well damnit, i'm gonna write something.
i'm gonna be a doctor. i'm gonna be a doctor. I'm gonna save peoples' lives.
i'm going to be responsible for peoples' lives.
but i'm slowly but surely getting there. and i think the sheer excitement and anticipation of "the moment" is killing me.
in a few hours, my second year will begin. realistically, it's no different from the first. or the third. or the 6th. or whathaveyou. i might as well count all the years i've been in school. no wait, i do remember the first day of nursery school. namely, the night before.
and whether it was first grade, sophomore year, or tonight, the same held true: i stayed up all night. and why? is it nerves? what's there to be nervous about on the first day. if anything, a 'first day' of something often never reflects the true nature of what is to come. if anything, it should be embraced openly and with a grain of salt.
objects are closer than they appear. i don't know why that popped in my mind. i was thinking about the highway. whatever it was supposed to mean was lost on me.
but for me, it's not nerves. it's real excitement. hell, i'll get excited over anything if i have to. if i can tag any amount of 'significance' to it. so what exactly am I doing up tonight? just thinking to myself. thinking about all the things I'm going to learn this year, things I'll have to know for the rest of my life in order to fulfill my obligations as a physician. it just seems like rote booklearning. and honestly, it probably is. even experienced doctors end up hitting the books when it comes to crunch time. but you've gotta learn it well the first time around. and so here it begins.
hence, i'm excited. because it'll be the 'first' time I learn much of what I will end up needing to recall over. and over and over and over again during my career.
which made me question what exactly I spent LAST year learning...
first year was almost a giant prerequisite for this year. duh. i do enjoy stating the obvious to myself in order to make sense of things. but then again in my head, prerequisites are meant to be brushed over, often to be unncessary and skipped over. Does that mean first year was a complete waste of time? Nah. So what if I'll never have to know specific mechanisms of tertiary biochemical mechanisms, so abstract and so far removed from anything you'll ever clinically encouter...first year for me, and for many, was an initiation of sorts. We got dunked in the frigid water. but there were lifejackets. and a boat. so we just picked ourselves back up to safety. and then we got dunked again. and again and again and again till our brains got saturated with the most mind-numbing facts ever. and then we realise that all of that.....well much of it isnt even clinically relevant. in other words, nobody ever remembers any of that shit.
in any other context, i'd be unhappy. or pissed. that i had to learn all of that, unlearn it, learn it 30 more times over before an exam, only to purge out the information into a black hole.
but i think it was the sheer act of being caught in over my head, and that short climb to saftey, only to fall in again. and going through the same motions over and over. that's what first year taught me. and that, too, is what makes second year feel interesting. it'll be the hardest year. i've heard many say it's often the most demanding year...ever. i won't go that far. but it's open to interpretation. i could care less. i'm just glad it's beginning. because everything that begins must end. right? right. fuck perpetual motion.
the other thing behind me being awake right now, almost 5am, is that the past few weeks i've been immersed in odd forms of medicine, almost on the outside looking in. i got the perspective of the patient, going in for my knee surgery 2 weeks ago. that was something i'll remember in the future.
also, i decided i might as well start watching those "medical" tv shows. like scrubs, and grey's anatomy. well i already watch house, but i knew from day one they clearly had crafted a 'mystery drama' and tossed it inside of an imaginary hospital. which is cool by me, because it's relevant. those are the same useless diseases, symptoms and diagnoses we're pounding our brains to memorize and learn these first two years. so bravo for house, it actually means something superficially.
and then theres scrubs. which, everyone told me beforehand, was a show that clearly made the point over and over again that it did not reflect reality in any way. which was great knowing that beforehand. yet still i was curious becuase hey, sometimes what we do doesn't seem real either. and i have ended up truly enjoying the show because of that. because of the random tangents and mindless suspended reality bits. really hits a soft spot, here. and you truly need those moments if you're gonna survive here.
and then this grey's anatomy. possibly the worst of the three, in terms of reality. then again i've only seen the first few epis. but already you can tell some bored writer just decided to write another soap opera in the middle of a hospital. again, which is cool. because there's always a message, a take-away. and from what i haer about the show, it does that for people.
in any case, as much as i hate to admit it, the more I watch, the more i start losing my grip on reality. the more i imagine my life to be like theirs in a few short years. it's tempting. to "get it that easy." which is funny, because they clearly try to do their best to paint very trying and stressful lives for these characters. but anyone can tell you this in no way could reflect what it's really like. and my guess is that everyone's experience ends up being individual in nature. but that's just an easy excuse. there's better reasons why television will never get things right. i'm sure the same can be said of anything else, any other profession, any other situation. but that's why it's television.
so back to me? is it stupid of me to be watching these things, hoping to pull out a glimmer of hope for my yet-to-be-determined future? i don't tihnk so. i find it fun, and if anything, a relief.
so as i put my thoughts away and begin a new year, i can sleep happy for the next 3 hours knowing that there is a meaning for everything. whether it be first year med school, or season 2 of scrubs.
