The Night Before

Here I am. It's the night before the USMLE Step 1 exam. I'm a five-minute drive away from the testing center at an odd mix of nice and, umm, danky hotel near a highway in Tulsa. The sounds of cars on the highway overlay the hum of the mini fridge. I studied until 4 PM today, which is a no-no, but I could not resist. Fortunately, my mind shut down. So did my body, really. So I ended up getting a ten minute chair massage at the mall, which I had assumed would never be worth it, but it did more for me at this point than any hour-long massage I have had on a beach. Then I watched the Kingsman sequel (I did not care for it, perhaps 'cause I was not drinking?). So that was my fairly successful attempt at relaxation. I had not taken that much time out from studying since last Tuesday (tonight is Wednesday).

Then I did what I always do before a medical exam that will change my life: I read Romans 4 and the beginning of Romans 5. It really is poorly divided at that portion. Hope against hope is the usual section that I focus upon, but the suffering particularly caught my eye this time. Perhaps because of three years of fear, anxiety, and learning with decreasing thoughts of the things and people that I once cared greatly for, not to mention an increasing distrust of the Church in America as it stands (which is what I had hoped to reconnect to until I felt as if the Holy Spirit was warning me against it during the election)... in any case, I felt a suffering during this time that has changed me, beaten me down, deprived me of whatever it is that I feel is the best of me. But that passage does not just say to rejoice in suffering; it gives a reason. Suffering produces perseverance. Because of course, making it out the other side of suffering is what defines perseverance. And the passage does not stop there. Perseverance produces character. Just as a favorite book is made to suffer through creases and dog ears and wrinkles, thus gaining character, so our character is revealed by the sufferings through which we persevere.

And that character is what produces hope. It does so for the same reason that you originally agreed to go through this suffering in the first place: the love of God, which has been freely poured into our hearts. That sounds like a dumb answer to a lengthy riddle made up of suffering, but the guarantee is given at the end that this hope, due to its safeguard with the love of God, does not disappoint. We have an assurance that the suffering, perseverance, character, and hope are all sustained through a love that prevents disappointment at the end of the journey. It becomes worthwhile.

So in the midst of my exhaustion and insecurities, I have this love of God onto which I can hold. The God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were. The God who does not merely bend possibility, but rather creates it anew.

Though I may foolishly lose sight of it, the God I continue to believe in really does have the power to weave reality as He sees fit. So I pray that I may place my hope in this speaker of worlds, this literal life maker, rather than what I have or have not managed to do to prepare.

Less Than A Week

I have been meaning to write again, but I have so much to do in so little time that it felt crazy to write a blog (especially since I have a habit of making these things too long when I am appropriately expressive). The Step 1 exam, the one that decides the course of a great many things in my life, is coming this Thursday. Today is Saturday.

Rather than think of test day, which I can hardly imagine, I instead motivate myself by thinking of the month after test day, when I am awaiting test scores. At around 6 AM on a Wednesday, I will apparently receive an email to let me know that my scores are available. Then I, with heart leaping from my body, will hurriedly scramble to figure out my login info and check the website for the score. Those brief anxious moments are what I focus on right now (and the days leading up to them).

My dad called to remind me of a lesson that he noted just before taking his CPA exam. This, like every matter of importance in our lives, is The Lord's battle. It is not my own. I attempt to do everything on my part to make sure that we do well on test day, but He is the one upon whom I will have to lean in the deciding moments. When I have narrowed a question down to two answers, it has very little to do with my knowledge and much to do with The Lord's presence in every moment.

Just as in the past, before I failed a class, I am trying not to think of the possibility of failure, of how crushing that would be. An extra month or two of studying will likely do the trick, but it is the social withdraw that I fear (and of course my standing as a student as I attempt to find rotations and residencies). There is a girl that I like, and from my very limited understanding of dating, I think that I will have to invest time in her already busy world in order to discover who she is and offer her the same opportunity for me. When I am studying, the outside world stays outside. I obtain bacne because I lean back in a chair all day. I just want a little respite from all this.

God, please be with me. Help me to study you and your world and the science you cultivated, and give me the knowledge and discernment to choose correct answers in the midst of baffling questions.

Also God, should I try to date her? Even though I will soon have to move for clinical rotations if all goes well? Right, right, focus.

Two Weeks

Two weeks from today, I take an exam that will do much to determine the course of both my short- and long-term career. I am hitting the books hard and struggling to avoid burnout. I am alternating heavy days and light, with heavy days being powered first by coffee and then by adderall during the late afternoon slump, and both days ending with drinking.

The choice to live in this particular place and point in time are turning out to be as critical as I assumed. When I need a study break, it is a quick walk to find people with whom to converse at the nearby bar patio. I will also be on a podcast this weekend and have a showing of my movie at a friend's house.

It is amazing how this study mode can kick in merely on the basis of willpower. I have lacked in it until this test day grew so close, but after a friend called me to tell me about his testing experience last week, the ability to ignore my twitter feed arose within me. Failing this test would be very bad. In the face of that, I must study hard. And smart.

In the midst of this, I am also planning that trip to NYC. Westerly destinations have been phased out for various reasons. Nashville, DC, NYC, Niagara Falls/Toronto, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Oklahoma City are the ones on the list now. And, impressively, I have places to stay in all of those cities for most of the dates (though NYC is proving to be a little difficult in that regard).

