…you guys really need to see my face. No, really — there’s literally two new mountain ranges forming on both of my cheeks. The one on the right side of my face is more prominent — let’s call it the “Medical School Application Process Sucks” range, but the one of the left side of my face is pretty formidable too — I endearingly refer to it as “Can It Please Be Over Now?” mountains. I would take a picture, but I have a feeling most people really don’t want to see how gross it is.

For those who don’t know, Texas has its own system of determining where medical school applicants get in. They say the system they’ve derived allows for more applicants to know where they’re going to end up attending faster, but I stay it’s still one big pile of poop. It’s basically like a popularity contest — applicants rank the medical schools where they interviewed in the order that they’d like to attend, and medical schools rank their interviewees in the order they’d like to accept. A computer then magically “matches” these lists to try determine what applicants match to which school. Oh, and there’s a pre-match phase where schools are allowed to extend acceptances too. Don’t get it? That’s okay, I bet at least half of Texas applicants don’t either.

The point is this: I matched to a school I ranked higher than my pre-match offer. It’s a school I believe I would be happier at than what I would be had I attended the other school, but it was my #4 choice. I’m basically now on waitlists for my #1, #2, and #3 choices — basically, I’m still waiting. I really would like for this whole process to be over so that I can look forward to graduating and living the rest of this semester relatively stress-free…but then that wouldn’t really be “life,” now would it?