Let your mind start a journey through a strange new world...

One year ago on this day, I drove down to Corpus Christi for my first rotation of third year: pediatrics. Now that was a memorable rotation. Who can ever forget Cafe Driscoll, hanging out with the Corpus Crew, the death of little AJ (for Elizabeth and me), and riding in the same car as Amy? I entered medical school thinking I was going to be a pediatrician; Driscoll (and also family practice) taught me that as much as I love kids, I don't want to spend the rest of my life treating them. And now, one of the entries I promised:

Where did "Let the dream begin" come from?

Let the dream begin,
Let your darker side give in
To the power of the music that I write...
The power of the music of the night

This is an excerpt from the song "Music of the Night" from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera, my long-time favorite musical. I first heard the original Broadway soundtrack in its entirety when I was around 13 or 14, and I totally fell in love with it. Who wouldn't love hearing Raoul sing, "All I Ask of You" to Christine, where he promises to love her and protect her? To this day I still think it's one of the most romantic songs ever. =) I've listened to the soundtrack so many times that I know all the words to almost every song by heart (except for "Masquerade" and "Prima Donna" b/c there's too many people singing in those), and I was so happy when I got to play "Selections from Phantom of the Opera" in high school. I practiced those pieces so much that I can still play them from memory to this day (just not as well as I used to). "Music of the Night" is one of my favorites; it's my ringtone for text messages as well =) Even more importantly, Phantom of the Opera introduced me to the world of musicals in general, and now I love musicals. I got to see Miss Saigon on Broadway and Phantom of the Opera (of course) in college. I want to see Avenue Q this month downtown, but I probably won't b/c of boards. Oh well.

So why "Let the dream begin?" Because when I first started this blog, we were leaving behind the familiar world of classrooms and textbooks for a brand new world of clinical rotations. Here's another excerpt from "Music of the Night:"

Let your mind start a journey through a strange, new world!
Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before!
Let your soul take you where you long to be!
Only then can you belong to me...

Just as the Phantom tries to persuade Christine to leave her old life behind to be with him, we all had to leave a part of ourselves behind when we entered 3rd year and took one step closer to fulfilling our goals of becoming doctors. We can't be those innocent, naive, wide-eyed first and second year students playing doctor in Clin Med anymore. We have to start taking more responsibility because one day, we'll be the ones giving orders and trying to help people other than ourselves. And when we graduate, this will no longer be a dream, but our reality.