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I remember my dumbass sixth-grade self turning to Jessica Weirich to proclaim, "You're not born gay, you know. You become it." Jami Zimberoff and I, at age 15, used Sharpies to experiment with the possible locations of the Smashing Pumpkins tattoos we were definitely going to get as soon as we turned 18.

You are an idiot. It's true! As early as tomorrow, you'll be looking back on yourself and cringing at how foolish you were then (now). As the years go by, your past self only gets stupider in light of what you now know.

When I was 20, I was the smartest person in the world and definitely gonna go to medical school to become an M.D. Common mistake, right? Too bad I made mine on TV -- and ever since, I've been known as "the med student" from "America's Next Top Model."

Click here to read what happened to Elyse's best-laid plans.



The problem with being on a reality show is that it has immortalized a portrait of my pompous asshole 20-year-old self. This tends to bring into sharp relief for me the fact that plans change, people change, and my predictions for the future are usually fantastically wrong.

The good thing about ANTM was that, because of it, I became a model: I deferred medical school for a year to start traveling and working, and when the year was up, I ditched the idea of med school and consigned myself to being "just a model" until such time as I am too old and wrinkly even to qualify for that dubious distinction. These days I don't have a plan for my future past November.

Obsessed as I had been with eventually being able to write "fancy lady-doctor and supergenius" in the "occupation" blank on my immigration forms, it took a while to reconcile myself with my "just a model"-hood. I wish that my former aspirations could disappear into the murk of anonymity and time, but, thanks to ANTM, they persist.

I'm glad I'm no longer that 20-year-old jerk; I'm grateful for the opportunities I've had. I've also learned not to be so rigid, because the future can neither be predicted nor micromanaged. Tattoo yourselves with the Sharpie, kids, not the needle; the Smashing Pumpkins will not be cool forever.