I wrote this as a stream-of-conscience when I was feeling so down that I just had to write out everything and sort out my thoughts. It helped.
I feel defeated. Like I should be doing better. I keep comparing my time here to the year I spent in Boston, however over there I was far more driven to do well than I am here. Why is that? What was different? For one, I wasn’t in med school yet and that’s what I was going for. I knew I had to bust my ass, and that’s what I did. But I knew once I got here that I had to bust my ass too. Perhaps I was complacent? But then in genes to cells I worked my ass off and still didn’t do well. I went to AD then… what did they say. They told me to go through each lecture fewer times, but to emphasize points as I went along instead of relying on reiterations. They also told me to summarize in my head the point of each paragraph, talk it out, etc. recommended some books for practice problems, but cautioned heavily against relying on those. I didn’t really follow what they told me. I drew pictures in musculoskeletal and didn’t study development as well as I should have. I goofed off a lot thinking that I didn’t need to spend that much time on the material. Why did I think that? Maybe partly because I was spending so much time with one of my friends, and he doesn’t have to spend that much time on the material. I overestimated myself. I think I also felt defeated back then too – after working so hard in genes to cells without seeing results, I was like why bother? And I think a lot of that mentality never left me when I should’ve worked on getting rid of it a long time ago. While I’m studying I keep coming up with all these ideas of how I should review concepts, but I don’t get around to doing them. Why not? I get side-tracked by what other people are doing, how they are studying. I feel some kind of weird pressure to study the same way as everyone else, but I can’t be doing that. I need to do my own thing, what works for me. I keep wanting to blame the people around me for my slacking or for my mood or whatever. Is this valid? As much as they complain, they’re all doing more work than I am. So why am I only picking up on what people say and what they bitch about? How come I’m not the one doing work and telling them to handle their stuff? Why do I just not want to be here right now? Where would I rather be? I know I would definitely feel better about being here if my performance was better. So what’s holding back my performance? I keep thinking I need a good study buddy to keep me motivated and doing things, but I don’t think that’s really it. Everyone around me is always studying and doing things, but I’m still not motivated. I bought a vacuum for no reason. My friends here have such intense personal things they’re going through, and they’re still doing the work. What’s my hold up? Obviously now it’s my lack of motivation, but what’s at the bottom of that? Do I really just want to be doing something else? Let’s go back to feeling defeated. Has that really ever happened to me before? Maybe in moments, but never like this. I always felt like there’s no challenge I can’t overcome. What changed? I mean yeah I haven’t been doing that well in med school, but I haven’t been trying my hardest either. I’ve definitely noticed a regression in my focus – it’s like college again where I overloaded my plate and I have to re-discover my balance. In Boston there was no question of this – all I did was school and that was it. Why did I all of a sudden think I could balance in labs and clinical stuff I didn’t have during Boston AND school AND a life? That’s stupid. I should have known better. I’m slowly realizing it now and for some reason it’s depressing to me. I should have anticipated this. Everyone around me has their personal lives, but I don’t think that’s meant for me right now. Some people can handle it, some can’t handle it and don’t have a choice - it’s thrown at them anyway, and me, well.. I just can’t. Circumstances-wise there’s absolutely nothing that should hold me back. My parents are delightfully supportive of me being here and keep saying that they’re ready to pay for any resource I need. I need my own mind to work with me… it’s too bad they can’t pay for that. So what are we going to do about this? What needs to change? Which parts of my life are distracting right now?
- I can’t be the one to hear people complain about school all the time. Even though this isn’t the source of my problems, it definitely exacerbates the situation. I need to be around more positive people and away from that kind of negativity… I think the library is a good place for me, I’ll keep coming here.
- I’m largely social with the people in my floor, getting caught up in conversations at the spur of the moment or whatever.
- I still think that doing some kind of research will improve my focus. Reading that kind of intense literature forces you to think on a deeper level, and I just have no exposure to that right now. I think I just need to do some of that on my own… maybe read up on articles related to the block I’m in or just on something else for interest or something. Anything.
