Aftermath

It's always a strange thing to spend an evening out with people you only know within a limited context. Last night was our annual Doc Opera performance- Med students acting, singing, dancing, and playing music to make fun of and highlight the life of med students and doctors. Songs such as "DISSECT" (to the tune of "RESPECT") and I believe in a thing called GLOVES (I believe in a thing called love) were some of the performances last night. As usual we congregated at the designated afterparty location in the Cleveland warehouse/club district.

Here's where things got strange. I suppose I am used to medical students drinking by now, but I'm still not used to them "letting their hair down" so to speak. Our normal contacts at school are very impersonal and fairly minimal. At these parties, every person you see thatyou know remotely is greeted with great enthusiasm, although it is likely that you saw them at school just that afternoon and greeted them with barely a "hello". Instead you get "ABI!!!! You're here! How've you been?" *hug hug* *kiss kiss* followed by some scuffling to get you out on the dance floor. This goes on through the evening. It's almost disconcerting to see people you practice physical diagnosis with bump and grind on the dance floor. I experienced the same thing at the AMSA convention a few weeks back. Everyone hooks up in one way or another, often with people they never expected. The next day at school, things are back to normal for the most part. A few cringes and moments of embarassments may crop up in your mind but mostly it's back to normal. I usually wake up the morning after thinking "crap! I cant believe I did those stupid things last night. What was i thinking?" But as it was this morning at our AMSA brunch gathering of slightly hungover students things were back to normal and all business. No mention is made of activities the night prior.
Two mottos come to mind. One from the convention "What happens at AMSA, stays in AMSA." and one i heard my first week at school at an orientation/bar outing "Medical students study Hard and party Hard." ¶ 16:03