my dad's coming of age story

In today's society, it is more common to see the mother as a figure or power in the family, so when I do interviews, I usually interview my mom. When we were asked to interview one of our parents about their coming of age, I thought it would be interesting to learn about my dad. In addition to learning about his coming of age, I wanted to learn about his story.

When he was young, he went from boarding school to boarding school all around Ireland because his parents were doctors and constantly moving to different hospitals and research labs. They were all Catholic schools with priests, nuns and lots of funny stories. When my dad was younger, he said that he joined the choir for the sole reason to meet girls, and that is why he always loves singing Broadway musicals and songs from movies.

He always knew that he wanted to be a doctor because his parents were doctors and his brothers were studying to become doctors. What was very unusual about his story was that he went to medical school at the age of 17. He always was one known to have fun during high school, so it was very surprising for everyone when they found out he was going to medical school 5 years early. Before he went to medical school, however, he decided to travel the world and expand his knowledge about medicine. Rather than going to some famous or well-renowned institution, he decided to go to South Africa to practice general surgery. When he was there, he also decided to have some fun and make some memories with his friend who was also training to become a doctor. When they had a few months to take a break, they decided to hitchhike from South Africa to Zimbabwe. During this time, they were 2 poor Irish guys with an Irish flag, a cardboard box that said "Zim please", and all their savings and belongings in a backpack.

Hitchhiking through Africa.

After he hitchhiked to Zimbabwe, he hitchhiked to Tanzania and lived there for a while. After Africa, he decided he wanted to go to Australia and live there for a while. He lived in a hostel, which is a place similar to a hotel with many beds (usually bunk beds) where backpackers could sleep temporarily when looking for somewhere cheap to stay. During the day, he would snorkel in the Great Barrier Reef, pick apples in an orchard with friends, and do other random activities.

After Australia, he decided to move to America to live with his older brother and sister-in-law. When he was there, he came to their work a few times to learn about their field of study, radiology. When he was there, he became good friends with one of the well-known doctors and was offered a radiology resident position. He had never thought about radiology because he had always studied general surgery, but he decided to take the position. This was when he finally realized that he had come of age.

This is his story about coming of age, "When I was 6 months into my first year in residency, having arrived alone in America, I was sitting in a teaching conference with 50 other residents, and a radiology case was presented. The senior class was quizzed first about the finding on the scan. Then, when nobody knew, they asked the third-year residents, then the second-year. Finally, they asked the first-years. Normally, in this situation, a first-year resident would not say a word. However, I had seen a case like this before. I blurted out the words 'villous adenoma of the colon', and the entire room went quiet, and the attending radiologists looked down and asked who said that. I put my hand up with trepidation, and this radiologist, who was notorious for trying to humiliate junior residents, turned around, looked at me, paused and said 'Correct, Doug, good job.' Some people in the room looked around at me with smiles on their face and some with a vaguely surprised look. At that point, I knew I was going to become a top-class radiologist."

disco skating is not for me

There is a place in Salt Lake called Classic Fun Center. At the center, they have bounce houses, laser tag, but most importantly, roller staking. They have a huge rink that is always available for open skate, but on Friday nights and Saturday nights, they have disco skate. Disco skate starts at 9pm and is where tons and tons of high school students and the occasional college students and parents go skating in fun outfits with friends to 80's music. I have been once before with friends and it was pretty rough, to say the least. It was one of the most fun nights of my life, but I was absolutely terrible at skating. I had never been skating before, so I took one practice lap holding on to my friends' hands, and then I went to the big rink with probably 100 kids in it. Surprisingly enough, I only fell once because some girl I did not know fell down right in front of me, and I tried to swerve to avoid her. It was very difficult to get the hang of stopping, too. My friends showed me how to put your toe down to rub against the ground, but when I tried, I fell yet again. However, as the night went on, I was able to skate on my own, and I even was able to pass people and skate in between people making a tunnel with their arms. It was a great night, but it was about a year ago, so when my friends asked if I wanted to go last weekend, I could not say no.

It was to celebrate my friend's birthday, so before we left, we got dressed and hung out at her house. We ate pizza and opened presents for a while before we left. After we got ready, we blasted music in the car on the way down to disco skate. When we arrived, we got our tickets and got on our skates. I started warming up by going from friend to friend and holding their hands until I got the hang of it. This time, I thought that I was going to be able to do really well and skate on my own without falling, but as the night went on, I realized that I was not going to be a professional roller skater after only going once. I tried going through the tunnel of people again, and the first time I did fine. The second time, however, there were people in front of me that were being very slow and we were all trapped under the tunnel of people, so there was a huge pile of people that fell, but I still got up and continued skating. As the night went on, I skated with my friends in groups and skating alone at times. When one of my friends came over to me, she grabbed my hand and pulled me very quickly around a corner, so fast that I fell backward and basically did a death drop onto my skate. It was rough, but after, I went and played laser tag with my friends against some random guys from another school. Besides all the falling, it was an incredible night with my best friends.

We love disco!