#Best MCAT courses

[johnypage95]

Amourion Training Institute provides professional training services in Dubai. Our best-selling courses are SAT, IELTS, TOEFL, GMAT, UCAT, etc. If you need assistance in these types of courses, then it's time to reach out to us. Let us help you with the preparation. https://www.amourion.com/course-details/ucat-training-dubai

[luvvyouforever]

headcanons : med student!abby anderson x liberal arts student!reader ᥫ᭡

content: wlw relationship. modern college au. ramblings of fluff, maybe a touch of angst but nothing heavy. enjoy <3

a/n: my authority for writing this you ask? i'm an english major who gets asked regularly what i am going to do with my degree! also this is my first time writing about abby i just had to get this idea out of my head and on to the screen.

-abby decided at a young age to follow in her father's footsteps and become a doctor as well. she committed herself to studying science and math as a kid and occasionally disregarded her other studies like music, art, and english. she did enough to keep a 4.0 GPA but her heart was in science tournaments, young medical professional groups, and ap bio.

-she got into one of the best schools in the states for medicine and was a stellar student in organic chemistry, anatomy, and neurology. she knew she was going to do great on her MCAT, but unfortunately, she wasn't doing so great in some of her gen ed classes and it was impacting her gpa.

-that was how she found herself in a tutoring center in one of the older buildings on campus that was shockingly different from the science buildings she spent all of her time in. she had an appointment with you, but was so nervous to go and admit that she was having trouble in something as simple as art history or literature or communication.

-when she sat down to have her appointment with you, you immediately calmed her nerves and assured her that there was nothing wrong with needing some help in classes she wasn't comfortable in. you helped her ace her quiz and then she just kept coming in to see you. over and over. until she eventually passed the class with an A and no longer needed your assistance.

-and then, as luck would have it, abby got her own job as a tutor for science courses and who happened to walk in but you! the tutor who helped her pass her own difficult course.

-it was history from there.

-despite abby's commitment to her education, she was always able to carve time out of her schedule to be with you. she loves studying with you and filling up a room in the library with your stuff to prepare for exams together. she takes a whiteboard and writes all of her notes on it while you're rereading historical texts or revising your final paper about a painting abby doesn't really quite understand.

-she never makes you feel less than for not studying something "more difficult" as people have before. she loves hearing about your passions for history or writing stories or creating art. she'll come with you to art galleries and try to input her own thoughts from time to time about what she thinks certain pieces mean.

-she understands that graduate school applications are just as important to you as medical school applications are for her. you'll do practice interviews with each other and try on outfits for each other.

-abby will not stand for someone making fun of you for your choice of studies. you two once went to a family gathering on abby's side and when some of her family members began interrogating you on how you're going to get a job and even imply that you'll be living off of abby for your whole life, she gets all up in their face and comforts you later! you will not be sending birthday wishes to those family members anymore and she can guarantee that.

-if you guys get accepted in to schools that are long-distance from each other, you'll absolutely make it work. abby is so methodical that she'll never forget to text you and plans out times that either of you can visit.

-if you ever dedicate a piece that you've created in school to her, she'll positively swoon. like if you wrote a poem about her, she would print it out and pin it up on the fridge. if you painted her, she would hang it up on the wall. and she's the best model for those things too

-i imagine that dinners with your colleagues or friends are very random. abby has but a few friends in her residency and they're each as professional as her. you, however, come with a group of lively people who are discussing philosophical ideas or debating about a piece of art history and how its influenced modern culture. it would be an interesting combination to say the least.

-abby would just be so interested in anything you have to do and would never be critical of your choices. she sees the passion you have for things that lie far outside her field and appreciates it. your future apartment that you build years after meeting when you are each established in your dream careers is a mesh of medical textbooks and flashcards and models but also messy journals and thrifted antiques and poems written on sticky notes for her to find.

[zukkacore]

Crossposted to ao3

The morning after Frosty Fair Festival, Jace summons Porter to the principal’s office.

“I’ve been VP for five minutes, and I find out that one of the fucking Bad Kids is taking three simultaneous years of artificer class? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“You can’t pin that on me, Stardiamond.” Porter’s laugh is easygoing, and he’s only half paying attention as he watches the smoke trail from the cigarette he’s waving around. “I tried to dissuade him. He put himself through that.”

“But you won’t sign his MCAT. Do you want his annoying little truant friend to hate you?”

Porter laughs. “Miss Faeth isn’t a truant, I’ve been taking attendance for her in barbarian classes nearly every day."

He takes a long drag. “Of course you have.”

“Miss Faeth hates me no matter what I do. If she hasn’t caught on to what’s going on by now, I think you can breathe. Besides, I like a challenge. Something you could stand to learn.”

He tries to take another drag, but his hands are shaking, he’s so mad. There’s a clenching in his chest where the shatterstar is placed, then a pain that radiates outward. He winces. “Be it from me to question your teaching methods, but. Do you know what the Bad Kids did to the last vice principal?”

“Hey. I brought you back once. I can do it again.”

“I—” He doesn’t want to talk about that right now. He’s not ready to talk about it. “Tell me, does getting chewed out by a devil because one of his best bloodrush players is swamped sound like a good time to you? Jawbone recommended I look into xanax, that’s how wired I’ve been. And that was before I got ‘promoted’.”

“I’m sure you could get your hands on some if you attended one of his orgies.”

“Go to hell.”

“Likewise.”

They glare back and forth. Jace is used to getting into tiffs with Porter, but this—this is real.

 When he opens his mouth, his voice is quiet. “I don’t see why you can’t just sign the kid’s fucking MCAT.”

“Not that I don’t appreciate the whole impassioned speech,” says Porter, “It’s nice to see you actually riled up about something once in your silver-spoon life, maybe finally you’ll start giving a fuck.”

“I’m not riled up,” says Jace, but he’s working to keep his voice steady.

He’s used to the assumptions about his life, and he’d much rather keep up appearances than let a soul know about his estranged parents or the mind that’s trying to kill him. That’s the thing about sorcery—when your power is innate, you can never stop being grateful. If things are fucked, they could always, always be worse. He has to be unassuming. He likes being unassuming, because a gift is not a threat. And if his student’s can see that this scary thing they can’t help doesn’t have to rule their life, then, yeah, he’s ok with being a little bit of a joke.

At least, he was ok with it, before Porter Cliffbreaker broke him and shoved a shatterstar into his gaping chest wound and gave him a choice: rage or oblivion? He made his choice. He can’t back out now. So doesn’t Porter see he’s trying to look out for him? “I just think it would make things so much easier—”

“For who? You? Pardon me for treading on your cushy little gig.”

“Oh, we’re way past that.” Eight months past, to be exact. His mind is drifting back fondly to bleeding out in the Mountain’s of Chaos. He’s grateful that it’s so early in the morning, that no one is around to cast Detect Thoughts.

“Thistlespring could use a little tough love. That’s just the way I teach, now that you’re in charge, you’re gonna have to deal with it. He’s an orc, Stardiamond—barbarism is in his blood. He just needs to apply himself. I mean, you’ve seen the kid play bloodrush, he’s a beast.”

He grimaces. Something about the way Porter is speaking, he can’t place it, but he feels sick to his stomach.

“Right,” says Porter, clearly misjudging the expression on his face. “You know, it wouldn’t hurt for you to show a little school spirit.”

Jace laughs sharply.

“Well. He’s a beast you’re gonna find yourself on the wrong side of if you don’t watch yourself. You know how The Bad Kids are—they worm their way into everything, and the goblin that Kipperlily hates, he’s the worst of all. You know, he ate—Forget it. I just. I don’t want you getting—” He stops just short of saying it. As much as Porter has personally fucked him over, he’s in it too deep. Despite everything, Jace cares about him. He’s just so tired of trying to make things work. “If… this plan is so important to you, you have to be a little more tactful and a little less—you.”

“You think I can’t take care of myself, Stardiamond?” Porter flashes an infuriating grin.

“I didn’t say that. I just said… Be careful.”

“I appreciate the feedback and the personal concern, veep, but trust me when I say you’re letting your personal feelings get in the way with this one.”

His face is burning up, and he’s certain he’s a humiliating shade of red. Jace doesn’t even have to say anything. Porter knows what a low blow that is.

“Yeah, well,” mutters Jace. “Multiclassing is not for everyone.”

“Right.”

Jace is a good sorcerer. So good that it’s hard to articulate to his students what to him is second nature. He’s not the kind of teacher who does lesson plans precisely because he was never the kind of student who needed to study. It’s eerie how much Porter in these moments reminds him of his own teacher—the kind of teacher who praises his natural gifts all day and was absolutely resistant to him looking into other classes because he viewed it as a waste, as noncommittal, as proof of his lack of dedication. 

Jace never got his MCAT signed. And he was… not prepared for the sheer volume of work required for even early level wizardry. He wanted it; he wanted to be the kind of dedicated person who could put in the work. Maybe his teacher had been right, maybe he wasn’t very bright, and maybe he hadn’t been cut out to be a wizard, but it did feel a little like he was thrown in the deep end and told to swim just to prove a point. He’s always been a slave to his impulses. And in the end, he ran back to sorcery where they welcomed him back with open arms because it felt good to be good at something.

He can feel the thrum of the shatterstar in his chest, anger coupled with shame. He hates himself for being Jace Stardiamond. He’s always taken the path of least resistance. 

