Staying On It

In the midst of preparing for block exams, it's easy to become discouraged. How on earth do other people grasp this material so quickly and easily? Am I not pushing myself hard enough to study at all times? Am I giving in and taking breaks too often? I mean, I'm just trying to keep my body able to continue studying. My brain won't study if I strain everything.

My grades are what they've always been. Lower than others'. Not WAY lower, like they once were, but low enough for me to worry and them not to.

During my senior year, part of what kept me focused was the flashbacks that would smack my mind every time I thought about my mission trip to Uganda. Now, those memories have grown older. The main thing that continues to keep me going is that although this isn't the ideal place to be in life, it is the best place in life for me that I've found thus far. The alternative of life back home is just too awful, in the sense that it's too bereft of significance. Here I'm constantly challenged to know my faith enough to give answer to questions, and everything I'm learning is everything I either do or should care about for my future practice as a doctor.

So I hope I can focus this weekend. For future patients. For my own mental state. And to better myself as a person.

Block 3 On The Horizon

I feel more confident about this block. Exams are on Monday and Tuesday. A week after is the drop date for this semester, when our class gets trimmed down (15 people failed each of our last major tests).

The Oooooooooooooooool' Introversion

I forgot to get back to the ol' blog on that last post. I was frustrated because I'm an introvert and didn't get enough alone time.

Frustrated?

Sometimes, I'm overcome with frustration and don't know why. It's usually about the time when I need to go yell at God. These times came so infrequently during my senior year of undergrad. With regular workouts and #naptimes in the #blanketfort, I always felt relatively balanced. I suppose that I'll always be groaning about the lack of #blanketfort in my life until I have one again.

It's beginning to bother me a lot. Maybe if I just write out some problems, this stressful frustrated feeling I have will go away. Basic thing, I don't have access to my friends or family here. Living with my brothers was surprisingly pleasant. They and their friends were always really funny, and although not learning anything sucked, it was usually fun and lazy. I rarely saw my friends, but it was great when I did. Here, I have friends, but they're all brand new and few of them share a very similar cultural background. White Christians from the South are just plain hard to come by, not to mention ones that have worthwhile personalities and a hint of wit to them.

So there's that. There's also my grades. Last block, they plummeted because I couldn't get to sleep when I wanted. I think this was largely due to eating later. I was eating constantly in order to keep myself awake so I would have the energy to keep studying. I also couldn't nap because my roommate had a defined sleeping schedule that does not work well with mine (I need naps like right after class). It ended with me getting little sleep, studying little, and retaining little. And since I am very afraid of failing out of med school, of being proven the academic failure that I usually secretly think that I am, it was a great frustration to be hit with worse grades when I was studying so hard.

I guess I'm just afraid of failing out and frustrated at myself and at my situation. If I had known much of anything in the beginning, I would have gotten a single apartment straightaway. I wouldn't have made as many friends but I would have done better in school. I don't care about friends nearly as much as I care about doing well so I can help future people.

And speaking of living situations, my roommate backed out on our deal of getting an apartment together next semester. It's probably for the best, but I still need a place. We had a nice one picked out, fancier than what either of us was thinking. And I miss having a nice place. When I had a nice apartment, I treated it more nicely. But it's $100 more per month to get a single over there... So I either have to find a new roommate or go to a crappier place or pay a little more per month. Of course, that extra $100 per month will add up to like $1500-ish extra spending by the time I graduate, which could instead be used on, say, a single hotel room rather than a double whenever I do a STEP 1 study program. And I WILL have a single for that.

Still frustrated. I guess it didn't work.

Shut Myself Away

I've been feeling the greater desire lately to avoid friends here. This feeling of always wanting to lock myself away came often during my last semester of undergrad, and I remember the contrast that tended to come over me then. I obviously still wanted to hang out with my friends, but I also just want to shut out everyone and just study forever. Unlike in undergrad, I have new friends here, so I'm not nearly as attached. The prospect of abandoning them to hide and study in my room doesn't sound bad at all, really. It's not like my good friends in college that I knew on such a deep level...