Four Weeks

The STEP 1 exam has been scheduled. Four weeks from tomorrow (Thursday, September 28 in Tulsa, Oklahoma), I take the longest and most difficult exam (8 hours of fun) of my life. And I'm not too excited.

I thought I was doing okay, but I took a simulation test and scored merely a 190. Passing is 192, and to be even remotely competitive, you want to have a score over 205. So I have four weeks to smash more knowledge in my brain. Granted, the test was UWorld, and therefore more difficult than what I may expect on the real thing, and the questions given seemed harder than usual for UWorld, but I am still (rightfully) in a bit of a panic. So I will be attempting to study for (at least) ten hours every day until the exam, with one official day off per week. (Though workout days do admittedly take some time out).

In the midst of this, I am also trying to spiritually awaken. Because I of course reach out to my God in heaven in such times of desperation, since this was all His idea anyway. I am also still planning my trip to NYC. Between couch surfing and friends in the area, it looks like I will not be homeless.

Anyway, back to it.

Less Than Six Weeks

I'm less than six weeks from the date upon which I hope to schedule my USMLE STEP 1 exam. The equation that people have posted online which seems to correlate most with peoples' actual score is one's practice test score average x 2.4 + 84. Given that my average included scores from during the anxiety-laden election season last year, I tend to think that my average is higher than what that showed (56), but even if it is precisely what I have had, I am still safely above passing. My current average (after having completed all of UWorld, which means that I am repeating the 2500-ish questions) is 63, a little above listed average within the question bank.

So I study with some hope, which is a weird thing with which to study. It also helps that I am planning a road trip to NYC, then to Portland (after stopping in Chicago and Milwaukee), down through San Francisco and Napa Valley, hopping through LA, then stopping over to Denver before I go home for a wedding in November. If things go nicely, I will start this trip a day or two after my exam.

Hoping to see a few crushes on this trip, and planning some photo shoots as well. One crush has responded in the affirmative, while the other remains unresponsive (given how aggressively I instinctively tried to give a terrible first impression, this is not the most shocking development).

All that is left to do is keep trying to study and also (importantly) to remember to include days off. Both of these things are essential.

If I am being honest, a lot of whatever self-esteem I have acquired in the dating world has been in relation to the fact that I plan on being a doctor. So I need to do well enough to actually move on with those plans, because a guy who dropped out of med school is considerably less attractive than a doctor. Anyway, that's probably a blog post for a night when I feel less secure in myself.

All For A Story

Lately, I have wondered whether I should treat dating as a real, possible, feasible thing. If I am honest, a lot of my life and interactions feel oriented toward becoming an anecdote, blog, poem, or whatever else sometime in the future. It is similar to going out hiking or to see some marvel, and although you do technically experience it, you are really just living life through the lens of your camera. Your own eyes hardly touch the moment as you fill yourself with preoccupations about the quality of the interaction for later visual feasting by yourself and others on social media.

There is, perhaps, a level of intimacy lost when your interactions with another human are focused in this way. Suddenly, past mistakes and vulnerabilities are discussed not for more intimate knowledge of a person, but rather for shock value, or to expose another side of you specifically for the sake of the other party being exposed to such, rather than removing a layer of your own social facade.

I do not know that my perspective on this apparent loss of intimacy is necessarily a real issue. In my head, I hear echoes of think pieces describing what is wrong with such and such young people dating in America.

I suppose that I should remain with the method I know best, since it furthers my own inconsequential brand and makes me feel more comfortable. It is just that when I interact with someone who has no call to be interested in someone like myself, I do tend to ask whether this is all a part of the poisonous lack of intimacy that would lead to my own parents' divorce. Perhaps it is normal for my brand of humor, and I am simply being overly analytical. Is this why people go to therapy?

Lookin' Up

Things seem to be moving in nice directions. After years of going without, I finally had the chance to do another creative photo shoot yesterday. I was dressed as a clown, but on hiking trails by a lake. That evening, I went to my friend's parents' house to surprise my friend's mom as the same clown character, and had to improvise a back story for like ten minutes as I made balloon animals. They were generous enough to invite me to share in finer wines and scotch than I have yet had the privilege of tasting.

While there, my friend informed me that I would likely not have difficulty in scheduling the STEP 1 exam, despite the many delays (one of which I will attempt to fix tomorrow) in registering for it.

My practice test scores have been going up (though this week has admittedly hardly been productive), enough that I think I should be ready by the time mid to late September rolls around. The trick was to stop just trying to get through it, and start treating them like real tests.

Anyway, the reason to start caring about getting this test completed (aside from the obvious necessity of moving on in life) is that it looks like one of my closest friends will be free to travel at the time and place that I would like to travel. Assuming that testing and moving out and such go smoothly, I will be departing to NYC a day or two after my exam, and then road tripping westward toward Portland with my friend. Following this, there is also potential for travel through California. I have friends living in most major cities and areas, some of whom have already offered a place to stay. I even know someone in Napa, so I have some hopes there.

In any case, it is time to buckle down and study (with a slight hiccup when I drive to Dallas this coming weekend to see Tim and Eric live because #duh) so that these idealized plans in my mind may come to fruition.