SYMPATHETIC STIMULATION

Stressstressstress….all because of one name: Rajesh. Oh, he’s our Cardiovascular system course coordinator who gives lecture notes with more than half of the essentials missing. It took me almost two hours looking for all the missing pieces of information for just one lecture, and he’s the one taking the bulk of our lectures for this system…arrgghhhh! Nice guy, intelligent fellow who laughs at his own jokes… but lousy lecture organization and notes! Help….It’s gonna be one loooonnngg weekend….
But the more stressful thing? PMS (not Pre-Menstrual Syndrome, but Pre-Matching Syndrome). Nah, it actually stands for Partner Medical School. Under the twinning program, we will rank the PMS of our choice from 1 to 23, and each PMS will also rank us from 1 to (?) according to their set of criteria - that is what you call the Matching Process. So here I am, determined to get to Melbourne form day one of my IMU life (because of one very silly reason of fulfilling a certain teenage dream), however now I realize that there are several obstacles in my way:
1. There are only 4 places in Melbourne, and worst case scenario (grossly exaggerated) about 100 of us who might want to get there.
2. JPA has made it compulsory for all of us to put Australian Us at the top of our list, which means competing with all JPA scholars who will undoubtedly put either Melbourne or UNSW as their first choice.
3. The recent policy change in the UK (foreign students are not allowed to do their post graduate degree there) means that I’ll also be competing with at least a quarter of my batch mates.
4. The matching process that supposedly gives a higher weightage to our preference may be random to a certain degree (owing to the fact that some good students don't the U of their choice which was given to the poorer students)
So yeah, it’s like God saying to me in my naïve days in Sem 1, “Do you think I can do this?”, and now the same question, with the addition of the above factors, “Do you still believe I can do this?”. I admit, I need a greater measure of faith. It’s like what Sarah was saying, “God, I don’t care if You put me in a U that I don’t want to be in, just tell me now!” Man, I’m gonna have PMS for a loooonnngg time, since I’ll never know for sure till 11/2 years from now. (We only undertake the Matching Process in our 5th Sem, um, ya, in certain things I look further ahead, the stress might go away in perhaps a month’s time, but the cycle will undoubtedly repeat itself every time my seniors get their PMS results)
All that and knowing that I am guaranteed of the U of my second choice (Queensland) if I write in now, as they come in a first come first serve basis cos Queensland is not in the Matching Process since you’ll have to do a degree in B. Med before going over…kinda complicated. To make it simple, I get second best if I would decide to go for it now and give up the best U which I have a very slim chance of getting into, and it’s one or the other, no second chance.
And I’ve decided to believe that my God is BiG enough to get me in Melbourne, but even if He chooses not to, He will make sure that I get into the BEST U, not my best, but His best.

I know this is really early, but here’s my 1 to 6:
University of Melbourne
University of New South Wales
University of Adelaide
University of Western Australia
University of Newcastle
University of Tasmania

If you would look carefully, it’s actually in the order (first four, or five if you include Queensland) of the cities in which a certain conference will be held, and the last two, in comparison of the amount I would spend on transportation to get to that certain conference. Call me mad, deranged, whatever…that’s my top six, for now.