He’s not even sure he could call himself a good sorcerer anymore. He’s never been the kind of wizardly person who innately finds the joy of learning and discovery. He’s never found it all that rewarding. But sorcery does require a kind of self-knowledge, a certainty of oneself that he hasn’t felt in a long time. Whoever he is right now is a stranger, buried under several feet of bitterness and self-loathing.

“What’s it to you? You don’t even give a fuck about your own students, have you gotten a soft heart about little Thistlespring all of a sudden?”

“I don’t give a fuck about Thistlespring! Don’t you get it?”

“Look, if he confronts me on it, I’ll sign the damn MCAT. Happy? I was only resistant at first because—well, I mean, have you heard that ridiculous song he sings? The kid’s not very bright.”

He doesn’t answer.

“I’ll get it done if it means that much to you. C’mere.”

Porter takes Jace by the hands, pulling him in so that he can wrap his arms around Jace’s waist.

“We’re at school—” says Jace, but his protests are half-hearted. He turns his head, and he can feel Porter’s lips press up against his cheek.

“Listen to me.” Porter takes his face in his hands. “I have everything under control. The Bad Kids are nothing, Jace. Trust me. They’re twig gremlins. Maybe I got a little overinvested. I can’t help it, I need recruits, and the kid’s a natural. But that’s not everything. He’s too… Too timid. Afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Embracing his power.”

“Are… Are we still, um—” Porter’s gaze on him is so intense, Jace forgets what he’s saying. But that drive that he sees in Porter, that deep need to push, to optimize, to always be the best—it’s always been a source of deep frustration for Jace. But he can’t deny those are the same traits that make Porter so easy to admire. Maybe it’s just a wish, but he swears he can see the same admiration mirrored in Porter’s expression.

He can feel himself being reeled back in. His life is currently a living hell, but something in him has always felt compelled to be worthy of Porter’s admiration.   

He wishes he could be the kind of person Porter wants him to be. He worries that there is no ascendant version of him, that this really is all his potential, plain and simple. But he’ll try. For Porter, he wants to be great.

They can hear footsteps on the other side of the door. Time for school.

Porter is quick to change gears. He coughs, clearing his throat as Jace is quick to step away. “Tell you what—I’ll get that straightened away, Stardiamond. I’ll sign the papers. Things were a little rocky at first, but you know what? He earned it, after the damn display of frosty fair. He’ll make a great… adventurer.” He’s watching. “You know. When the time comes.”

Jace sighs, but it does nothing to help release the tension in his chest. Yeah. Frosty fair. He has to make the announcement about that soon. He can feel a headache coming on just thinking about it.

Porter kisses him, but Jace is quick to brush him away and toward the door. “You need to go.”

Porter grins, and Jace can feel his heart skipping like he’s some teen adventurer with a schoolyard crush. “Tell me some things aren’t worth a little risk.”

“Well, I have to give a speech,” says Jace, following Porter out of the office. Jawbone waves at them, and Jace nods as he shuts the door behind them.

“Hey. You’re gonna knock it out of the park, alright?” He gives Jace a punch in the shoulder, and it’s so awkward that Jace would be charmed by it in any other circumstance. Like they’re amicable co-workers and not the bad guys. Like they’re not intertwined, Porter’s rage making a comfy little home in his ribcage. “We’re all looking to you, now, Stardiamond. It’s a heavy burden, but I can’t think of anyone else I’d trust more to handle the responsibility.”

Jace doesn’t bother to check his insight. If Porter says it, he’s ready to believe it.

[jq37]

The Report Card – Fantasy High Junior Year Ep 3 Fast Times at Fantasy High

Welcome back to Fantasy High! It’s a very exciting episode because something that we rarely see in this show about high schoolers studying at an adventuring academy is happening: The Bad Kids are actually going to class. 

But first, they have to get to school. Riz, unsurprisingly, arrives first. On a big old 30 Investigation roll (+11 to a 19), overnight he did a deep dive into what everyone needs to do to get into a good college. Fig is actually doing great. If she would just go to her classes, she’d be fine. Kristen on the other hand is in serious trouble seeing as allowing your god to die is pretty much an auto-fail for a cleric. Fabian and Gorgug are both solid students with good extracurriculars. Their main hurdle is going to be the MCAT–the Multiclass Achievement Test. In order to multiclass, you need to get permission from your current advisor and pass the test. Then you can take 3/4 of each track for a 150% course load. And then, of course, he and Adaine are the party nerds so they’re doing great. They could maybe add some extracurriculars but they’re model students. 

RIz also has done some research about possible college options: Astral State University (where they visited in the one shot), CUS Dabus (in the City of Doors), Bastion City University (who are doing big, world changing stuff), the Society of Shadows (the rogues only group that forces you to leave your life and friends behind that Penny Luckstone refused to join in The Seven), and–most hilarious but also saddest–Lord Salazar Edge's College of Lone Adventurers (which we learn in the AP was a Murph pitch, lol). 

Back at Mordred, Adaine is doing her best to get her less studious friends up and ready for school, going as far as casting Friends on them to get them in the car. Fig willingly fails and Kristen–who really wants to be convinced–sets the DC at 10 and gives Adaine the Help action. Before they get to the car, Lydia (Ragh’s awesome mom) slaps a toxic looking blue energy drink from Kristen’s hands and gives them all full trash bags full of food for lunch (she’s used to feeding half-orc athlete Barb Ragh, not three spellcasters).

Jawbone loads them in the car and, on the way to school, they hear the song of the summer which is this emo anthem. When they meet Riz, he’s super excited to see everyone and show them their dossiers. He even made one for Adaine just for fun even though she doesn’t need any help and she loves it. What she (and Riz) don’t love however is Fig’s new school plan which, as we learned last week, is to enroll in something other than bard classes and then go to her bard classes (since a part of her isn’t going because she has chronic Stick-It-To-The-Man-Itis). Riz and Adaine try to figure out if they can gaslight Fig into going to her classes or hack the system somehow. 

Back at the Thistlespring tree, Gorgug is doing some last minute pre-school work: creating his homunculus (which is kind of like an artificer’s familiar). It’s a hastily made archaeopteryx (flying dino thing, if you know Pokemon, think Archeops) that’s light on the feathers. He accidentally names it Cloaca (a birds multipurpose excrement chute) which his parents love because it’s spreading awareness of non-traditional bodies. Then they launch into a story about mermaid reproduction that I’m not gonna get into because not even Gorgug wanted to hear it. He’s clearly anxious about his skills because he feels his parents disapprove of the bird even though they’ve never been anything other than 200% supportive of him in their lives. 

He gets a ride to school and his friends meet Cloaca, who he nicknames Chloe–the name I’ll be using even though the Bad Kids of course will exclusively call it Cloaca. Riz hands Gorgug his file which he reviews along with the letters from his parents. It’s a lot of the same info except that one of the letters is a rejection re: Multiclassing with a note to talk to his advisor (Porter, the Barb teacher who Fig hates). 

Fabian shows up, starving and shabbily dressed without Cathilda to take care of him–she’s still in Leviathan. The girls share their trash bag food with him which he wolfs down gratefully. (When he mentions his parents are away, Fig seems surprised that Gilear left. Interesting to note for future eps because that feels out of character for their relationship). Anyway, he mistakes Chloe for a piece of trash because is it really the first day of school if Fabian doesn’t insult Gorgug (accidentally this time. progress!) and then the bell rings. As it does, the Bad Kids look around and realize something strange: they’re Juniors now. That means more than half the kids here are younger than them now. They’re not the Freshmen they once were. 

The Sorc Prof (Jace Stardiamond) is filling in as VP while Gilear is away and as he makes an announcement on the intercom, Fig almost falls into an open construction pit (a SECOND construction based incident) but is saved when she’s hit with an armful of gym equipment instead. Put that on the Faeth luck swap conspiracy board. Anyway, Jace also says that Aguefort is gonna be out so they have a new Principal: Emergency Backup Interim Principal Grix. The Bad Kids have never heard of this guy before. 

In the spot where they saw Dane and Penelope campaigning to bring back Prom Court their first year, the Bad Kids now see a table for Student Gov manned by Jawbone and a minotaur student he seems to know: Mazey Phaedra–a senior and the student body prez. She’s also based on a Scottish Highland cow which isn’t important to the story but it is important to me because those cows are super cute. Riz suggests they sign up so they go talk to Mazey who seems cool: She thanks them for saving the world, she knows Ayda, and Fabian clocks later that she’s a dancer bard. All green flags. 

After indulging Fabian’s ego for a bit, the squad encourages Kristen to go for President. Before she can though, she’s beaten to the punch by a halfling student with major Tracy Flick energy who introduces herself as Kipperlily Copperkettle. Kristen immediately shoots back with, “What are you, four different dogs?” which is maybe the funniest thing a Bad Kid has ever said. The Bad Kids hate her vibes on sight but Kristen especially is full aggro. Riz notices that she’s wearing a pin of a rat’s butt being grinded between two gears and when asked about it, she says it’s Ratgrinders pin–Ratgrinders being the name of her adventuring party. They ask who else is in her party and she points out Reuben–an emo, gnomish bard who is signing autographs because he’s the one who wrote the song they were listening to on the way to school (before Kristen changed it to a health and wellness podcast). 

Kipperlily (who I’m gonna call KP) is told that she can sign up but she has to find time to campaign outside of her classes. She says that won’t be a problem because she’s already aced Junior Year and she slides over an envelope to Jawbone to prove it. Apparently, the way Rogue classes work here is that the students find clues and puzzles throughout the school left by the professor but they’ve never actually met them. If a student is able to find the Rogue professor, they automatically get an A for the year and, apparently, KP did just that. 

