I Passed Med 2

I passed all my classes (not counting Physiology, since I dropped that). This last semester, the last three and a half months... I feel like I've aged. I can't say that I feel more mature or stronger or more wise, but I feel aged.

It just feels like on this island, everything that can work against you is working against you. Professors, subject material, assignments, etc. The only thing pushing you towards being a doctor is yourself. The professors gobble up your time and you are forced to learn and study on your own in addition to dealing with whatever lectures and assignments they throw at you.

I hope that next semester is better. But for now, it's time to go to Four Seasons, pack, fly to Miami, then go on back-to-back cruises with my mom.

So. So. So.

I'm tired. Like, I'm well-rested, but I am tired. I suspect that I failed my Biochemistry finals, and if I failed badly enough, then I failed the class. I resigned myself to that about halfway through the shelf exam.

I've been crushed by this semester. Driven by the real fear of failure is awful. The joy of learning is replaced by just trying to stay afloat, knowing that learning more does not correlate with your test scores...

We have professors who are awful at teaching. It teaches us to learn on our own, which is good, but then those same professors write the exams, so, you know, what's the use?

Having backpacked through Europe last summer, I've been disillusioned. I no longer dream of travel, not the way I once did. I know now that it offers no escape; you're just as poor and alone in the most beautiful of places as you are in the comfort of your own home. It made me a better person, but that's doing no one any good right now. My biggest battles are against impossible academics and myself. I don't even have the privilege of going out and helping people. I'm stuck here.

Today I visited the professor for a class that truly is a waste of time. The subject matter isn't, but the class is. I visited him because he graded my paper incorrectly. When I confronted him on it and quoted him regarding his grading policy (he promised points back if we corrected our first paper), he denied having said that, treating the idea as something ridiculous. I had gone to his office once before and he had replied similarly, but then making a promise to give less points back... He was just very defensive the whole time, and claimed that our class cares about grades far more than learning. He seems unaware that none of us have patience for him as he blunders through trying to teach a class.

Most of us, as students, could now easily teach any one of the classes that we've had so far. And we could do so better than the current professors. The most any one professor tends to spend teaching here is ten hours per week. The rest, they get to spend preparing. And they obviously don't.

I dunno, I'm fed up. I'd be looking to drop out if there was anything I'd prefer, but for one thing, there's God (who, by the way, has been awfully quiet since things went south). For another, there's the many thousands of dollars that have gone into my education, which will have been kind of a waste. And I love learning, especially what I learn here. It's just so. So. Frustrating. No, not frustrating. I'm past that. I'm just exhausted and ready to die. Don't worry, dear reader, no guns allowed on this island except Moet *kisses right bicep* and Chandon *kisses left bicep*.

Un.Fair.

The world seems more and more unfair. I live in a country where contracts are a formality that won't be enforced. I can work hard and know everything and still fail, badly. I do everything and it yields nothing.

I have this default version of me shaped by a life lived for Christ. I'm kind, friendly, and tend to assume that I am at fault in any given situation. So I live in a negative world even as the force inside me works to be the positive in the midst of it. A dot of white in a seeming swimming sea of darkness.

And I now feel myself growing distant from my friends. This is bound to happen, of course. And the timing is about right for it. I spend all of my years in obedience to become the type of person that God has for me to be, but through all of that, I sacrifice my personal relationships.

I know it seems overdramatic for me to complain about these things when other people have bigger issues. After all, I'm in medical school and I'm still not in debt. That's huge. But because I live in this isolated world, this literal and figurative island, I have become the worst of things: my own biggest problem. At home, some family member always had drama or some issues and it would be a whole thing. At work, we had patients whose problems were obviously bigger than mine, and it was my job to alleviate those problems as I could.

And on the mission field, there was a beautiful world where I could throw everything into it to help these people in need. And most everything I could do was helpful...

But I remain my own biggest problem. When a grade goes down, my world crashes. I'm isolated in my own apartment, my own little world, hoping I can get enough information into my brain to make okay grades on these exams, because I know that I can't do better than okay. With rare exceptions that never make sense, I always just do okay. I hover around the class average, swatted down every time I try to get a peek at life in the A range. I am forever doomed to a life of having a blood type that will always contrast with the grades I can possibly receive (A+). In that sense, at least, I have greatness inside of me.

Star Wipe

It's nearing the end of the semester. Two weeks until I'm aboard a cruise ship. But of course, I have to pass Biochemistry first, and I don't have much of a buffer to make sure that that happens.

How do people find people that they like enough to marry? I mean, it's choosing to become one with someone. Am I just so unique that I'm the one who has trouble realistically picturing being with someone? It feels normal enough when I think about it in myself, but with others... I mean, some of my friends have children now. Not babies, but children. Well, some have babies. Point is, people my age and younger have married and started families, and it just seems crazy to me. Crazy just to marry, to have decided on a person that is compatible enough with you that you make the choice to wake up next to them every single morning. And having children! But a lot of girls are crazy about having babies I guess. Don't get me wrong. I wanna have kids. I've got a lot of good genes to pass on. But kids are a huge deal.

Easy transitions with this blog post, obviously.

Today is Easter. It's the second Easter I've spent away from home and family. Last year, I spent it on the island of Santorini. Alone for days. This time kinda feels similar, except that I have reliable internet, so I can at least communicate with family. Mostly, my mom and I talked about the cruise, so now we have a hotel booked for before and after. A HOTEL! So fancy.

There's a birthday party going on next door. Those birthdays are the closest thing we have to real social events here. They're the main reason I'm as good of friends with some people as I am. It's really weird, too. All we can talk about is our past lives as humans and our present lives as students. Usually we complain about how the school is screwing us over. And that's sad to me, because you don't really get to know a person by talking about what you experience with them every day. At least, that's how it feels...