Life Never Happens The Way You Think It Will

And no, I'm not referring to Liverpool's shock 4-1 defeat to Arsenal.

I've put off this post for a while..whilst what I'm about to tell you is still raw and sinking in, I was meant to post about the lead up to it, and I never did because I thought it'd probably be better to do just the one post after I knew for sure what was happening with my - life? Career? Both.

It's no secret that after a year and a half of careful consideration, and a summer of placements and doubts and hard thinking, I applied for dentistry October gone. When I applied the first time round after my A-levels, and had two interviews out of four before being eventually turned down, I vowed to never re-apply for it. Mainly because the application process is a lengthy one and a lot of hard work goes into it, but also because my heart was never truly in it. The truth is, I only ever applied the first time round for my parents.

I let it go and when my results came out, I took a degree that merged two subjects I loved and wanted to study further. My plan at that time was to take it on to teaching either biology or chemistry, or both. Come end of first year, I attended a careers talk and I felt like I had reached a dead end with my course; teaching, research, industry - none of those appealed to me. Too fussy? Maybe. But that summer, I made the decision to give dentistry one more shot because I was in a good position to.

Throughout my second year of uni, I prepared and planned and did the last of my placements here before going off into the wild and doing some cool placements in Africa. I sat the UKCAT and BMAT and wrote my personal statement, and the whole time I was applying, it felt different. Because this time, I was doing it for me. I did question whether or not it was right for me, but I wanted it. I applied to Bristol, Leeds, Manchester, and Barts & The London. Leeds and Manchester were my risks; they were asking for UKCAT and BMAT scores that I didn't have but my options were already closed off as it is so I threw all caution to the wind and thought what the hell. So you can imagine my surprise when Manchester were the first uni to get back to me inviting me to an interview at the end of November.

I remember reading the email off my phone literally as I got off the bus after uni one day, and I freaked out. My heart was hammering, I was excited and nervous and terrified and hopeful and on the whole, just overwhelmed. I mean, this was Manchester. Yes, its name is hyped up but its reputation and dental course, and the fact that it's up North had made it a uni I really wanted. So I prepped super hard. I prayed even harder.

Interview day came and I was feeling surprisingly okay - I was in a much better position than I was when I was 17. I was in my final year of uni and I was up against soon-to-be college leavers. But whilst I had an advantage, I also had the disadvantage of being introverted, quiet and basically, as socially awkward as my blog name suggests.

It wasn't bad. We had a 10 minute group discussion between us ten interviewees in which we were given a topic title and we had to give our opinions on it whilst we were silently observed by lecturers/members of dental admissions. In hindsight, maybe I'd have said more, but then again, in hindsight, I'd have done a lot of things differently. After that we each had a 10 minute interview with a panel of two and I remember there were three rooms, each with two people inside. And one of the guys went in room 1 and came out almost in tears. He was telling us how horrible it was and how they'd grilled him inside out, and just then, I got called into that room and I almost had a panic attack. It was okay though I guess (my experience wasn't as bad as that poor kid's). They played good cop, bad cop (the bad cop was pretty damn bad - he didn't shake my hand, didn't bother with niceties at all, let me show myself the way out without saying bye...). They simply scoured my personal statement and picked out things I'd talked about, then asked me to describe it more or give examples of certain qualities I'd claimed. I also had one ethical question, one question on why I'd chosen Manchester, and that was pretty much it.

But afterwards I just felt meh. You know when you don't know how it's gone, but you kinda know you could have done slightly better even though it didn't go horribly, and you just think, "yeah, I screwed up." Although I wouldn't find out until late March/early April. The wait, was torture. TORTURE. I mean, I had an idea of how it'd gone, but I just wanted to know what was happening so I could do whatever else I needed to for a back-up move. Meanwhile, Leeds, Bristol and Barts all turned me down without an interview. So I was pretty prepared for needing that back-up. And then I found out on Thursday that Manchester had also turned me down. Surprise, surprise.

Funny how you can expect something for months, and yet it still feels like a blow when it happens anyway. I'm okay with it though. I don't feel that it's unfair. For reasons I've known for a while, I get why it was turned away from me. People have asked me if I'll consider taking a year out to reapply for a third time. The answer is no. I can't go through it again. For me, I put in 110% this time round. I did placements in NHS and private dentistry, I spent a week in the maxillofacial department of a hospital, I travelled thousands of miles abroad to observe dentistry and I spent three years doing voluntary and extra-curricular activities. There was genuinely nothing more I could have done. It wasn't even failure at interviews - I failed to get interviews from three out of four choices. So what's going to change between now and next year that will make them offer me an interview?

I tried, and that's enough for me. I didn't want any regrets in the future. I didn't want to look back in ten years and think, "I should have re-applied the second time because I think I could have done it. I could have gotten in." At least I won't have those. I know that I did my best and it just didn't work out. But I'm a firm believer in everything happening for a reason. Doors open and close, and they're just a means of taking you to where you're meant to go.

I'm currently applying for Optometry; I don't know whether that will pan out or not, but what I do know is that there's hidden wisdom behind everything. And whilst my life may not be going the way I had once wanted or intended, it's going the way God planned. And that's the biggest comfort of all.