Meaningful

I'm going to venture to guess that all of my readers know I want to be a doctor.  The application cycle for the class entering Fall 2013 is opening up and I've started working on the application.  There is a section where it asks me to describe my extracurricular activities and it gives me the option to select the three most meaningful.  Without a doubt, I selected this program as one of them, but then it asked me why?  Why was this meaningful to you?  What a difficult question to answer!

In my senior year of college on the last day of German class before Thanksgiving break, I received a small pamphlet from my professor on CBYX.  The due date for the program application was December 1, exactly 9 days away.  I looked at the pamphlet and thought "Gee, that would be neat", but I thought a gap year program such as this one would just add complication to my life.  However, clearly it was bugging me enough to mention it to my mom.  She told me "School can wait, just apply and see what happens."  After that, I scrambled to get the two recommendations I needed and to finish the essays.  Imagine my surprise in January when I received an invitation for an interview!  As you can see, I was accepted to the program.  I know without a doubt that going on this program has been one of the best decisions I have made so far.  As my year comes to the close, I continue to have second thoughts about coming home.  This obviously makes it meaningful, but why?

Because I learned how to force myself to do things that seemed unpleasant.  There were periods where I would go for weeks on end, waking up everyday to my alarm and thinking about how uncomfortable life was going to be for me that day.  I would realize I could skip everything I had planned for the day and no one would care or notice.  I could sit at home and read and do something within my comfort zone.  Somedays I would literally have to tell myself, "You have to get out of bed, no matter how awkward this day is going to be.  If you don't succeed today, you will only suffer temporary embarrassment.  You have nothing to lose.  You have no excuse.  If you mope, you will lose out on Germany."

Because I acquired a level of self-confidence that I have never had before, or at the very least I have learned the value of persistence.  I was being entirely serious about the awkward thing.  I have forced myself to do so many things I didn't feel comfortable doing, either out of necessity or simply because I thought it would be a good experience for me.  In almost all situations I went into them convinced that it was not remotely possible for me to succeed and in each situation I have proven myself wrong in some way.  I have had to drag myself out of some serious cases of the dumps.  (That is not to say I have never felt stress or misery before.  Premeds certainly feel a lot of stress, but this was a unique experience for me).

Because I cannot imagine a life where I never met my two German BFFs.  Seriously, I don't even want to think about that kind of world.  Neither of them read this blog, but if they ever find it, Ich hab euch lieb!

Because it has been cool (A goal given by a friend)

Because without this program I would've never found my wonderful laboratory to work in.  Not only has working full-time in a lab been a good experience for me, but I genuinely enjoy being around the people I work with.

So I guess I do know why it is meaningful.  I just need to fit all that in 1325 characters.