Christine L. Xu
Stanford University School of Medicine
Don't forget. The Christine of the past still lives in this childhood home, tucked away in the crevices of all the couches and in the dust on all the bookshelves. She skirts around you like a shadow, prancing around while you go about your day, but she never comes within reach.
The Christine of the present lives here, too. Don’t forget, she is home, but she is not on break. She studies for the cardiology and pulmonary blocks with a vigor and rigor that she's never experienced before. This is when medicine became real to her, when medicine became magnified in the flesh and blood of her friends, in the news and on TV, in her textbooks and on her flashcards.
She feels torn, too, by her other duties: to be a good sister, a good daughter, a good partner. With her entire family and her boyfriend now living under the same roof, there is never enough time to do anything well, anything as fully. But she soldiers on. Don’t forget—she has to.