My Trip Up The Down Staircase
Growing up, her mother taught her a three-tiered program for self- improvement and success. One: look pretty. Two: act dumb. Three: be someone else. She's mostly succeeded at the first part, at any rate. (Faking it, at least, after a good night's sleep.)
She's a doctor. Every morning, in the shower, she says it three times out loud, "I'm a doctor, I'm a doctor, I'm a pretty doctor." Some days, this works better than others. Some days, she just keeps it on an endless loop in her head; Dr. Kelso will say something insulting, and her brain repeats "I'm a doctor, I'm a doctor, I'm a pretty doctor."
When JD dumped her at Carla's rehearsal dinner, even the pretty doctor loop didn't help. Punching him did, though. And shunning him, even when he gave her his best "Look at me! I'm a cute little puppy, love me!" look. She's stronger than that. People- JD, Dr. Kelso, Dr. Cox, Turk- may not think so, but she is.
She's stronger than any of them could ever imagine.
She does feel bad about Sean, though. And maybe there's something about karma biting her in the ass, or something, and she either wants to curl up with her teddy bear or drink all the vodka in the hall. And the fact that there's this little part of her (and it's minuscule really, practically microscopic even) that wants to run to her mother, to say "nyah, nyah, I can too break a boy's heart" while dancing and waving her arms around doesn't exactly convince her that she's the better person, here.
She's better than JD, though, who she won't call a stupid poopy-head no matter how tempted she gets. (Oh, okay, so she probably will.) She's better than JD, who's apparently torn between batting his eyelashes at Dr. Cox and snarling at Jordan and who will never, ever, let himself be happy.
Her martini tastes funny, like funky olives or McDonald's special sauce, but she drinks it anyway and weaves her way back onto the dance floor. They're playing "I Will Survive," and she always sings along.