PUCMM

It took more than two weeks to get my classes straightened out, coordinating between the U of M and PUCMM. In the end I got really lucky. I’m taking community medicine—that’s the one where we go to Pequeños Pasitos, topics in community medicine which deals with public health issues in this country (a great class, but I’m afraid I gave the professor the impression that I’m bored by it the other day, because I was having one of my morning Hashimoto’s-induced I-can’t-think-to-save-my-life episodes), introduction to health care where we basically get to pretend we’re doctors, immunology with the med students, thermodynamics with the engineering boys, and the class for our research projects. I had to dance too, but I dropped that so I’d have Wednesdays free for volunteering. It was a little sad, but dance in dance class is disappointing compared to discotecs anyway. All of my classes are great, except the research project class, which is boring and frustration. And I basically get treated like a med student—yep, I own my own stethocope and wear a lab coat to class! It’s pretty great because it’s almost like a trial run for med school. The other great thing about this arrangement, and the reason I spent two weeks trying to make it work, is that I can use thermodynamics and immunology toward my degrees, which means I can definitely graduate this May with both majors and both minors, and I won’t have to take any classes next summer if I don’t want to! Which is cool with all the other stuff I’ll have—you know, getting married, MCAT, finding a job…of course, everyone still thinks I’m crazy. When I told Mani, one of the guys from thermodynamics, that I’m also in immunology, he couldn’t believe it. But it’s nice to have classes that are with Dominicans—everything expect those two classes is with extranjeros—foreigners. At first in immunology, no one would talk to me and the girls sort of blew me off. Then creepy boy started talking to me in class—but by the time I figured out that he’s younger than my little brother and was flirting with me, he’d already gotten my phone number. He called me five times that week—I ignored all of them. I kind of rudely ignored him in the last lecture we had, but I’ve started being polite again now that I think he’s gotten the hint. Then yesterday girls finally started talking to me! I would really like to have some Dominicana amigas, so that was exciting. They were sharing notes with me and starting up conversations about the quiz—I’d been confused about what we were supposed to study and totally bombed it. And the girls in my lab section are really nice. I’m hoping I can find a few people I can study with before the first exam.
Thermodynamics is another story. It’s a small class, and people started talking to me right away—which is probably because they’re all boys. One of the first guys who started talking to me—Mani—has a girlfriend in Canada, so when he started talking to me all the other boys were joking that he was going to switch from Canada to the U.S. Anyway they’re all very friendly and not creepy at all, which is nice. It seems I’m a bit of a novelty—I don’t think there are any girls in their whole matriculating class. Everyone seems a little surprised that I’m actually taking this class for credit—I’m guessing no one expected me to still be there past the drop deadline. Mani told me the other day that when I walked into class the first day, they all thought I was either crazy or lost, and no one expected me to stay. I’m going to have to really work on this class now, as I figure I owe it to feminism to do well.