Paperwork in order, KP is about to leave but Fig stops her to ask what her platform is. Her answer: “Equality, equanimity, and fairness under the rules. In the past, there has been an eccentricity to the bureaucratic and administrative decisions of the Aguefort Adventuring Academy that has favored some students over others. Very nice to meet you guys.”

As she leaves, they hate her even more. 

Adaine tries out a new trick she has which allows her to see into the ethereal plane. She sees a lot of Aguefort’s wards but also the fact that the wards are porous enough to let in ghosts because one of the professors is a ghost, though they don’t know which one. She suggests to Riz that maybe the Rogue prof is a ghost. She also sees some ghost steaks in the fridge, presumably belonging to the ghost prof (btw: steak for lunch at a high school seems wild, lol). 

At this point, Fabian notices Mazey’s dancing shoes (Badidas of course) and clocks that she’s a dancer bard. He talks to her about how he’s looking to multiclass and she hooks him up with a note to give to the dance class professor (Terpsicore Skullcleaver) that says he’s a good kid. She also tells him that Jem Peppercorn (the absolute legend who stayed in the gym eating for the whole Goldenhoard fight) graduated last year and he had the party house which means there’s an opening for a new party house. And Fabian has a very big, very fancy, very empty house. Kristen does an Insight check and gets a Nat 20 to clock that yeah, there’s a little bit of a flirty vibe going on. So of course, she uses Thaumaturgy to create tremors–a move I was extremely confused about at first blush but I think she was using to give Fabian an excuse to hold her or something. Clearly, she’s a more attentive Wingwoman than she is a Saint. 

Anyway, conversation finished, they go to the Auditorium where Jace announced Principal Grix wanted to give a speech. Grix is a gold, warforged spellcaster with a ball comprising his lower half instead of legs. Apparently, he was created by Arthur Aguefort to take his place while he’s on vacay. He speaks in a stilted, robotic manner and gives a speech parallel to Aguefort’s day one speech about what an Adventurer is. But instead of the rambly, unhinged answer Aguefort gave, he simply gives the Dictionary definition: One who goes on adventures. And then he starts going off about order, bureaucracy, and rules. 

The Bad Kids are taken aback–even rules gremlin Riz.On a 27 to clock whether he’s been hacked (because she can’t believe Aguefort would make a robot that acted like this) Adaine sees Grix steepling his fingers and saying “Perfect order” which isn’t conclusive but is def troubling! They start raising their hands and asking Jace questions about if they really have to follow rules in a hard way this year–it still is Aguefort after all–but Grix cuts in and says that the backtalk he’s getting is exactly the problem. He casts Time Stop (a 9th level spell) and the entire auditorium finds themselves in the hall, in a single file line, ten minutes before class is about to begin. Not a great start to the year! And on a dirty 20, Kristen doesn’t see KP anywhere. Suspicious! 

Riz tells Fabian and Gorgug about any extra MCAT stuff they don’t already know. He also tells the group about the Frosty Folk Festival and Gorgug mentions that his parents are hosting. Fig says she wants to maybe try out some of her new songs there…once she’s written them. Fabian asks if they can take a break from hardcore Bad Kid stuff this semester and Kristen says that’s a good point because she has a campaign to focus on. Fig declares herself secret service because, of course she does. She also announces her plan to go to Bard classes…but disguised as a new persona (Tiny Emo Girlie: Wanda Childa) so she can befriend and spy on Reuben. Riz and Adaine are at the end of their collective rope. 

With his free time before the bell rings, Gorgug wants to talk to Porter to sort out the MCAT stuff. Porter lays it out for him. He thinks Gorgug has amazing, raw, natural talent and he uses his rage in a really noble way to protect his friends. But he hasn't seen him reach his full destructive potential and he’s not impressed that he defeated the Night Yorb will tools and “magic” instead of rage. He would be fine if Gorgug wanted to get some Fighter levels with Ms. Jones or something else that would dovetail nicely with Barb classes, but as of now, he hasn’t seen what he needs to see to think that Artificing classes would do anything but steal focus. Gorgug can of course quit the Barb track and move to Artificing, but Porter is not giving his approval. 

Meanwhile, Fabian is having a much less hostile meeting with Terpsicore (after an accidental detour to Adaine’s wizard class because he trusted Fig–who’s never been to bard class–to give him directions). Terps is this tiny (5 ft 3in) Half-Orc with crazy, hyper positive, aerobics grandma energy who immediately breaks down Fabian’s cool guy jock persona and gets him into a dance, jam sesh with her that moves through different styles of dance and music. I can’t do this scene justice, you have to watch it. Her “Uh-oh, uh-oh! Uh-oh, uh-oh! A challenger approaches!” tells you everything you need to know about her. 

By the end of the dance, Fabian has fully embraced his weird art kid energy and Terps has approved Fabian for multiclassing. It’s looking like all sunshine and roses for Fabian until Terps tells him that if he’s gonna make this multiclass thing work, he needs to be really serious. Lots of rest. Lots of healthy food. And no parties. Uh-oh indeed. 

Next up, we turn our attention back to Riz who’s still in the hall and tries to steal the envelope KP turned in to Jawbone to get some info about the Rogue prof. Jawbone catches him and is good natured about it but won’t let him have the envelope: not for moral reasons so much as because a good rogue has to earn it by not getting caught. 

Riz asks about KP and Jawbone says she’s a good kid but kinda Type A. He asks Riz if he’s getting some “I’m in the picture and I don’t like it” energy from her and Riz denies it. Jawbone decides to give him a little bit of a hint re: the Prof and says that KP technically didn’t find the prof. The prof found KP. But he won’t say more and he would appreciate him not saying where he got the info. The main reason he’s giving the info at all is because KP was snooping and heard him talking about Kristen’s god dying. She then asked Jawbone a bunch of questions about Kristen which he answered so he figured fair’s fair with regard to giving Riz some info about her. Riz is troubled. Jawbone tells Riz that they’re due for a heart to heart but Riz says he’s good and he’s stressed but stress is good. Yikes!

Kristen is also still in the hall and finally properly signs up for class president but, as she does, she hears some familiar voices: it’s her parents, dropping her younger brother Bucky off for his first day at Aguefort. She has serious deja vu as they’re saying the same “Don’t mix with the weirdos” stuff they said to her on her first day. Kristen fails a Wisdom save and is deeply affected by watching her parents basically bullying her younger brother who she hasn’t seen in a good bit now. The last time she had any contact with them it was just to give them her dragon gold and that was over the phone.  She sees that her not being in the household to shield her brothers from her parents has led to them having to take all that parental abuse and pressure alone. She goes over to confront them feeling hot under the collar and Riz senses a crackle of something in her aura. 

Cass chimes in, thinking she’s been summoned, and asks if it’s a good time for them to talk and Kristen snaps at her that OBVIOUSLY it’s not a good time. Kristen feels a spasm in her body and, for the first time, Cass snaps back at her: "Fine! I can make my own people to talk to!“ Deeply concerning, but we’ll come back to that. For now, we follow Kristen as she reaches her parents and brother. Bucky immediately goes in for the hug and seems very happy to see her. Her parents, not so much and the feeling is mutual. “Second time’s the charm, hopefully” they say, tacitly deeming her a failure. She pretends to be directing traffic so she can hustle them out the door ASAP and gets a Nat 20 to do so (rolling with advantage for reasons Brennan doesn’t expound on). Bucky says he wants to talk to Kristen about something but he’s late so can they meet up after class? She says sure thing and he runs off, his longsword trailing after him. 

Kristen is left alone with her parents and it’s a bit of a standoff. Her mom asks how she’s going and seems to genuinely want to know to some degree but it’s still mainly jabs about her lifestyle and choices and leaving the church. Her dad especially comes down hard on her for leaving Helio without a chosen one and becoming a cleric to a night goddess right before they were struck with four months of night which, admittedly, is a fair thing to have questions about. But Kristen has died and come back from the dead. If that can’t keep her down, her parents certainly can’t. She pirouettes away from the conversation and heads to class (because she may not be worried about her parents but she is worried about what Cass said to her). 

We hop over to the second nerd of the party, Adaine, who’s in wizard classes with Professor Tiberia Runestaff who Brennan says has “Evil Lucille Bluth” energy (which is different from regular Lucille Bluth how?). She’s a friend of Aguefort’s from the Mountains of Chaos and Adaine wants to impress her so so bad. 

She starts off her lesson by saying that this year is the weed out year. This is the year that separates the paltry magicians from the truly great casters. Then, she starts listing out the materials they need for this week’s castings–a list that includes TEN BARRELS OF DIAMONDS. For ONE WEEK. Adaine may come from money but she doesn’t have access to any of that money right now. She raises her hand to ask if there’s any way she could borrow some diamonds from the school or something and basically gets a harsh, “That sounds like a you problem” kind of response that she shrinks back from. Tiberia continues to list the ridiculously expensive materials needed to continue on and Adaine knows that she can’t ask Jawbone for any of this. She resolves to call Aelwyn for help during lunch. 

We then move on to a Fantasy High first: Fig going to class! Although she’s not going as herself. She’s disguised as her alter ego Wanda Childa. The professor (Lucilla Lullaby who is some kind of chill Eladrin) seems to perhaps think she recognizes her before she sits down next to Reuben. She charms him by smelling of peach schnapps and cigarettes and they have a flirty emo-off before Lucilla points out that she’s 100% not on the roster and, despite the fact that it doesn’t always seem like it, this is a school with rules. This year especially! She leaves, but as she lingers to give Reuben one last look (and sniff) she notices that he has a Ratgrinder tattoo that matches KP’s pin. 

