Sweet Home Alabama

So January 26, 2010 is officially one day I will always remember because it's the day that everything became a reality. I've been on Cloud 9 since and I do not ever want to come back down to earth.

So this is the epic journey to Auburn, Alabama.

On Sunday, January 24, 2010, my mom and I left to the San Jose airport to go to Dallas. Everything was fine and dandy until AA told us that Atlanta was stopping all flights going from and to the airport due to thunderstorms. They don't know if they want to cancel our flight or wait so they make us sit in the plane for 90 minutes before they decided it's over. The next flight going to Atlanta was at 11AM the next morning which sounds OK if my interview was at 1PM. However, this flight going to Atlanta would start at 11AM and this doesn't factor in to the trip it would take to drive from Atlanta to Auburn. At this point, I'm thinking that pharmacy school is a dream that I'll never obtain because not only am I unable to get any decent interviews now, God is now sending thunder to prevent me from physically getting to a pharmacy school.

We pretty much beg the American Airlines employee at the counter to find a flight for us at this point that would get us as close to possible to Auburn as we can. My mom wants me to ask the school to postpone the interview but that's not going to happen. The AA lady, who's name I'll never forget now because she saved my professional dreams, named Nora found a flight going to Birmingham later that night. We take it immediately and when we get there, had to transfer the rental car from Atlanta to Birmingham. However, because Dollar-Thrifty rental car does not do one-way stops, we had to cancel the transaction, switch over to National instead and pay an extra $100 to do the one-way stop to Atlanta (since that's where our original return flight was).

We set out at 10-something PM to Auburn on the most epic road trip my mom and I ever experienced. Literally, we were expecting Freddy or Jason to pop out of fog or onto the road at any second. I didn't say this but I should have--that if we did hit them, not to stop but keep driving. Worry about the damages on the car later because I have an interview that I need to attend to. It was the strangest thing driving there as we would encounter a very small town where all the stores like CVS, Wal-Mart, and this grocery chain store (Winn Dixie?) would be off the side of the road followed by nothing but fog, trees, and possibly Jason or Freddy, for the next couple miles. We had the most difficult time finding houses and there were a LOT of ghetto looking gas stations where you sensed a serial killer hiding in the shadows. Even on the road we drove (Interstate 128), we encountered random clusters of fog that would come and vanish, and I was ready to see Freddy or Jason at any second. Fortunately, we never saw them or anyone with a chainsaw.

My mom and I eventually make it to the hotel at close to 1AM and the hotel was absolutely gorgeous and pretty much ON the campus itself. I remember my dad saying we had to drive to the interview site from the hotel just incase. I remember the parking permit that I ordered from the school. None of that would be useful because the permit didn't apply to the parking lot we were in, and being on campus meant it would have been a greater hassle to drive to the site of the interview than it would be to walk there.

The following morning was the day of the interview. My mom and I attended the campus tour and when we got back to the dean's meeting room, I remember telling Steph Chan that I bet I would count less than 5 Asians in the room that were going to be interviewed. I was right. I was the only Asian in the entire room and the only person that came from the west side of Alabama. I was surprised how uninterested people were that I was from California and I felt kind of isolated when everyone was talking about the school they came from, the rivalries among different colleges, not to mention the Recruiter singled out certain candidates openly because of the school they were from. Nonetheless, I recall there being way too much time for Q&A to the extent we had no more questions to ask by 9:30AM and on the itinerary, there were still another 4-5 Q&A opportunities to go.

After some Q&A moments, we were divided up into groups of 3 or 4 where we had to go to a room and have a prof or admissions member observe how we all behaved in a group setting. We were really nervous at first because I thought this was going to be either the same group activity I was placed under when I had my student advising interview in which we had to construct a study skills class on the spot or the horrifying group interview I experienced at Midwestern. Luckily, it was neither. We were giving realistic scenarios of what we would encounter if we worked in a pharmacy and what we determined was important in pharmacy care. Situation 1 dealt with a story I've heard before in which a guy, who's wife is dying from some incurable disease is a WHO volunteer, and a young pharmacist is offering a compounded drug at a discounted price but the guy is too poor to pay for it. What should he do if the drug had a 60% chance of saving his wife's life? The second situation was XYZ pharmacy is taking over your business in Family Friendly Pharmacy and one of the physicians who you formed an alliance with unintentionally screwed you and your white-teeth smiles image over. Describe and rank what values you hold for both these circumstances and discuss them as a group.

Initially, they had trouble connecting the videoconferencing technology in our room over to the videoconference at the Mobile campus. After we finished the group activity, all three of us forgot that we had an observer because we were too involved in the group interview to notice the television screen. I thought it was humorous how all three of our stomachs kept making noises throughout the whole activity and we sort of whispered to each other if our stomachs could be heard through the phone.

I have to mention though that the most hilarious part of the interview was one of the options to a situation you had to handle. You are the pharmacy manager and two technicians are complaining about having time off at the same time. How do you resolve this problem? One of the responses was "host a contest to see which technician can fill the most prescriptions in 1 hour". That is reality show material right there. And then Tyra Banks, PharmD. would instruct the technicians that you also got to look fierce typing and work those white lab coats.

