The promised gossip post

Let's start with the girl everyone talks about all the time. Mostly because she talks about herself all the time. That includes class time. For example, in a 170 minute class, she spoke up 21 times (yes, we counted), which works out to about once every 8 minutes. And every one of those times she shared a story from while she lived in France, or while she worked in the trauma ward, or talked about a research study she's in for herpes (seriously), the list goes on and on. She has yet to contribute a useful thought to class discussion. Also, she's stick thin and always dressed like a runway model. The really sad part, though, is that she's a Fuld Scholar.

Next, Sara, who is almost certainly transgendered (male->female). She's one of the most interesting people I've ever met. She's got so many degrees it's scary, has lived all over the US, including Portland, and wears sparkly eyeshadow. She hasn't said anything about her gender identity, but based on her build, appearance, and the depth of her voice, she definitely appears trans. Some people seem uncomfortable with that, I can only hope for her sake that her lab partners are not among those people. She's not in my lab, otherwise I'd be looking forward to working with her.

The Princesses: That's what I call the girls that look perfectly made up at 8am, sit all together and giggle at everything, squirm when lectures touch on the icky or awkward, and generally seem useless. I don't actually know them, they're a clique already and will probably never interact with me unless necessary.

The Mormons: I think there are two Mormon men in the class. At least, they both went to Brigham Young University and they both have at least 2 kids, although they only look about 25. One of them did missionary work in Africa. I haven't spoken much to either of them yet.

Other than that, I just hear little bits and pieces of peoples' lives. Some of them have boyfriends/husbands that followed them across the country, some of them have 5 kids, one even played semi-pro basketball in Europe for a while. Everyone has a very different background, so it's interesting to meet and talk to them all. I seem to fall in with the slightly older crowd more often than not, which is okay, but I don't have stories about my 8 year old or my second pregnancy to share. I'm slowly finding people my own age that don't fall into the princess category and I imagine those will end up being my real friends.