USMLE: Working on Our Fitness

Every day we get out of our Kaplan class at like 4 or 5 and go straight to the gym. I love this because it is so stereotypically overachieving med student-y. It's like, "We just sat in class for 8-9 hours and we have a bunch of studying to do afterwards, but we care about our health (and we don't want to get fat)."

Pretty much the entire Kaplan class goes to they gym. Not some of us. Like all of us (okay fine, like 1/2 of us... that's still a lot!). I don't even usually go the UCI gym (called the Anteater Recreation Center or ARC, which I love) and I've been going. It's just such a scene!

It's kind of great because everyone is in a pretty good mood. Like we're suddenly super happy to see each other. As if we hadn't spent the entire day sitting in lecture, standing in the sun during breaks, or eating lunch together. It's like none of us really saw the Post-Kaplan Gym Rush (PKGR) coming and it's such a pleasant surprise that we're all working out together. And it happens every day (well, I can only vouch for days that I go to Fancy Pants Gym for yoga... but I'm pretty sure it happens every day).

We pretty much storm the ARC. Suddenly, all of the machines are being used by med students. Some people study while working out (D), while others (A and myself) harass our classmates from our elliptical machines. Other people make rounds and show off their big muscles (R and J). It's total social hour!

I've been getting super strong, mostly because I do pushups with A. Together. At the same time. We've been recruiting other med students to join us... today our group was up to 5. We're so cool. See people, med students are so cool! We do awesome things like spend all day in class together and then go do synchronized pushups at the gym.

The other fun thing about the PKGR is that we run into our classmates that we haven't seen since school ended. Even though it has only been a few weeks, it feels like it has been months; we greet each other as if we're old friends reuniting after a long separation. Then the non-Kaplan people say something like "Whoa! It's weird to see so many med students here all at once. I don't really like it." And the Kaplan people are like, "Really? We spend all of our time together including changing in the locker room complaining about how we still can't poop."

It's awesome.