Being isolated on this island really makes it possible for school to be the primary focus. That is, once I can ditch the roommate (next semester can't come soon enough) and make my bedroom into somewhat of a palace. It can't be the #blanketfort, but I bet I can still make it impressive.

Confronting People With Humanity

One of my talents is that I can get anybody to laugh. For instance, one of our more serious professors, who is olde and wizened and wears khaki trousers up to his chin, was asking what the function of the auricles of the heart was. For those who don't know, the left and right auricles of the heart are like little flaps, and these flaps are responsible for secreting atrial natriuretic polypeptide (and because of the change in font, you can tell that I had to look it up again). However, what I said was that the auricles were responsible for flight. He stopped pointing and gesturing and just looked at me and repeated "Flight?" and I, with the projected false confidence learned from years of exposure to science and medicine, responded, "Yeah, to fly" and made a flying motion with my fingers (and didn't include my arms). And then he laughed a small but real laugh, and I won that battle, and everyone there remembered auricles (the name, at least) because of this exchange.

That is an instance of confronting people with humanity. People can seem intimidating. They can come across as jerks or angry or bitter or sad or aloof, and they very well could be at this stage in their lives. But those are all just attributes that are put on top of people. They aren't ever just angry or jerks or bitter or sad or aloof. They're people. And if you can recognize that, you can find the people underneath the circumstance.

I learned this principle while traveling through Europe. In a given day, I could be exposed to a variety of languages, cultures, upbringings, religions, social constructs, and whatever else. But at the end of those days, every single human I met ended up just being a human. They weren't French or Scottish or German or Spanish or Italian or Turkish or perverted or depressed or creepy or old or young or ugly or hot or fat or skinny or tall or short or rich or poor or thieves or generous. They were people. And once you can recognize the personhood behind all of the layers of culture and social norms, you can speak to that. And it will speak back, because we're all humans here. And that's how you confront people with humanity.

Not Wanting To Die

While pondering the reality of what I assumed was about to be my imminent failure out of medical school just before my block exams this week, I realized the weight of it. The shame of failing out of med school is one thing, but I'd get over that and give it to God, whatever. But the really and truly terrifying thought to me was that I'd be forced to go back to a world in which I wasn't learning anymore. If you've talked to me very much at all, you may know that I'm always happy with the idea of death. I don't like dealing with it in other people, but as for me, I would love to die at any time. I'd get to stop dealing with stuff here and hang out with Jesus in heaven (which is why I don't understand peoples' dislike for the notion).

But now, I'm finally learning enough about what I want to learn that I'm actually not wanting to die immediately. My mind is too overwhelmed to be unhappy or to desire contentment. Cramming my brain with information every day is a wonderful thing. It's living a dream that I never really fully expected God to follow through on having me live out. And when I think about the idea of leaving this place and going back to where I was, to what I was doing... Well, that sounds nightmarish #givesmethewillies.

So I guess I'm happier here in a foreign culture as a minority in a great many ways and having to absorb information like a sponge with a fire hydrant. Weird.

Done With Block 2

I finished my second block exam at Medical University of the Americas. I learned that Histology is a much more difficult subject to learn because there is less built-in review and reinforcement, so I spent last weekend on a study binge, trying to go over ALL of Histology and understand it. I studied Anatomy too, but not nearly as much. When I went in to take my Histology exam, I was terrified. I was only sure that I got like four questions right. But lo and behold, I made a 79 on the exam. Anatomy was a sad 74, saved from the 70 by the 80 I made on the lab exam.

But yeah, I was in a zombie state for those tests. I studied all day for three days straight (and had been sleep-deprived, unable to properly get to sleep for the two weeks prior).

I plan to fix my sleeping problems this block (buying Benadryl this weekend just in case) and do way better. My only problem this past block was sleep. My study habits were otherwise golden, I think. Without sleep, I just wasted learning time in the afternoon.

A Christian organization on campus has invited me to their Friday evening stuff, so I'll try for that in the future. Next week, hopefully.