Once we were done, we were the last group to join the others in the Dean's Meeting Room for lunch which was Panera! I couldn't really focus at that point because I was so hungry so before I got to ask the P3 and P1 students about their experience at Auburn, I inhaled a turkey sandwich and a bag of chips before I realized where I was and who was sitting next to me. The most interesting thing I learned from them was that it's not uncommon for Auburn students to leave in trailer parks. I'm guessing they haven't seen what California trailer parks are like. I got my chance to ask a few questions about what they were involved in, residency, and how the classes are structured (tests, quizzes, interrogations).

Once lunch was over, the admissions committee divided us up into 2 groups. I was in Group 2 so we got to have our pictures taken for the admissions committee to remember us. I always like to think that our pictures are taken for these situations so they can throw darts at us...I'm not sure why. Apparently, these pictures, if we are accepted, will be our student IDs. I was the first to have my picture taken but the really nice lady had to take my picture about 8 times because I failed to graduate from the college awkwardness of blinking whenever the camera flashed. After that, we got a very abbreviated tour of the pharmacy building where we only saw a few lecture halls, study rooms, and the clinic, which was reminiscent of CVS. Then, we were taken back to the Dean's Room where there was still 35-40 min left on the clock before it was our turn to interview. At 1:30, the first girl from Group 1 came back and in no time, all of us nervous girls were asking about how the interview went.

At some point, during this large amount of downtime, I'm not sure how or why but this one Ohio candidate with a super resume and I started a friendly verbal competition of who went to college in the most dangerous city. Hers was Toledo and mine was Stockton but I gave her the victory when she said people have been stabbed on her campus. UOP may have had a homicide but not on the campus itself. We talked about the ridiculousness of other pharmacy schools and basically got to know each other more about where we came from and what we were up to. They were all really friendly but really nervous which I don't blame them. In my mind, I was trying to follow advice from a StudentDoctor.Net article that encouraged interview candidates to keep to themselves to prevent psyching each other out. I noticed the waiver in their voices when they were anxious about it not being 2PM yet and us waiting in the room.

The next girl that came out of Group 1 was pretty early as well. When I noticed she and I had the same interviewers, I asked her how the professor and P3 student was since the 1st girl that came back told us how awkward her interview felt. I didn't get much of a response so I knew I was on my own.

I won't lie about how tough the interview was. I did my research on what questions they asked but this school was one step ahead. The two most difficult questions that I was asked was "describe a time in which you had to take care of a person older than 50 but was not your parent, family member, or teacher" and "name 3 people from the past, present, and future whom you would like to have dinner with and why."

Holy moly. The most I had prepared was Larry King because in my opinion, he is one of the most respected journalists. He is a fantastic interviewer who listens, asks the right questions, and respects the people that he interviews all which are qualities highly regarded in the health profession. Then, this was where I got stuck on choosing the next person. When I was thinking of who to select from the past, (never mind that a 'future' person had not even crossed my mind at that moment) for some reason, I could not think beyond these three individuals: Jesus, Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln. For some reason I was going to say Abe Lincoln because you can trust he didn't cut down the cherry tree. What???

But then the professor must have noticed me really struggle with that question because then he changed it to three people from the present. I was still trapped. Then, wordvomit occurred and Barrack Obama became my unintentional 2nd choice. Then, I suddenly became aware that Alabama was a red state. However, I justified that Barrack Obama, regardless that our personal views and beliefs differ, is an incredibly fascinating (my favorite word at this point) individual and I would love to learn what his thoughts were as he rose from the beaches of Hawaii to being elected to the most powerful political seat in the world. I would love to learn how he became the person he was. I wanted to Larry King him.

My third choice was a celebrity. Audrey Hepburn never crossed my mind even though I always talk about how much I idolize her style and persona. The same pause occurred where I couldn't think beyond Paris Hilton. This wasn't an interview for Teen Vogue, this is an interview for pharmacy school. I was about to say Lady Gaga but I doubt the professor would know who she was, so I picked Madonna, someone who everyone knows has made a significant contribution to pop culture, society, and feminism.

I realized I could have picked a scientist or a pharmacist...but it was already too late. I did have Einstein in the back of my head, but I really wasn't interested in having dinner with Einstein and talking about the laws of relativity...I should have said Darwin! However, if I do meet Obama, Madonna, or Larry King some day, I will thank them for getting me into pharmacy school. Obama can make things happen! Madonna use to work at Dunkin Donuts and Larry King never went to college!

I ended up being the 2nd to last person to return to the Dean's Room and I had a sinking feeling that my words during my interview were too strong. Did I sound too desperate? Were my words too extreme? I remember using terms like "I can't imagine myself doing anything else" and "this is what I was meant to do." Maybe I should have held back a little. Later, I met up with my mom and we decided to drive over to the nearby town of Opelika after I asked my dad (over the phone) to convince her to take me around after a stressful day. The malls they had really reminded me of the Stockton malls. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing. Mom was disappointed that she couldn't find Coach and Louis Vuitton, so I had to constantly remind her that we weren't in San Francisco. The dinner we had wasn't very good as my mom and I argued about where to eat. She refused to step foot in any restaurant serving pizza and sandwiches despite the fact we were in a traditional college town. She didn't understand the correlation of pizza and sandwiches is to traditional college town is the same as getting fries at McDonald's. Therefore, we ended up eating back at the hotel we were staying at.