As she exits Lucilla is making a call on her crystal and there’s a good chance it’s connected to the encounter Fig has when she gets to the hall. Jace Stardiamond is leading an eagle aarakocra Council of Chosen agent (think FBI) who is investigating truancy in the area and calls Fig by name–well by pseudonym anyway. He is incidentally also looking into the disappearance of Hilda Hilda. Sensing her chickens are finally coming home to roost, Fig gives a weak lie about not knowing how schools work and skateboards away, using Cutting Words to prevent Agent Clark’s attack of opportunity on her. He vows to find out who she is as she makes her escape. 

Proving you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it go to bard class, Fig goes outside to spy on her class through the window instead of attending because she thought Lucilla actually seemed pretty cool. She doesn’t hide well enough though and Lucilla spots her through the window. She’s shocked to see Fig for the first time in two years and welcomes her in like she’s the prodigal son. Fig asks if it would be weird for her to attend. Lucilla assures her that it’s the opposite of weird and, in fact, mandatory. 

She settles in for her first day of bard class–this semester and ever–but out of the corner of her eye, she notices a sneering Rebuen texting someone. It’s Lola Embers. Looks like they’re signed to the same label. 

Finally, we hop to Kristen who’s headed to cleric class with Professor Yolanda Badgood (a wispy air genasi). Before class even starts she tells Kristen to meet her after class. We timeskip to that meeting and, like many others in this ep, she thanks Kristen for saving the world. But she has a followup question: How did she do it when her god is dead? Kristen says she has a lot going on with her estranged parents she just saw and her scattered mind and her feeling like the stairs are disappearing behind her as she climbs. She has to update her god in the files and her address for that matter because, as we learned when she talked to her parents, all her mail is still getting sent to her old address. Her professor sincerely asks her how she’s feeling and Kristen says she’s fine but asks if there’s some kind of test she can take that will tell her what god is right for her. Her professor is like, “Didn’t you just say you had a new god???” But Kristen feels so much pressure with Cass and she mainly feels annoyed by her presence. Professor Badgood says that she’s allowed to change her god as much as she wants–she herself gave up an active relationship with a divinity so she can be kind of an interfaith minister to all her students. And she says that all faiths are trying to capture a piece of the truth–even the out there ones with evil gods and such. She recommends that Kristen spend a week earnestly trying to connect with Cass and if she still feels like she wants to split she can go from there. 

Kristen has a followup question: What do you do when your god says, "Fine, I'll- I'll make new followers"? Badgood seems taken aback, and she’s even more so when Kristen says she’s been rude to her god. Kristen asks if she should apologize and Professor Badgood gives her the most gracious version of, “Duh, obviously” a person can manage. She directs Kristen to one of the million prayer rooms in the class so she and Cass can talk. 

Kristen actually takes this seriously–or at least more seriously than she takes most things. She clears her mind and meditates until she finds herself in the forest of Sylvaire where Cassandra is crying to herself. A bright moon that would erase any shadow or doubt encroaches. When Kristen tries to touch Cass’s shoulder, the god flinches away and sobs that Craig–her only other follower–has joined the Wolfsong Revival. Tracker’s movement.   

Cass is scared. She doesn’t want to end up dead in the Astral Realm like Yes? Kristen apologizes and says that she understands that she’s getting to point where chaos isn’t cute anymore. She follows that up by saying that her top two priorities are Cass and her student president campaign however so I don’t know how committed she is to being serious. Cass isn’t either because she flat out states that she can’t rely on Kristen. She’s so so lonely and she’s confused about why things aren’t working out. They started out so big and magical and they’re still so stuck. She thought it might be because of her somehow but then she learned about the trail of abandoned gods in Kristen’s wake and realized that *she* was the connecting factor, something that Kristen cops to verbally: “It’s me,” she says. 

Cass announces that she’s getting some help and Kristen asks who. A cleric? Nope. No clerics for now. She just wanted a friend. Kristen sees her petting something invisible and asks if it’s a dog. 

“I’m more of a cat person,” Cass says as a black cat fades into view. 

“Hi Kristen,” Kalina says. 

And that’s where we end our ep!!!! The bitch is back!!!!

Honor Roll

Riz for Thinking Of All His Friends

In Sophomore Year there was a thing with Riz’s dad where it was like, sometimes you show your love through work and, viewed through that lens, Riz *really* loves his friends. I recognize that the likelihood of his meticulous plan actually working is slim to none and he’ll have to accept that even if they all stay really close friends (which they better), they’re likely on at least slightly different life paths, I do think it’s really sweet that he’s putting so much effort into making sure that ALL of his friends are successful by the metric that he’s using. Also, the “Hi Adaine :)” binder for her was so cute. I love nerd friendship. 

Detention 

Fig for Hilda-Hilda-ing Too Close to the Sun

Girl the Fantasy FBI is after you!!! Just stop lying and go to class!!!!!

Random Thoughts

In the AP for this ep, Emily mentioned some cool warlock thing that might be worth taking the MCAT for and officially registering (she’s currently off the books multiclassing) but it’s never mentioned in the actual episode so I assume it got snipped away in editing. 

I really love how polite Adaine is to anyone who hasn’t earned her scorn and the little moment of her taking a reasonable amount of food from the trashbag Lydia offered her and thanking her was very endearing to me. 

Zac is very quick on his feet and Chloe is a GREAT save for Cloaca but it is ABSOLUTELY not gonna be what anyone calls that bird but me and him. 

When Jace said over the intercom that Sorc classes are just talking about how fun and easy magic is, I’m surprised Adaine have anything snarky to say about that, lol. *I* had a comment and I don’t even go to that school. 

Is anyone else getting like…Santa Clause 2 energy from the Grix situation? If that ends up being the vibe then that’s super funny because iirc Santa Clause 1 was ref’d a bunch with the oracle stuff in Freshman Year. Full circle baybee. 

KP seems like she is springing into existence to fill the voice left by Penny Luckstone getting her GED and leaving. They’re like on the exact same level of one axis of a cartesian plane but on opposite sides. Both at 100% intensity but vibes in opposite directions.  

I kinda wanna add a poll to this post that’s like, what is the crazier story? Mermaid reproduction with the Thistlesprings or snapping turtle man with gun up his secret cloaca story with Jawbone?

Honorary Honor Roll to Ally the person for the legendary 4 dogs joke. Honestly even funnier knowing that that’s the actual name of Brennan’s old PC. Burned the man to his face. Roasted him like corn. 

OK, so what are we thinking about the Ratgrinders? Is that a ref to grinding rats for XP or more how they see other people/what they’re going to do to people who get in their way? KP is obviously very rules focused but in a Lawful Annoying way. I do think it’s interesting though. Have any of you guys ever seen the Community episode where it turns out everyone at Greendale hates the gang because they have major main character syndrome and are always forcing everyone else at school to accommodate their flights of fancy (a perfectly reasonable reason to have beef with people)? I’m wondering if there’s a bit of that energy happening here. Either way, this strikes me as a party that’s interested in exploiting loopholes and such for maximum efficiency (eg: finding the rogue prof for instant straight A’s) and that’s a different kind of maverick behavior than what the Bad Kids do which is go buckwild, breaking rules if necessary, but getting real results. It’s like the BK’s are Aguefort’s perfect party and I’m suspecting the RG’s are Grix’s. Speaking of–

A FH concept I had ages ago was rival adventuring party to the main group which has like, bizarro versions of everyone. And we may be getting that! We have an emo bard to contrast Fig’s punk rocker energy. And a rules follower (derogatory) rogue to contrast Riz who is also a rules follower (blessed). Very curious to see the rest of their party! And very curious to know if they’re Bad (™) or just annoying in a high school way. Sometimes people just don’t vibe with you. 

Oh, a specific concern that I have: KP specifically asked where Kristen was able to create a god. I don’t think that’s info I want a super type A person I don’t trust to have. 

Very sweet that Jawbone’s immediate instinct when he thinks an earthquake is happening is to bodily shield Fig and Adaine, his two kind daughter-figures in the Bad Kids. 

Kristen says that Cass is a hard sell but I have to disagree. Look at this flyer. It looks convincing to me!

“I think songs can accomplish a lot, if you let yourself hear the music.” Gorgug :( He’s gonna show Porter this season. I just know it. I believe in you Spring Break! 

Love Murph throwing in the Frosty Folk thing apropos of basically nothing just to make sure they had an in-character reason to all know about that for later, just in case. Info management! Important! 

I remember Bucky being a lot younger but either I’m confusing him for one of her other two brothers or it got retconned (or Quangled lol) older to make this storyline work. Very interesting that he went in for the hug, not the other way around. Seems like at least one person missed her. With his longsword and his parents’ inclinations, it seems like he’s most likely a Helioic Paladin. I’m very interested in how they’re going to treat his relationship with Helio because even though Kristen rejected him and we’ve seen that he has some followers that range from just shitty (K’s parents) to downright culty (the Harvestmen), that doesn’t mean that all of his followers are like that and we’ve never actually seen Helio be anything but pretty chill when he’s appeared. He wants to talk to Kristen about something and my conspiracy theory brain is wondering if he was asked to be Helio’s new chosen one but he hasn’t told anyone yet. That would be very interesting and I’d like to see a storyline about the tension of K and her brother having very different relationships with the same god. The chill peace and love god might have been a great person for him to turn to in absence of his one lifeline in the house leaving. But it could also be tons of other things so we’ll see. 

