As I sit here procrastinating on relearning all about HLA's (how quickly we forget!) by looking at my friend Sarah's blog, I was wondering if anyone ever reads my blog anymore since, predictably enough, my frequency of posting has been reduced to my frequency of e-mailing... So here it is, my renewed attempt at keeping people up to date on my life and hopefully a little entertained or interested. I'm going to reattempt to keep up with the posting...
Yesterday Caroline was asking me whether med school was what I expected, in terms of workload. I answered that it's not. Although everybody had warned me that it wasn't the level the information is at but rather the amount of it that is thrown at you at one time that kills you, I didn't really get it until now. It's a feeling of constant guilt whenever you keep up with your life because you know that you should be studying right now. It's an illusion that if you spend all the available hours in your day studying, you could, possibly, get through most of the material, and possibly understand about 75% of it. It's a wondering of will I really need to remember the medical term for the Adam's apple during my third year rotations (and realizing, damn, I already forgot it! let's get out the book for another random fact search). Balance, what they so often preach to us at our medical school, starts to seem like a guilty pleasure and I'm never quite sure what side I tip to on the balance / work tighrope but I constantly feel like I'm about to fall the wrong way...
So what keeps us sane? (Actually I'm not quite sure how close to sanity we all are to be honest so maybe it's more what keeps us from an overall breakdown)... Family-- 20 minute drives to Redmond for coffee or a big screen TV with my brother. Friends-- girls getting spruced up for med school prom with 20 dresses thrown on a bed and a passing of jewelry from hand to hand. And the special people in our lives who are willing to put up with grumpiness, tears for no reason, and flans that are made to redeem us for our madness.
My special Xavi-putter-upper took me to Leavenworth, WA about a week and a half ago so that this island person could experience all the wonders of snow. It was a fun weekend. I often had thoughts about my studies nagging at my brain, but I managed to ignore them and say I deserve a weekend of falling on my bootie in the snow. And so you all can share the moment with me-- some pictures:
Yes... I managed to fall a few times...
