I was so nervous walking towards the Poydras building this morning. I kept fixing my hair and adjusting my shirt, wondering if what I'd worn (dark jeans and a nice shirt) was appropriate. But as I passed my reflection in the cafe window next door, I had this image of doing the same thing in the same window right before my interview last year. And then I thought, Jeez, this is the easy part! I was so nervous that morning that I thought I might throw up, but here I am, an official med student. Piece of cake.
After waiting in line to get a t-shirt and welcome packet, I headed straight for the breakfast table (hey, I'd only had a banana and a cup of coffee so far! lay off). After eating a piece of melon, I decided that I might throw up after all, and decided to stick to more coffee. Stupid nerves. I was glad that I'd decided not to pre-order the set of first year notes (200 clams for something I wasn't sure I'd need? No thank you), because everyone was forced to carry around 30 lbs of binders all day. Haha, suckas.
I sat by Kathleen and Mathew, probably the only two people whose names I remember from the whole day--but 2 out of 177 isn't so bad, right? We listened to a few hours of presentations from faculty and students--pretty typical fare. Dean Sachs gave an interesting presentation about Tulane, New Orleans, and healthcare in general, and then the other notables were introduced and chatted for a while. All very interesting. Dr. Chad Miller (young resident doc at Tulane) then gave us his welcome speech--I felt like he'd watched too many episodes of Scrubs and ER. Maybe I'm just jaded (already?), but his cliches and tear-jerking what-if stories were a bit over the top. He reminded me of this guy:
But he was very well-groomed.
So after a "let's have some fun and stop with the boring lectures!" presentation by our cheerful T2 orientation team, we headed over to the brand-new-to-Tulane Murphy building for a much-anticipated lunch.
I know what you're thinking, and you're right, Tulane DOES like it's shiny buildings. The Murphy building was just donated to Tulane by the Murphy Oil Corp, which is a pretty sweet deal for the university. Apparently the oil guys really liked their luxuries, so they had the parking garage air conditioned and installed a private elevator that led to the executive offices (gotta avoid the little people). Unfortunately, Tulane has removed these features. But they did install a gym for the students, including a sauna! Good compromise, I suppose.
Lunch was good, conversation was good. Walked with Kathleen back to the parking garage and also met a girl from San Francisco (Dana? Diana?). As I was driving home (got on the wrong on ramp and started heading toward Baton Rouge), it started POURING--like, the kind where your wipers are on full blast and you still have to go 30 mph on the freeway to see anything at all. On the short sprint across the street once I got home, it was like I'd just stepped out of the shower. But now I'm home and dry and just relaxing with the kitties.
And now...off to buy textbooks!
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