The following morning, my mom was incredibly stressed out and panicky for reasons I'm still not sure of, checking our rental car every 5 seconds (literally) as she kept leaning over to look out the window while we were having breakfast. When I brought this up to my dad over the phone, we broke out into an argument in which she told me how I was disrespectful, ungrateful, and if I wasn't such a failure why would I be interviewing here in the first place. This argument proceeded all the way to the Atlanta airport, to Dallas (where our flight got delayed for 45 minutes due to a missing rubber seal in the engine), and back home to the American Idol auditions. I spoke as little as I could because of the emotional trauma I felt I was experiencing. But honestly, if there was anything I learned from my experiences here, it's that Dallas + American Airlines do not mix.

During the terrible American Idol auditions, at around 8:15PM, I decided to check my e-mail which I haven't checked since Sunday. My heart sank when I saw that the admissions committee was responding much earlier than I expected. A perfectly decent trip to Alabama went from bad to worse to downright I-wish-my-life-was-over. The admissions committee had told us their decision could take up to 14 days. However, my interviewing professor said the committee meets right after the interviews are over to discuss who's gets the ax. One of the P3 students that had lunch with us said give them until Wednesday...Thursday at the latest. All I could think was 'my life is going to be decided that soon'?

My heart was sinking when I clicked on the e-mail. I wasn't even emotionally prepared especially after everything I experienced that day. However, the first word I read was "Congratulations..."

Huh?

Wait a second.

Did they send this to the wrong person?

Is this really happening? I think my brain was about to explode that moment because all of my thoughts became run-on sentences and incoherent. Going somewhere in the fall? Don't worry anymore? Pharmacy reality? My dad's coming home Thursday? My mom is right there? I've been wondering so long? I got acce...?

I look over to my mom who's in the family room watching American Idol. Simon Cowell's words were becoming jibberish. I could care less that Avril Lavigne was a 20-year old behaving like a high school brat. Oh my gosh. OH my GOSH.

The first thing I think I did was shake my head, pointed up, and said thank you. Then, I tried as calmly as I could, walk over to the family room, shut off my mom's television and she's about to flip out again like she did earlier this morning, which was then I said: Mom, I'm going to pharmacy school this fall. I got accepted.

She suddenly stood up to hug me and cried uncontrollably pretty much telling me how proud she was for me saying that she was sorry for all the things she said and how hard she was on me for so long and the whole 9 yards. I don't even care at this point what she said that morning. I can only sense her body trembling from the news and from her crying. I couldn't cry though. I was too happy and all I could think was 'finally'. I was waiting to wake up but now I realize it's not a dream. I'm going to pharmacy school in 7 months. I'm not going to wait anymore. It's here and finally finally finally everything I have done suddenly has a vision. I finally see where I'm walking towards.

We tried to finish watching American Idol but we couldn't focus at all. Later on, I would realize my mom had no idea which school accepted me but then figured out it was Auburn after I mentioned how the school got back to me so fast. Everything Simon, Randy, and Kara said went way over my head. I could care less that Katy Perry felt dirty. I am going to pharmacy school.

At this point, I forgot I had a brother. I went to tell my dad over Skype what had happened. I tricked him into thinking that Hayward sent me some fees I had to pay up. He opened the e-mail to realize the e-mail was not from Hayward but my forwarded acceptance letter from Auburn and he said "YE-EAH!!" in a tone I've never heard before. Afterwards, I proceeded to drive to Angela's house to tell her news. She was about to leave her house with Pastor Jay from the parking lot with her kids when I came up. She was confused when she saw me asking if I was OK, if my mom was at home, and my dad was in Taiwan, believing that my mom and I got into another argument. I told her that I was doing fine. I'm not upset, I'm doing fine. BUT...I have some news to share.

The last people I spoke to that night was Vivian, Daniel, then Ryan. I wanted them to know about it in person before I announced it publicly.

On one of my fortune cookies, I wrote 1/27: Now, you can finally sleep. Ironically, I haven't been able to sleep well because I'm still giddy from the excitement. It really has been a fairy tale and the only thing I'm scared of is someone's going to wake me up from it at any moment. I'm waiting for the e-mail that says "sorry, we sent this to the wrong person."

I never thought how much that one day has affected me and changed my family. It's such an incredible feeling because even though so many things have gone wrong in the past two years, I feel like this one moment made everything. Made every single difficult moment worth it. There's this huge burden that fell off my back. My life's not suddenly perfect and peachy, but something here got fixed. I think that night, two years worth of frustration and anger and hurt dissolved in that instant. As terrible as that day began, it ended so perfectly. It's safe to say for me that it really is going down as perhaps the best night of my life because so much pain vanished that night. I didn't cry at all but my cheeks were sore from all the smiling that happened and I hardly got any sleep.

So at this point, I'm just trying to absorb this reality and right now, reality is really good.