Wild that Kristen has pissed off or abandoned every member of that godly family (Sol, Helio, Galicaea, and Cass). She really is the constant here. 

Ally says Kristen is wearing an Adidas tracksuit meaning that this world canonically has both Adidas and Badidas. 

It’s a funny moment when Terps is like, “Is there harm in your life? ”to Fabian when he mentions eating food out of a trash bag but like, the kid isn’t doing *great*. Def some neglect happening and he said he was wearing yesterday’s clothes and still banged up from the Night Yorb fight. If I was a teacher, I’d have questions too! 

Yolanda Badgood. Terpsichore Skullcleaver. Lucilla Lullaby. Most of these professors are named like My Little Ponies and I love it. 

When Lucilla say “Wanda” it seems like she briefly (correctly) thought it was Fig which is funny because it paints the picture that she’s been actively waiting on pins and needles for her to show up for the past two years. It’s funny because she’s not a missing person. She’s highly visible both from saving the world and being a rockstar AND both of her dads work at your school! Just get in touch! 

Really hope Adaine follows up on the Aelwyn conversation because I wanna see two kids raised in old money discuss the price of ten barrels of diamonds. 

Also lol at random things like Fabian being the FUTURE OF DANCE being pinned on Adaine’s oracle prognostications. 

[scientia-rex]

Hello! I'm new! You may have posted this somewhere already, but - if it's not too much to ask - may I inquire what degrees you pursued and what your medical jobs have been?

I ask not for vetting purposes, but rather directional purposes for mySELF. I dragged myself up out of a mental breakdown and started scrolling to snap myself out of it and saw your post like a beacon in the darkness.

You kind of hit a few buttons for me, and - though I might not be cut out to reach where you've reached - it is a DIRECTION.

Oh boy, I'm a bad role model because I went out and got a graduate degree that cost me 25 grand and increased my earning potential in the field from "minimum wage" to "just above minimum wage but it's a salary so you have to work more hours." Once I settled on medicine, which took me a long time, it took me an even longer time to finish pre-reqs for applying to med school (I had to take O-Chem as a night class at a community college, which was fun but oh my god that was a lot of work; volunteer at a local hospital on weekends; and keep working my day jobs, plural, at the same time). The MCAT sucked--I scored OK but that score did not change despite spending a bunch of dedicated time on studying. I didn't have money for private tutoring or prep classes. I would have done that if I had. It took two application cycles to get accepted; getting rejected from 15 schools the first time around after each application costs about 100 bucks felt like a nightmare. I wanted to appeal the rejections, but of course, you can't. So I put more effort in, did some mock interviews, interviewed much better the second year, and got in.

Once you're into med school, at least in the US, you are now a cash cow. You will not be expelled unless they can't polish that turd at least enough for a terrible toxic residency. The med schools spend a lot of money on you in hopes that you will become a rich alumna/alumnus who donates.

Once you're in residency, it is extra hard to get fired, because now you're actively making them money with your cheap labor funded in large part by the federal government and your very long hours. You have to REALLY work at it to get fired from residency. If someone is, I assure you, they did something bad. Not "protested racism" bad, as that catfishing doctor Eugene Gu who pretended to be a Black woman on Twitter to harass a much more popular MedTuber (Dr. Glaucomflecken) claimed, but being overtly incompetent and unwilling to do work bad. We had multiple residents who were VERY vocal during the Black Lives Matter protests and faced no repercussions. Some even joined a strike when the hospital employees went on strike, and although they only joined it for a few hours, that was a much more touchy subject with the brass than their anti-racism efforts.

Basically, if you're interested in medicine, I recommend reading Med School Confidential. It's a solid introduction to both the system and what to expect, and what to do in order to make the best of it.

[raven-with-a-pocketwatch]

Guys I will be a Porter defender until the day I die. I know we all hate him right now for not letting Gorgug have the MCAT but look at it from his perspective as a teacher.

Never in the school's history has someone tried multiclassing barbarian and artifcer, and for good reason because the classes inherently contradict each other. How are you going to both embrace the passion of a rage and think on your feet and keep a level head. We the audience know Gorgug can do it but Porter hasn't seen him in action. What he sees is a kid that has always struggled to embrace raging trying to branch out into something that doesn't make any sense for his build. He's very clear that if Gorgug did better in Barbarian he would consider it, but he thinks that his Barbarian stuff would suffer if he took artificer classes. And he gets proven right, obviously that's because he's quadrupled his course load but he's getting straight A's in his Artificer classes and not prioritizing barbarian. I wouldn't be surpirsed if he pulled Gorgug aside and suggested dropping out of Barbarian soon. None of this he does with malice but with genuine concern for what he thinks is best for Gorgug's education.

Some people like to say that he plays favourites with Fig. Which is a little true but again look at it from his perspective. Fig is naturally gifted in Barbarian, from the first day she does better than Gorgug is doing three years later. But he also sees that she's really indecisive about her goals. She's proven she could excel anywhere but also that she has no idea where she'd be happy. So he gives her the opportunity to figure that out, because he knows she can handle it.

In conclusion lay off my guy he's being the best teacher he can be with the knowledge he has of his students.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Aaron Sibarium

Published: May 23, 2024

Up to half of UCLA medical students now fail basic tests of medical competence. Whistleblowers say affirmative action, illegal in California since 1996, is to blame.

Long considered one of the best medical schools in the world, the University of California, Los Angeles's David Geffen School of Medicine receives as many as 14,000 applications a year. Of those, it accepted just 173 students in the 2023 admissions cycle, a record-low acceptance rate of 1.3 percent. The median matriculant took difficult science courses in college, earned a 3.8 GPA, and scored in the 88th percentile on the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT).

Without those stellar stats, some doctors at the school say, students can struggle to keep pace with the demanding curriculum.

So when it came time for the admissions committee to consider one such student in November 2021—a black applicant with grades and test scores far below the UCLA average—some members of the committee felt that this particular candidate, based on the available evidence, was not the best fit for the top-tier medical school, according to two people present for the committee's meeting.

Their reservations were not well-received.

When an admissions officer voiced concern about the candidate, the two people said, the dean of admissions, Jennifer Lucero, exploded in anger.

"Did you not know African-American women are dying at a higher rate than everybody else?" Lucero asked the admissions officer, these people said. The candidate's scores shouldn't matter, she continued,  because "we need people like this in the medical school."

Even before the Supreme Court's landmark affirmative action ban last year, public schools in California were barred by state law from considering race in admissions. The outburst from Lucero, who discussed race explicitly despite that ban, unsettled some admissions officers, one of whom reached out to other committee members in the wake of the incident. "We are not consistent in the way we apply the metrics to these applicants," the official wrote in an email obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. "This is troubling."

"I wondered," the official added, "if this applicant had been [a] white male, or [an] Asian female for that matter, [whether] we would have had that much discussion."

Since Lucero took over medical school admissions in June 2020, several of her colleagues have asked the same question. In interviews with the Free Beacon and complaints to UCLA officials, including investigators in the university's Discrimination Prevention Office, faculty members with firsthand knowledge of the admissions process say it has prioritized diversity over merit, resulting in progressively less qualified classes that are now struggling to succeed.

Race-based admissions have turned UCLA into a "failed medical school," said one former member of the admissions staff. "We want racial diversity so badly, we're willing to cut corners to get it."

This story is based on written correspondence between UCLA officials, internal data on student performance, and interviews with eight professors at the medical school—six of whom have worked with or under Lucero on medical student and residency admissions.

Together, they provide an unprecedented account of how racial preferences, outlawed in California since 1996, have nonetheless continued, upending academic standards at one of the top medical schools in the country. The school has consequently taken a hit in the rankings and seen a sharp rise in the number of students failing basic standardized tests, raising concerns about their clinical competence.

"I have students on their rotation who don't know anything," a member of the admissions committee told the Free Beacon. "People get in and they struggle."

It is almost unheard of for admissions officials to go public, even anonymously, and provide a window into confidential deliberations, much less to accuse their colleagues of breaking the law or lowering standards. They've agreed to come forward anyway, several officials told the Free Beacon, because the results of Lucero's push for diversity have been so alarming.

"I wouldn't normally talk to a reporter," a UCLA faculty member said. "But there's no way to stop this without embarrassing the medical school."

Within three years of Lucero's hiring in 2020, UCLA dropped from 6th to 18th place in U.S. News & World Report's rankings for medical research. And in some of the cohorts she admitted, more than 50 percent of students failed standardized tests on emergency medicine, family medicine, internal medicine, and pediatrics.

Those tests, known as shelf exams, which are typically taken at the end of each clinical rotation, measure basic medical knowledge and play a pivotal role in residency applications. Though only 5 percent of students fail each test nationally, the rates are much higher at UCLA, having increased tenfold in some subjects since 2020, according to internal data obtained by the Free Beacon.

That uptick coincided with a steep drop in the number of Asian matriculants and tracks the subjective impressions of faculty who say that students have never been more poorly prepared.

One professor said that a student in the operating room could not identify a major artery when asked, then berated the professor for putting her on the spot. Another said that students at the end of their clinical rotations don't know basic lab tests and, in some cases, are unable to present patients.

"I don't know how some of these students are going to be junior doctors," the professor said. "Faculty are seeing a shocking decline in knowledge of medical students."

And for those who've seen the competency crisis up close, double standards in admissions are a big part of the problem. "All the normal criteria for getting into medical school only apply to people of certain races," an admissions officer said. "For other people, those criteria are completely disregarded."