tho if i had to do the past year all over again, it'd be first year. of reality. over. and over and over and over again.
i'm going to be responsible for peoples' lives.
but i'm slowly but surely getting there. and i think the sheer excitement and anticipation of "the moment" is killing me.
in a few hours, my second year will begin. realistically, it's no different from the first. or the third. or the 6th. or whathaveyou. i might as well count all the years i've been in school. no wait, i do remember the first day of nursery school. namely, the night before.
and whether it was first grade, sophomore year, or tonight, the same held true: i stayed up all night. and why? is it nerves? what's there to be nervous about on the first day. if anything, a 'first day' of something often never reflects the true nature of what is to come. if anything, it should be embraced openly and with a grain of salt.
objects are closer than they appear. i don't know why that popped in my mind. i was thinking about the highway. whatever it was supposed to mean was lost on me.
but for me, it's not nerves. it's real excitement. hell, i'll get excited over anything if i have to. if i can tag any amount of 'significance' to it. so what exactly am I doing up tonight? just thinking to myself. thinking about all the things I'm going to learn this year, things I'll have to know for the rest of my life in order to fulfill my obligations as a physician. it just seems like rote booklearning. and honestly, it probably is. even experienced doctors end up hitting the books when it comes to crunch time. but you've gotta learn it well the first time around. and so here it begins.
hence, i'm excited. because it'll be the 'first' time I learn much of what I will end up needing to recall over. and over and over and over again during my career.
which made me question what exactly I spent LAST year learning...
first year was almost a giant prerequisite for this year. duh. i do enjoy stating the obvious to myself in order to make sense of things. but then again in my head, prerequisites are meant to be brushed over, often to be unncessary and skipped over. Does that mean first year was a complete waste of time? Nah. So what if I'll never have to know specific mechanisms of tertiary biochemical mechanisms, so abstract and so far removed from anything you'll ever clinically encouter...first year for me, and for many, was an initiation of sorts. We got dunked in the frigid water. but there were lifejackets. and a boat. so we just picked ourselves back up to safety. and then we got dunked again. and again and again and again till our brains got saturated with the most mind-numbing facts ever. and then we realise that all of that.....well much of it isnt even clinically relevant. in other words, nobody ever remembers any of that shit.
in any other context, i'd be unhappy. or pissed. that i had to learn all of that, unlearn it, learn it 30 more times over before an exam, only to purge out the information into a black hole.
but i think it was the sheer act of being caught in over my head, and that short climb to saftey, only to fall in again. and going through the same motions over and over. that's what first year taught me. and that, too, is what makes second year feel interesting. it'll be the hardest year. i've heard many say it's often the most demanding year...ever. i won't go that far. but it's open to interpretation. i could care less. i'm just glad it's beginning. because everything that begins must end. right? right. fuck perpetual motion.
the other thing behind me being awake right now, almost 5am, is that the past few weeks i've been immersed in odd forms of medicine, almost on the outside looking in. i got the perspective of the patient, going in for my knee surgery 2 weeks ago. that was something i'll remember in the future.
also, i decided i might as well start watching those "medical" tv shows. like scrubs, and grey's anatomy. well i already watch house, but i knew from day one they clearly had crafted a 'mystery drama' and tossed it inside of an imaginary hospital. which is cool by me, because it's relevant. those are the same useless diseases, symptoms and diagnoses we're pounding our brains to memorize and learn these first two years. so bravo for house, it actually means something superficially.
and then theres scrubs. which, everyone told me beforehand, was a show that clearly made the point over and over again that it did not reflect reality in any way. which was great knowing that beforehand. yet still i was curious becuase hey, sometimes what we do doesn't seem real either. and i have ended up truly enjoying the show because of that. because of the random tangents and mindless suspended reality bits. really hits a soft spot, here. and you truly need those moments if you're gonna survive here.
and then this grey's anatomy. possibly the worst of the three, in terms of reality. then again i've only seen the first few epis. but already you can tell some bored writer just decided to write another soap opera in the middle of a hospital. again, which is cool. because there's always a message, a take-away. and from what i haer about the show, it does that for people.
in any case, as much as i hate to admit it, the more I watch, the more i start losing my grip on reality. the more i imagine my life to be like theirs in a few short years. it's tempting. to "get it that easy." which is funny, because they clearly try to do their best to paint very trying and stressful lives for these characters. but anyone can tell you this in no way could reflect what it's really like. and my guess is that everyone's experience ends up being individual in nature. but that's just an easy excuse. there's better reasons why television will never get things right. i'm sure the same can be said of anything else, any other profession, any other situation. but that's why it's television.
so back to me? is it stupid of me to be watching these things, hoping to pull out a glimmer of hope for my yet-to-be-determined future? i don't tihnk so. i find it fun, and if anything, a relief.
so as i put my thoughts away and begin a new year, i can sleep happy for the next 3 hours knowing that there is a meaning for everything. whether it be first year med school, or season 2 of scrubs.
tho if i had to do the past year all over again, it'd be first year. of reality. over. and over and over and over again.