Reality Schmality

The summer vacation of a college student can appear unnecessarily long and undeserved to those non-college students (aka "real" people) but the break from mid-May to the beginning of September really isn't as long as it seems, because the entire month of August doesn't count.

It doesn't count because the entire month is spent coping with all of the bills, informational letters, and requests from the university that seem to arrive daily, though I'm not yet convinced they aren't arriving hourly. All of these are, of course, accompanied in some way with the request of monetary deposits, or they request actions that subsequently instate a suction-until-lifeless feature to my bank account which contains exactly enough money to pay my rent, electric, grocery, and the bills incurred by every necessary visit I make to Target.

Attention to all of you people who keep sending me letters: I do not, I repeat- do NOT have enough money to

• buy a fanciful lab coat (though I've never seen a PT wear one). But don't worry, you threaten "implications" in the grading process if I dare to show up to a mandatory clinical experience without one. Well, when it's put like THAT.

• become a member of the PT association. Sure, I'd love to. I'm legitimately excited to pretend I'm a professional 3 years prematurely and I can't wait to get all of these journals in the mail so I can fan them across my coffee table as soon as I have a coffee table of my own. Oh, what's that? Annual association fee, chapter fee, and start-up fee? My pleasure.

• buy the association's hard cover guide. I suppose this is a must since they threaten to reference it within the first week of class.

• buy the required departmental text. Another implied mandatory item for which I should plan accordingly to purchase. Just tack it on to the other trip-to-Hawaii-worth bill of textbooks I'll succumb to acknowledging within the next month.

• buy the official "kit" which contains all the devices necessary for me to practice my unlicensed skills as I acquire them. Ok, I'm willing to pay for this. It's like that doctor play kit except way cooler.

• get poked a lot by student health services and its needles to prove I'm not diseased.

There's more to the list, and more coming I'm sure, but I've run out of time to complain for the moment.