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Med school has started, and with it, the panic dreams have begun.  I generally have three types of panic dreams:

1) The (really) realistic: The other night, I dreamed I was filling out paperwork for my PhD application.  I generally tend to wake up bored.

2) The based-in-reality premise but factually nonsensical: This morning, I had a boards preparation dream.  I was taking a class from a guy who was making us do a team-building exercise that involved hauling heavy ropes around.  Then we took a practice exam, but most of the questions were about pop culture.  I asked a few of my peers how this was supposed to help us prepare.  No one had any good answers.  I woke up feeling a need to review the glycolytic pathways.

3) The ????????: The night before that, I dreamed I had become embroiled, through my own free will, in a plot to steal...a something from the medical school.  Really, I don't know what it was, or why I did it.  (I referred to it as a "prank" at some point.)  All I know was that the something was in a small chest near a row of lockers, and I was with two other guys who were in on it.  So we opened the chest and stole this...thing, whatever it was, and promptly got caught.  My parents came to try to defend me, but I actually got irritated at them, as I was, you know, blatantly, incredibly guilty.  My PI was trying to cheer me up and said, "Well, you'll probably never be able to practice as a medical doctor, but you'll still get your PhD."  Surprisingly, this failed to brighten my mood.  At some point during the dream, I was in a water park in Florida, and went down a long, twisting water slide that, to my surprise, ended not in a pool but in the Gulf of Mexico.  I woke up feeling incredibly guilty, and it took me a little while to realize that nothing had actually happened.

So yeah. 

In other news, I've now officially submitted my boards application.  At some point in my life, I'm sure I will learn to graciously accept that I must pay fees to take exams, that although I do not want to take these exams, I do want to pass them and move forward with my education.  That point has not yet come.  I spent most of yesterday fuming about how I HAD TO PAY $535 for an EXAM THAT I DO NOT WANT TO TAKE.  Woe is IL-X! 

Non-science/-medical news: Two things are of note.
1) I ate vegetarian sushi, and I liked it a lot.  This shocked me to my very core.
2) Intaglio is in the process of teaching me chess.  I think I am improving, based on the fact that it now takes me much longer to lose.