In Which Pre-Med Produces Strange Results

Up until the time the time I actually sat down in my first university class, no one was all that impressed with my aspirations to be a doctor. Even after I proved capable of attending classes without fundamentally disturbing the under-pinnings of the universe, my academic exploits were mostly ignored. When Christmas rolled around and news that the university had not imploded despite my presence (which, by the way has never happened to any building I've been in) spread to the family, things began to change. They realized that trying to get into medical school was not, in fact, like trying to hunt down and kill a bear that poops diamonds armed with only an ashtray and a fetal pig named Marcus. It was actually possible.

This caused a pole shift.

My family went from "be realistic, you probably won't get in" to:

Family: "As a doctor, you should know that the human body has seventeen appendixes that store memories and cotton candy."

Me: "I'm not a doctor, and I don't think that's true."

Family: "You'll learn that, tomorrow, in doctor school. Which you go to. Right now."

Or

Family: "My forehead wrinkles hurt and I have "Single Ladies" caught in my head, what's your diagnosis Doctor Jen?"

Me: "I'm still in first year, I have at least another year before..."

Family: "CLEARLY YOU ARE A FAILURE AT MEDICAL SCIENCE. YOU ARE DISOWNED FOREVER."

Me: "I'm still taking English classes. I'm not even...

Family: "SILENCE, FAILURE."

Or

Family: " Doctor Jen, I was wondering what your thoughts were on NASA's new rocket powered by used Christmas trees that's going to fly to Pluto piloted by a monkey named Fabian."

Me: "I want to be a medical doctor, not an astrophysicist. I have to go to bio now."

Family: "LYING SCUM. YOU WITHHOLD KNOWLEDGE LIKE THE KGB FERRET THAT YOU ARE!"

Or (my favourite)

Family: "When you are a doctor, and you make a trillion dollars in a second, you can send us on fifteen vacations to the moon!"

Me: "Best case scenario, I'll be a doctor in 9 years. At which point I will start paying down a ridiculous amount of student loans. I will be poor forever."

Family: "Fifteen moon vacations!"