Led by Lucero, who also serves as the vice chair for equity, diversity, and inclusion of UCLA's anesthesiology department, the admissions committee routinely gives black and Latino applicants a pass for subpar metrics, four people who served on it said, while whites and Asians need near perfect scores to even be considered.

The bar for underrepresented minorities is "as low as you could possibly imagine," one committee member told the Free Beacon. "It completely disregards grades and achievements."

Lucero did not respond to a request for comment.

Several officials said that they support holistic admissions and don't believe test scores should be judged in isolation. The problem, as they see it, is that the committee is not just weighing academic merit against community service or considering how much time a given student had to study for the MCAT. For certain applicants, they say, hardship and community service seem to be the only things that matter to the majority of the committee's 20-30 members, many of whom were handpicked by Lucero, according to people familiar with the selection process.

"We were always outnumbered," an admissions officer told the Free Beacon, referring to committee members who expressed concern about low grades. "Other people would get upset when we brought up GPA."

Lucero hasn't been kind to dissenters. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, six people who've worked with her described a pattern of racially charged incidents that has dispirited officials and pushed some of them to resign from the committee.

She has lashed out at officials who question the qualifications of minority candidates, five sources said, suggesting naysayers are "privileged," implying that they are racist, and subjecting them to diversity training sessions.

After a Native American applicant was rejected in 2021, for example, Lucero chewed out the committee and made members sit through a two-hour lecture on Native history delivered by her own sister, according to three people familiar with the incident. No applications were reviewed that day, an official present for the lecture said.

In the anesthesiology department, where Lucero helps rank applicants to the department's residency program, she has rebuffed calls to blind the race of candidates, telling colleagues in a January 2023 email that, despite California's ban on racial preferences, "we are not required to blind any information."

That alone could get UCLA in legal trouble, according to Adam Mortara, the lead trial lawyer for the plaintiffs in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the Supreme Court case that outlawed affirmative action nationwide.

Asking for information about an applicant's race when "no lawful use can be made of it" is "presumptively illegal," Mortara said. "You can't have evidence of overt discrimination like this and not have someone come forward" as a plaintiff.

Lucero has even advocated moving candidates up or down the residency rank list based on race. At a meeting in February 2022, according to two people present, Lucero demanded that a highly qualified white male be knocked down several spots because, as she put it, "we have too many of his kind" already. She also told doctors who voiced concern that they had no right to an opinion because they were "not BIPOC," sources said, and insisted that a Hispanic applicant who had performed poorly on her anesthesiology rotation in medical school should be bumped up. Neither candidate was ultimately moved.

Lucero's comments from the meeting were flagged in an email to UCLA's Discrimination Prevention Office, which has received several complaints about her since 2023, emails show. The office has declined to act on those complaints on the grounds that they aren't "serious enough" to merit an investigation, according to a source with direct knowledge of the situation. The Discrimination Prevention Office did not respond to a request for comment.

The focus on racial diversity has coincided with a dramatic shift in the racial and ethnic composition of the medical school, where the number of Asian matriculants fell by almost a third between 2019 and 2022, according to publicly available data. No other elite medical school in California saw a similar decline.

As the demographics of UCLA have changed, the number of students failing their shelf exams has soared, trends professors at the medical school say are connected.

Between 2020, the year Lucero assumed her post, and 2023, when the first classes she admitted were taking their shelf exams, the failure rate rose dramatically across all subjects, in some cases increasing tenfold relative to the 2020 baseline, per internal data obtained by the Free Beacon.

"UCLA still produces some very good graduates," one professor said. "But a third to a half of the medical school is incredibly unqualified."

The collapse in qualifications has been compounded by UCLA's decision, in 2020, to condense its preclinical curriculum from two years to one in order to add more time for research and community service. That means students arrive at their clinical rotations with just a year of courses under their belt—some of which focus less on science than social justice.

First-year students spend three to four hours every other week in "Structural Racism and Health Equity," a required class that covers topics like "fatphobia," has featured anti-Semitic speakers, and is now the subject of an internal review. They spend an additional seven hours a week in "Foundations of Practice," which includes units on "interpersonal communication skills" and, according to one medical student, basically "tells us how to be a good person." The two courses eat up time that could be spent on physiology or anatomy, professors say, and leave struggling students with fewer hours to learn the basics.

"This has been a colossal failure," one professor posted in April on a forum for medical school applicants. "The new curriculum is not working and the students are grossly unprepared for clinical rotations."

Nearly a fourth of UCLA medical students in the class of 2025 have failed three or more shelf exams, data from the school show, forcing some students to repeat classes and persuading others to postpone a different test, the Step 2 licensing exam, that is typically taken in the third year of medical school and is a prerequisite for most residency programs.

Around 20 percent of UCLA students have not taken Step 2 by January of their fourth year, according to the data. Ten percent have not even taken the more basic Step 1—an "extremely high number," one professor said, that will force many students to extend medical school.

"It's a combination of a bad curriculum and bad selection," another professor said, referring to the admissions process. Some students are accepted with GPAs so low "they shouldn't even be applying."

UCLA did not respond to a request for comment.

As medical schools around the country adjust to the Supreme Court's affirmative action ban, the experience of UCLA offers a preview of how administrators may skirt the law and devise public-spirited excuses for violating it.

Lucero has told the admissions committee that each class should "represent" the "diversity" of California, including its remote and rural areas, so that graduating students will return to their hometowns and beef up the medical infrastructure there, officials say.

Race is rarely mentioned outright, and unlike the committee for anesthesiology residents, the committee for students does not see the race or ethnicity of applicants.

Instead, officials say, Lucero uses proxies like zip codes and euphemisms like "disadvantaged" to shut down criticism of unqualified candidates, citing a finding from the Association of American Medical Colleges that, technically, most students with below-average MCATs make it to their second year of medical school. How well they do after that point goes undiscussed and undisclosed.

"We have asked for metrics on how these folks actually do," one committee member said. "None of that is ever divulged to us."

==

Hope your next doctor isn't from UCLA.

Wokeness has a body count.

[lastlycoris]

you do know that doctors make mistakes too and that there are negligent doctors. you can't judge nurse practitioners just because there are a few bad eggs.

You're right. Doctors do make mistakes. Doctors can be negligent. Doctors can be abusive. I've seen many flavors of doctor and resident and midlevel and nurse practitioner in my admittedly short career.

Medicine is ultimately a profession where you can do everything right - and still fail anyway. And honestly, we probably don't do everything right either, but we do our best to try.

And doctors try by getting the education, training and experience needed to practice medicine. Starting from college, where we have to take dedicated premedical education (such as organic chemistry) in college and taking the MCAT (Medical College Admission Test), we strive to get the highest GPA and MCAT score we can because medical school requires that. The average GPAs and percentile MCAT a medical school would accept is 3.6 or higher and 80th percentile respectively. It's why acceptance rates to medical school overall are 10% or less.

Of course, if you want to get into a good residency, you have to do well in medical school and do well on the medical licensing exams (USMLE) - two of which you take during school. This is especially true if you want a competitive specialty like dermatology, plastic surgery, or neurosurgery. Furthermore, during med school, you're already taking care of patients in your third and fourth years.

Oh, and finally residency - where you finally go into your subspecialty and are actually responsible for patients. That's another 3-4 years before you pass your board exam and finally become an attending physician.

From college to graduation, that's at least 11 years of getting a medical education. Now, I say all this because I now want to make a comparison for an NP.

To get a Bachelors in Nursing (assuming you're in the nursing track from the start), it takes 4 years. You get around 700-800 hours of clinical work, which we'll include for the sake of comparison, even though the 700-800 hours you work as a nurse are not the same as 700-800 hours as working as a doctor in terms of duties. And in the process of getting the NP degree, you get around 1500 hours of clinical training. This is in stark contrast to medical school where you can get 6000 hours of clinical training alone - and residency which adds a whopping 9000-10000 hours.

Ultimately, a doctor is not allowed to prescribe, treat, or diagnose a patient independently until they've allotted at least 16000 hours in clinical training - working with actual patients. I haven't even included actual preclinical education hours like pharmacology and such.

NP organizations arguing for independent practice for NPs (NPs being able to do things unsupervised by doctors) state that NPs should be able to do all the things that a doctor does - only after 1500 hours of clinical experience. A tenth of what is required a doctor.

I am judging those "independent NPs", especially the ones that practice as an NP straight out of school with a minimum of nursing experience, because you have a tenth of the clinical experience - not even as much as a graduating medical student - and still believe you have the knowledge and expertise to practice independently - to do everything a doctor does? That is arrogance.

At least when a reasonable doctor makes a mistake, there's 16000 hours of training and education behind it.

When a reasonable independent NP makes a mistake, there's only 1500 hours of the same.

And it's not fair for the patient who is being told that getting care from an independent NP is "just as good" as getting it from the doctor? No. It's not even close. And as I've said in a previous post, an independent NP is not held to the same standard of care as a doctor is.

So what these guys are telling the patient is:

"Hi, I'm an independent nurse practitioner. I deliver just as good care as a doctor does. Oh but if I make a mistake, I won't be held to the standards of a doctor."

Please make this make sense for me.

You don't recognize what you don't know. The education and training requirements are there for a reason - and trying to bypass that will only end in tragedy for both the practitioner and the patient.

