School is so inconvenient! I can't run errands in the afternoon. So I am having a PCAT application mailed to me from like, Illinois instead of going to the local university and picking one up. Well, who knows if they have any left since the major sitting of the year is just past. La la, anyway I hope it gets here quickly. As usual I want to have done it yesterday.

I need to make two more phone calls and write two personal statements and then I can send in my application. My stomach is roiling just thinking about it. It's been two years now that I've been working towards being able to do this. Soon perfect strangers will judge my application. Mene mene tekel upharsim. Please, I don't want to be found wanting.

This has become so important to me, and it's so scary. Having something be so important. If I don't get in I will try again, but oh! There must be 350 other applicants who are just as nervous right now. One third of us will get in, that's all. I go over my application in my head, wondering what is the weighting that each item gets. Grades, good. My admission GPA, even including the failed math 7 years ago, will be above 3.5. Resume, good. I have a schwack of awards and scholarships, I've been working in responsible jobs, I have a selection of volunteer positions, and I play music and run. I am, y'know, well rounded. PCAT, good. Hopefully if my next-time scores get there in time, pcat will be excellent. Motivation, good. I am so stressed about writing the personal statements. I am worried they will end up too sappy, because I genuinely FEEL really sappy reasons here. I actually don't give a shit about the salary, I actually want to work in children's hospital, I actually am grateful for the kindness of pharmacists who helped me, I actually think I have an aptitude and I actually want to use it to help people. These are all good things, but man, my application is going to read like a mushy greeting card. Well, maybe my "I can't swallow pills and I want to be a pharmacist" thing will relieve their boredom. My mum was telling that to a pharmacist she knows and apparently it totally cracked her up. Interview will be fine. I interview well. And.. that's it. That's all the criteria. What the hell am I so worried about?

Well, no one ever said anxiety was rational.

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I found out the other day that there are volunteer street pharmacists in the downtown east side! Ha ha, stop laughing, not "street pharmacists" as in illegal drug dealers (well those are there too but they are NOT cool.), but street pharmacists like the street nurses, people who go out and, I guess minister is the best word, minister to people on the street, taking medical attention to them as need it. That and Pharmacists Without Borders has totally caught my fascinated eye. I never really thought of how a pharmacist could do outreach work, since you think of them as tied to the pharmacy, no? But that's just stuck in the idea of pharmacists as pill-counters. As counsellors on effective and health-promoting drug use, wow, outreach should be priority 1. I have to look in to this more. I wonder if there's a place for students who aren't licensed pharmacists yet? I bet there is something I could do. If I'm not careful I will be busier in september than I am now. School, and I'll need a part-time job, and I've committed to help lead a pathfinder group, and this sounds cool too, and church of course.

Well hell, I might as well be busy. It's not like I can bank spare time and use it up later. I read this in a doctor's blog yesterday: "I heard the most amazing statistic in an interview on CBC Radio: the United States has one of the highest life expectancies in the world. Until you subtract the time per capita spent in traffic. Then it has the worst life expectancy in the world." Man. There's something to consider.