Washington Nationals Game

After our first day of orientation to the orientation, some of the guys decided to take the metro to a Washington Nats game. We did the only really exciting thing there is to do in $7 nosebleed seats: drink beer, eat hotdogs, and watch people. The first two were just as I had remembered. The beers were overpriced, the hotdogs tasted like savory racoon meat. But in the people watching, something had changed: I think I am now a lot older. I noticed large clumps of high school kids that looked like they had just received their driver's lisence. Sure, many of them were attractive, even the guys appeared meticulously groomed. But there was something different going on here. Many of these kids seemed to suffer from a tragic case of popped-coller disease. As a Texan in his mid twenties, I was unfamiliar with this disorder as it seems to occur only in the Northeast. At first glance, I was certain that a rogue breeze had raised the collars of a cluster of teenagers. But no, this was a trend that has apparently occured without my knowledge. Perhaps it passed you by as well. I was even more disturbed to notice that some of the collars looked ironed. We considered telling one of them, just as one would do if they noticed an open fly. But the more we laughed about it, the more we realized that we had become a little older, and a little more distanced from youth. It wasnt a bad or depressing thing. In fact, I am glad we realized it. If nothing else, it provided us with entertainment at a baseball game where we could barely see the players.

Anyway, our international nerd brigade had a great time at the game. Probably the last baseball game I will attend in a very long time, perhaps in over a year. Its been really great to go out and get to know other medical students who are about to take off for a year. Kind of takes some of the stress out of my upcoming time in South Africa.