[11queensupreme11]

hey! i've been following you through tsunami from the last six months and made my way here after the introduction of arsenic blues and i've learned to treat your words as gospel bc ur a literal genius!!!

anyways you've mentioned that (correct me if i'm wrong) you are going the psycharity route through a psychology major. funny enough i've been considering psychiatry for a while as i know that i want to be in the medical field and this route aligns best with my interests.

anyways i was wondering about the route you're taking and any insider tips and tricks (of sorts) that you have. i'm totally dreading med school and the MCAT and essentially the entire academic process. (i would totally consider being a therapist and going more that route but i do want to learn a lot of the emergency aid as a backup and for like practical purposes and also i need that salary in this economy...)

anyways, so what classes do you feel is the best in helping you (or the most interesting lol)? what about the major bc im worried that biochem or something else will give me a lot of unnecessary classes that only may or may not help me on the mcat? how do you manage your time and study in general?

anything helps! (this is going to be so embarrassing if i get some of the facts wrong lol)

i haven't taken the mcat yet or prepped for it, but this man i knew HEAVILY recommended using the kaplan mcat prep books because that helped him the most

this is the link but dont buy it until you're ready to start studying

as for classes, i can't really tell you which classes you take because it all depends in your school. i do suggest to check your college website to see if it has a page with a list of recommended classes needed for med school. if there's no page, then please PLEASE go talk to a guidance counselor/advisor so they could tell you what premed courses to take

i think it'd be easier to major in biology cuz a lot of classes required for the major also fall under the requirements for med school! i just really really really like psychology more, so i decided to major in that. you can do that too, but just be aware you'd be taking classes for your GE requirements, major requirements, AND premed requirements. you most likely won't be able to graduate within the timeframe you want.

when you're picking your classes for the semester tho.... pls don't stack together all your stem courses like i'm doing lol. i'm taking a bio with lecture and lab, an anthro class with lecture and lab, a calculus class, and some psych classes. unless you're absolutely certain that you can handle the stress, i suggest you take a few stem classes and a few non-stem classes to even it out.

(beware that if you do shit in the semester, you'll be put in academic probation 💀)

another thing you should note, there are two types of med school: an md (doctor of medicine) and DO (doctor of osteopathic medicine). do is the "easier" (it's actually not, just easier compared to md) path and not as competitive. psychiatry is both MD and DO friendly which is good, but the issue is that some residency programs are elitist and look down on DOs 🙄

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, FIND CLINICAL EXPERIENCE!!! i can't help you with that because i haven't done any yet 💀

actually i was wrong, this is the most important: GET SCHOLARSHIPS!!!! AND GRANTS!!!! MEDICAL SCHOOL IS PRICY!!!!

[dokiyeom]

— PILOT OF A SHOOTING STAR ☆彡 profiles 2

— SUNGHOON: accounting major @ decelis university because he claims he wants to be rich enough to be one of those people that plays golf every weekend even though he barely knows how to golf. actually wants to be a barista and make silly latte art all day long. best friends with jay and jake since high school!

— JAKE: applied physics major @ decelis university and is currently dying because of that choice but also not really. thinks of himself as somewhat adjacent to troy bolton because of his constant internal dilemma because he’’s both a physics nerd and on the rugby team. his most listened to songs during his freshman year of university were getcha head in the game, break the status quo, and breaking free from the hsm soundtrack.

— JAY: business major @ decelis university but wants to transfer to a different major because he feels like soul being sucked away in every business related course he takes because the people are unbearable. has a constant culinary school application tab open on his computer but never goes through with it. also has been warned to not help yn and joshua with their uranuspaste business because its supposedly a pyramid scheme, but they don’t seem like the type, so what’s the harm?

— HEESEUNG: women’s studies major @ decelis university and is very proud of it! he loves women, so why wouldn’t he study and get a degree in them? met jake in general physics class and nearly sobbed when jake offered to help him make sense of the lectures. often disappears from the group to hang out with some tall kid named riki from the dance team

— JUNGWON: biochemistry major @ decelis university with a premed course. is constantly questioning whether or not the money is worth the pain (it is he’s just dramatic) also has frequent nightmares about the mcat even though he still has a few years until he needs to take the exam. is sunghoon’s roommate and is still in shock that sunghoon is an accounting major because in jungwon’s eyes, stem and sunghoon don’t match.

previous | masterlist | next !!

[wakinguponsaturday]

Almost a year to the day after first asking @its-sixxers if I could print out and bind Half Light (after figuring out how one actually does that), I've finally finished it!!!

She's 825 pages long, has some of the early pages warped from glue, and blood (?) staining the text block, and I am so excited to fall in love with Nines and Mary all over again. Thanks for letting me do this, it's been a really rewarding project and I got a new hobby out of it!!!

Please go read Half Light and everything else Six has written, she is immensely talented. Mary is my favourite character in Bloodlines bar none and reading her story endeared me to VTMB when the game itself did not. Six's Fallout works are also masterpieces, and I haven't checked out her newer stuff with Elder Scrolls but I fully intend to because even if I've never touched a Skyrim game in my life, I know I'm going to adore it too!

More info about the process under the cut.

SeaLemon was an invaluable resource starting out here because I barely know how to sew and I had no idea how to approach the actual construction of a book. I'm gonna plug her right off the bat because she's very beginner-friendly if anyone else wants to learn.

But before all of that I had to format everything in Word! Chapter by chapter I copied the text over from the downloadable PDF from AO3 and would scan through the fic to ensure the formatting was correct (italicization, bolding, paragraph breaks, etc). I'd do this for about an hour at a time over the course of a couple months, until I decided to do the rest of it all at once after one March night at 10PM where I decided to learn how to bind it all, because fuck it, why not. (Answer: I was freaked out about my upcoming departmental talk and this seemed like a good distraction).

Printing all of it just on regular printer paper (don't know if I'd do that again in the future, but it's what I had on hand) it ended up being 52 signatures, or collections of 16 pages (4 pieces of paper) folded in half. Pierced holes in all of those using an awl and an old phonebook to hold the pages open, and then used my old embroidery thread to sew them together. This part took me maybe two days because I was just so damn pumped about it lmao. I also don't have any kind of bookpress to weight down the pages, so I had made due with old textbooks and MCAT prep material.

It stayed this way for LITERAL MONTHS as I gathered all the other supplies - chipboard and brushes from my local craft store, PVA glue online, and by far the hardest part was fabric. I've since learned that you can make your own fabric using book cloth and basically anything you want (if I had known this book would have been coated in red silk I swear) but for now I just wanted to be sure it was something designed for this purpose, as the woman at Fabric Land assured me it needed something specialized. So binder's buckram! Took a while to find something local and the color selection was pretty limited, I was hoping for a dark red or a dark blue but the green was the best they had in stock. Took even longer to get here. And by that point I had enough going on that it fell by the wayside until uh.... last week.

I glued the spine, again realizing that maybe I should've just made my own bookpress but powering through with textbooks to hold things in place, and let that sit for a couple days to fully dry. Ideally it would be flat, but beggars cannot be choosers. Gave her a lil ribbon too.

Not pictured because I forgot, the final text block with black construction paper glued to it to form the inside cover (would probably use something thicker/crisper in the future, something more like cardstock perhaps?). But then it came to putting the cover together! And that was just cutting chipboard to fit and gluing it correctly onto the fabric, leaving gaps around the spine.

Let that dry, and then I glued the text block in and let everything sit for just over 24h, again with makeshift weights to prevent the fabric warping (it's the second book from the bottom).

And then tada! Finished book! (This one's from before it was pressed but it looks the same now)

All in all extremely cool to hold in my hands and I look forward to the next fic that makes me this insane. If I get permission to do The Sun Is Now Fading I might take a crack at that and make a little set! Follow your dreams and one day you too will be able to take notes in the margins of your favourite Vampire the Masquerade fic.

[johnypage95]

[an-over-educated-woman]

A Love Letter.

Hey,

It’s been a long time, and I think I finally figured out what I needed to say to you.

I miss you. Even after everything that’s happened; all the anger and petty drama and mishandlings of our friendship. I miss you and there are still days where things happen and I want to go and tell you about them. I want to see your face light up when I tell you good news, I want to hear your laugh when I relay a funny story, and I want to commiserate with you about the many ironies of working in healthcare. I want to tell you that graduate school is going great, that I’ve fallen in love and that he’s everything, and that I’m having a crisis about turning twenty-five.

 I’d like to think that you’d be proud of me. The dated illusion of you in my mind- my conceptualization of the person you were to me two years ago- is proud of me and how far I’ve come. I’ve chased my dreams and achieved a lot more than I thought was possible at first. I hope that you’re achieving a lot now too. I hope that you’re at least studying for the MCAT, cut out those toxic friends, and are dating someone who is good for you. That’s the bare minimum. During the course of our friendship you discovered that I can be hard on people when I know that they can be better. I’m still like that in a lot of ways. I still believe that letting your friends get away with shit makes both us and our friends shitty people. So yeah, I still have those standards. You are so smart, and so talented, and your good humor could reach anyone. Or at least those were some of the things I loved about you before we fell apart. So much time has passed; I could very well not know who you are anymore. But the point is that I hope you won’t waste all of your goodness by wallowing away in the same shithole neighborhood, getting taken advantage of in a job you’re too good for anyways, and allowing another year to pass by where you aren’t going after what you actually want. That’s all!

And as for the other thing- whatever we were at one point in time- I get it now. I get that you figured nothing would come of “us” and now I agree.  The whole situation was just too weird! But even so, I don’t regret it at all, even if you do. You made me feel happy in a pretty dark and confusing time in my life. I remember rushing to toss my apron away after clocking out of work because I knew you had messages waiting for me on my phone. I remember all of the belly laughs and inside jokes we shared. There was a thrill to being young and stupid and crazy about you. 