Anyway, after this set of exams, I'm still in an okay range with grades, which makes me think that maybe God isn't suddenly, after having me on this track for 12 years, going to decide that this was all just to prepare me for some other not-doctor thing. That maybe this whole endeavor is a real thing.

The Only Cure

In terms of sleeping schedule, the last two weeks have been awful. My first alarm is at 6:45 AM (which means I'm getting up at 7 AM) and I can't seem to get to sleep at a decent hour the night before. It's usually not till 1 or 2 AM. This leaves me tired, struggling to stay away and attentive through nine hours of class time on campus. So I'm naturally completely destroyed by the time I get home, even though I need to be reviewing the day's lectures and prereading for the next day's (not to mention reviewing the past week's). So when Friday hits, I'm relaxed and overjoyed because I can finally sleep in, allowing me to have enough rest to actually study well.

It should be understood, by the way, that I've never struggled with sleeping. Only with waking up. But my roommate wakes up at dawn to pray and I'm too aware of everything that is, so I'm not able to sleep all the way through the night without a few wakeups. Once again, super weird for me. I don't usually stress out, but maybe this is stress?

I made an 80 on my Embryology exam (2 points below class average), which means I'm still doing pretty well. I have big tests (that I'm currently studying for) on Monday and Tuesday, namely Histology and Gross Anatomy. After I get feedback from these, I'll have a real idea about whether I'm doing med school right.

It's been super encouraging to consistently do as well as my peers. It felt like that was never the case in college, owing to my excellent education and my being a less than excellent student.

Back to my sleeping issue. The main issue, I think, is the roommate. Not his fault, just the fact that I need my own private space and can't have it. Aside from that though, I also found that I have nothing to daydream about. I obviously don't want to think about classes while sleeping, but I don't have a lot of other outside input. I watch Scrubs while eating, but that's a medical show. So the majority of sensory input in my life comes from medical or sciency things, and those do nothing for a good night's sleep. So sadly, my mind often turns to dirty or sexual things, which stinks, 'cause I know that my mind can be pure if I'm disciplined enough. But hey, I'm working on it. My mom advised that I take benedryl at night (melatonin hasn't done the trick), so I'll try to get that in town next week. Until then, liquor is the only cure I've got.

The Week After Blocks Is The Week Before Blocks

We are quickly realizing that med school has no breaks. Last week, we had our first block exams. The rest of the week was new material. We all tried to study over the weekend, but we were just so burnt out that it wasn't really possible. We now have an Embryology exam on Wednesday (we haven't yet been tested on this subject) and Histology and Gross Anatomy the following Monday (the much more difficult classes that we need to focus on). The week after block exams is really the week before block exams.

Medical University of the Americas is working on getting California approval. New York, Florida, and California are major states to get approval to practice in, and California is the only one this school hasn't made it into. One of the apparent requirements to get California's approval is to require 90% attendance for classes. In a given semester, that means that for most classes, we can only miss one lecture. This is a big downer because, particularly for Embryology, time would be better spent studying at home than showing up to class. We spend 10 hours at school every day, minimum. That doesn't include waiting on and taking the shuttle buses or the TA sessions. Then it's going home and working out, then vegging out for 30-60 minutes, then trying to review slides and preread for the next day without passing out. The rhythm I've fallen into is a little over six hours of sleep per night. More or less, and I actually can't focus well in class. However, it also leaves me beat when I get home. I still don't know how to solve that issue...
The dead tired feeling at the dorm doesn't experience relief really, 'cause I have a roommate. I'm always conscious of his presence. I need time by myself. If I could nap and study in my own little area without having to take note of what was going on with him, I feel like I could really be on to something. My study habits would likely improve notably. Next semester, I'll be close to campus with an apartment with MY OWN ROOM, and that should be a game changer. I hope...

It's kind of a constant feeling of being behind. Every bit of info we cover is pretty important for us in the future as doctors, so it's a bad feeling to be behind. I mean, it's not like I want to leave behind any of this info when I'm practicing, yet how could I possibly retain this stuff except by constantly utilizing the information in a clinical setting. Clinicals and residency are the only ways to get this stuff stuck in the ol' noggin. Till then, it's just a desperate struggle to get there.