Around me everything is still. The sunsets grow lovelier every night, the children's dinnertime screaming has been replaced by quiet presentation of drawings so I won't forget them. It even seems like half of the residents of my apartment building have gone to their summer cottages à la campagne. But inside me the storm that has been brewing for the last few months is reaching its breaking point.
Ask me about receptor-mediated endocytosis. Ask me about how entropy changes when a protein folds. Let me tell you about the role of telomeres in aging. I've never worked as hard for anything as I've worked for the MCAT. Partially out of boredom but mostly out of fear, I've come to know even the most complex biological concepts like the back of my hand. Am I proud of this? I don't know. College-Miura would have called me a poser, a try-hard. Why put effort into something you're not truly interested in? But now-Miura knows what it means to work hard even when she doesn't want to, and why that's so important.
The first clouds will appear tomorrow night when I anxiously try to sleep before the big day. I'm not scared but I am excited to finally put to use all this knowledge I've attained. The next week will go quickly while I say goodbye and deal with all of the stuff I've accumulated. I wish I could just leave everything and start new. Before I know it I'll wash ashore in America, wander around from east to more east to all the way west. Then I'll go to work setting up a new life, perhaps the most daunting task in my near future.
I hope the transition back to being in the States won't be as hard as I fear it will be. Where will I find good bread? How long will it be until my brain starts to function in English again? Will I be able to keep my mouth shut when someone mispronounces "crêpe"? Probably not, I never could before. Of course I'll miss Paris. Living here was a dream come true. But now it's time to go make the next one a reality.
I'll see you soon,
Miura