Sometimes I think about the possibility of crossing paths with you in the future- just seeing you in passing. I think that’s common for folks whose relationships ended the way ours did. It makes my heart hurt to think about the idea of finding you exactly as you were when we fell apart. I’d much rather see you happy. One day, I want to discover that you got up and took action- you went to medical school and are getting to change peoples’ lives for the better every day, just like you said you dreamed about doing. I want to discover that you’ve married a good woman, and that you get to be the dad you’ve said you’ve dreamed of being. I want so much to feel like we can be happy for each other and chalk up all the drama to what it was- people in their twenties fucking up and then moving on.

Okay! I think that’s all I wanted to say. I hope that you’re okay.

Best Wishes,

Phoebe

[jentwt]

sorry if you've answered this before but if you don't mind i have an mcat question. i'm starting my studying now, and i wanted to know how you spread out your content review? did you study a little bit from different sections throughout the week, or did you do all the content review for one section before moving onto the next? and if you don't mind sharing what resources you used, it would be much appreciated. good luck with your application and interview processes!

omg hi fellow mcat taker!

DISCLAIMERS

i have not gotten my score back yet, and honestly i don't feel i performed my best when i took the exam (performance anxiety is Real and it Exists within me @_@) i'm likely going to be studying again to retake - which i accounted for when i began my studies! - so take all my advice with a grain of salt!

TIMELINE

i used a diagnostic to gauge my baseline score before diving into content review. from there i took the sporadic route -- i studied from different sections here & there! since i basically began studying right out of college, there was a good amount of info that i only needed a quick refresher on. i did some research on what previous test-takers said is usually high-yield and focused on those topics as well. about 2 months out i started taking practice FLs -- including my diagnostic, i took a total of 7 FLs prior to my test day with the last one being a week before d-day.

RESOURCES

FREE

Jack Westin is a great online resource. a lot of people recommend their site for CARS and i agree!

i dabbled in some Khan Academy modules from their MCAT course.

if i needed a visual/audio explanation of a concept i went to MCAT Self Prep's youtube channel.

if you lurk through reddit you can also find the MileDown anki deck which is great for active recall in all subjects.

PAID

i started off my content review with TPR's books (i've also heard of friends who used Kaplan's books!) but as time progressed i stopped using them to review and switched to online resources (see above).

as my test date got closer, i started using the sh!t out of UWorld. i got lucky and had a friend who no longer needed their subscription, but if you don't have similar connections i know those prices can get pretty steep. i do however highly recommend this resource because the qbank they have felt similar to the actual exam for me.

when doing FLs i used the ones included in my TPR purchase and then purchased AAMC Practice Exams to mimic the real thing.

TAKEAWAYS

honestly, looking back now i see how disorganized my studying was. but through conversations w other folks who have taken the mcat we've all agreed that you're constantly tweaking your study routine as the months progress. the biggest thing to take into account is your capacity for studying -- consider the amount of time, money, effort you can give to studying while also balancing your other obligations (like classes, work, extracurriculars... your own wellbeing) and move from there!

that was a lengthy response but i hope that answered your questions. if not or if you have more feel free to hmu! give yourself lots of grace when going through this -- you're not alone! a small blog in the abyss of tumblr (me. i'm the blog) is rooting for you :')

[studyabroadconsultancies]

Top 10 Exams to Study Abroad

Studying abroad is a coveted aspiration for many students as it offers the chance to receive a top-notch education, immerse oneself in a new culture, and broaden horizons. However, before embarking on this exciting journey, it's crucial to be well-versed in the exams required for admission to foreign universities and colleges.

These exams act as a standardized measure to assess the academic prowess and English language proficiency of international students. In this blog post, we'll delve into the top 10 exams for studying abroad that you may encounter on your academic journey.

TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language):

This widely accepted English language proficiency test evaluates your ability to comprehend and utilize English at a university level.

IELTS (International English Language Testing System):

Similar to TOEFL, IELTS is another widely recognized test assessing proficiency in listening, reading, writing, and speaking.

SAT (Scholastic Assessment Test):

Widely used for U.S. college admissions, SAT evaluates skills in reading, writing, and math. Many international universities, especially in the U.S., require SAT scores for undergraduate admissions.

ACT (American College Testing):

Another U.S.-centric standardized test measuring proficiency in English, math, reading, and science. Some universities accept either SAT or ACT scores.

GRE (Graduate Record Examination):

This standardized test is essential for admission to graduate programs, particularly in the United States, assessing verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, and analytical writing skills.

GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test):

Tailored for business school admissions, GMAT evaluates analytical writing, integrated reasoning, quantitative reasoning, and verbal reasoning skills.

MCAT (Medical College Admission Test):

Required for medical school admissions in the U.S., Canada, and other countries, MCAT assesses knowledge and skills in natural, behavioral, and social sciences, along with critical analysis and reasoning.

LSAT (Law School Admission Test):

Mandatory for law school admissions in the U.S., Canada, and some other countries, LSAT measures reading comprehension, analytical reasoning, and logical reasoning skills.

DAT (Dental Admission Test):

Essential for dental school admissions in the U.S. and Canada, DAT evaluates knowledge and skills in natural sciences, perceptual ability, reading comprehension, and quantitative reasoning.

OET (Occupational English Test):

Specifically designed for healthcare professionals, OET assesses English proficiency in a healthcare setting.

Understanding the specific exam requirements for your desired country, university, and program is paramount. Early research and preparation are key components to success. Enrolling in preparatory courses, utilizing study materials, and taking practice tests can significantly aid in familiarizing yourself with the exam format and content.

In conclusion, the exams for studying abroad play a pivotal role in the application process, serving as benchmarks for academic and language proficiency. By staying informed about the required exams and starting your preparation well in advance, you can pave the way for a successful study abroad experience. Best of luck on your exams and may your study abroad adventure be fulfilling and enriching!

Read for more info: https://www.tumblr.com/studyabroadconsultancies/739101341234921472/top-10-exams-to-study-abroad

[thelasttime]

hi madie! long time follower, first time asker here. bit of a heavy question for a tuesday night, so I apologize in advance.

how are you able to keep up with so much and also be good at it and also enjoy it? like what drives your incredible work ethic? of course this is the internet and ik we only see your highlight reel and not the behind the scenes stuff, to paraphrase taylor. I'm just having a bit of a rough day academically, as in being totally unproductive all day despite setting intentions this morning to be productive and get a lot of homework done today, which feels very frustrating.

I know you're studying to become a doctor which obvi takes a lot of dedication and hard work which are things I've been trying to improve recently but simply do not come easily to me.

so ig I'm just wondering if you had any advice for being a more dedicated and committed person when it comes to things like school as well as hobbies (congrats on nailing your audition btw!). I really admire your work ethic and wish you all the best in your studies and life and everything! 💓

hello anon!! thank you for being a long time follower and thank you for sending your very first ask 💕💕 welcome to my inbox hehe

thank you so much for the kind words - it's true that my blog is quite like a highlight reel so you do see a lot of the good parts and very few of the bad parts, but i do try to keep it real on this blog. the main thing is that you can't beat yourself up when you have an unproductive day because it sort of snowballs into a bigger thing if you let it weigh you down. rather than taking this unproductive day as something to be ashamed of, take it as something where you needed the break so you took it!! and then tomorrow, be as productive as possible because you had the break yesterday

it's actually encouraged to be unproductive on some days. when i was studying for the MCAT, we were specifically told to take break days and to make sure that we didn't over-extend ourselves because we would just burn out too quickly. so what i would do is study everyday of the week and give myself a nice break on sunday to do absolutely nothing !! and that was necessary !!

i think what also helps with my motivation is that i really like to keep myself organized which means i am religiously devoted to my google calendar and my to-do list. the google calendar is to make sure that i'm not losing track of the things i need to do but the to-do list is the thing that really keeps me going. it's very satisfying to cross things off of my to-do list and it makes sure that i'm doing everything i need to do before the day is done. if i don't finish what's on the to-do list, i just move it to tomorrow and so on. you don't have to finish everything on the to-do list but it keeps you motivated to cross things off and make sure you're doing what you need to do.

when i was studying for the MCAT, i essentially designed a calendar where i would do certain topics on certain days so i would do chemistry / psychology on one day and then biology / biochemistry on the other day. that way i wasn't boring myself to death with one topic and actually keeping things interesting. if you find that studying is really boring (because it truthfully is, for everyone) i find that starting the homework that you hate the most is helpful because you get the worst part over when you have the maximum amount of energy.

another thing about school studying is that you shouldn't just look at the paper and nod thoughtfully - you should be doing ~active studying~ which is what they encourage us to do during MCAT studying as well. you essentially have to engage with the material in order to learn it well so you can't just stare at the page and pretend you know it !! there's a couple techniques of active studying that you can find online but i recommend anything between flashcards to active recall

for hobbies - it's all just my own enjoyment!! i know i get really lazy and in a pit if i'm not doing my hobbies so i have to actively push myself to join orchestras and do stuff outside of work. one thing that really helped me is to focus on a hobby and see what i could do in the area to get involved. so . i really like playing in orchestras so i spent a day focusing on the different orchestras in the area and then sending them emails about their auditions. that way all of my research and dedication to that hobby is done in one day and i get to reap the rewards later (i.e. they email me back about auditions).

it's also okay to let go of hobbies and find new ones. if you don't like your current hobbies, try new ones! ask your friends if they have any hobbies that you haven't tried already. try a new instrument! try painting! art! there's a lot to do and hobbies are meant to be fulfilling rather than draining.

i hope this helps anon!!