She's fine, just tired...and dehydrated from over-partying last night (not that she would admit that to our TA).

Even though nothing really happened, I surprised myself with how quickly I reacted - without hesitating, or even blinking. In my head, I was going over all the steps to CPR/rescue breathing and thinking how unpleasant it would be to give her direct mouth-to-mouth because I had no breathing barrier with me. It wasn't just my ability to recall my lifeguard training that surprised me, but really my readiness to help a complete stranger. After the incident, I looked around the room and realized that only two other people had gotten up out of their seats to help.

I told this to Y, my RA, and said, "it takes a certain type of person to just sit there, unwilling to move when someone clearly needs help," to which he responded with, "and it takes a different kind of person to get up and help without being asked. You'll be surprised how rare this kind of person is." He suggested that perhaps I should become a doctor - a really intense one (think Christina, from Grey's Anatomy). I agree with him, and this is the career path I've chose, at least for now. I think I'm even willing to put up with another two years of chemistry [note hatred from last entry] plus a quarter of biochem to fulfill the Pre-Med requirements.

So, after a good, long blog session, I've [probably over-] analyzed my morning, stopped fuming, and apologized to the girl across the hall [also from last entry], and now I feel much better. Maybe I'll even start studying for chemistry...but that may be seriously overreaching.