- I get upset at the monotony of my neighborhood. I can’t really do anything about this though – we all know that I won’t function well if I have to commute. But I think it’ll be worthwhile to explore different places around here to study so I can have a break. I’ll make that my project after coming back from Mexico. Finding a new study spot with a reasonable commute and good atmosphere.
- I have good instincts. I need to learn to take action on them and lose this inertia, this laziness. I’m not a lazy person – Dad pointed this out years ago. When I care, I do. I haven’t been caring about how do I here because I let this feeling of why bother? overcome me. Fuck that. I’m here to bother. When it comes down to it, I want to be a doctor. Let’s be honest, I’m not going to get anything I want out of life without this career. Yes, it’s going to make a lot of things hard. Yes, my family life is going to be more difficult and yes, this worries me. But so far I’ve had every single resource I could ask for, and I have no reason to believe that won’t be the case later. I don’t want to end up some kinda spinster who can’t find a man because she’s been so picky all her life, but that’s not going to happen to me. Look at who I’ve dated – I’m obviously not that picky. So I do the work now, get on top of my shit, and I’ll have the life I want. The prestige, the money, the job that lets me do something bigger than myself every day. That’s what I came here for, and why the hell should I try to leave without it? I still want all of those things. Playing with make up is fun, but beauty school isn’t a good option for me. I’d feel like my existence is useless and superficial and I’d probably be even more depressed trying to pay off the debt I’ve already accumulated without having the job I want. I know I would have regrets if I left med school now. That’s not what I want. Right? I don’t think so. Probably not.
So here’s what we’re going to do in Spring break:
1. Go shopping after the test. Retail therapy is in order.
2. Hit up Mexico and have a good time. It’ll be a good break, just relax and don’t let anything get to you.
3. Upon coming back, explore Brooklyn a bit. Find a place you’d like to spend the day reading.
4. Think about what you’d like to do research in. Your own research, just for fun. Find a few papers, download them, even print them and keep them in your backpack to read when you don’t feel like reading school crap. Then when you want to play solitaire, you do this instead.
OK that’s it. No more bitching. Get to work.
I feel defeated. Like I should be doing better. I keep comparing my time here to the year I spent in Boston, however over there I was far more driven to do well than I am here. Why is that? What was different? For one, I wasn’t in med school yet and that’s what I was going for. I knew I had to bust my ass, and that’s what I did. But I knew once I got here that I had to bust my ass too. Perhaps I was complacent? But then in genes to cells I worked my ass off and still didn’t do well. I went to AD then… what did they say. They told me to go through each lecture fewer times, but to emphasize points as I went along instead of relying on reiterations. They also told me to summarize in my head the point of each paragraph, talk it out, etc. recommended some books for practice problems, but cautioned heavily against relying on those. I didn’t really follow what they told me. I drew pictures in musculoskeletal and didn’t study development as well as I should have. I goofed off a lot thinking that I didn’t need to spend that much time on the material. Why did I think that? Maybe partly because I was spending so much time with one of my friends, and he doesn’t have to spend that much time on the material. I overestimated myself. I think I also felt defeated back then too – after working so hard in genes to cells without seeing results, I was like why bother? And I think a lot of that mentality never left me when I should’ve worked on getting rid of it a long time ago. While I’m studying I keep coming up with all these ideas of how I should review concepts, but I don’t get around to doing them. Why not? I get side-tracked by what other people are doing, how they are studying. I feel some kind of weird pressure to study the same way as everyone else, but I can’t be doing that. I need to do my own thing, what works for me. I keep wanting to blame the people around me for my slacking or for my mood or whatever. Is this valid? As much as they complain, they’re all doing more work than I am. So why am I only picking up on what people say and what they bitch about? How come I’m not the one doing work and telling them to handle their stuff? Why do I just not want to be here right now? Where would I rather be? I know I would definitely feel better about being here if my performance was better. So what’s holding back my performance? I keep thinking I need a good study buddy to keep me motivated and doing things, but I don’t think that’s really it. Everyone around me is always studying and doing things, but I’m still not motivated. I bought a vacuum for no reason. My friends here have such intense personal things they’re going through, and they’re still doing the work. What’s my hold up? Obviously now it’s my lack of motivation, but what’s at the bottom of that? Do I really just want to be doing something else? Let’s go back to feeling defeated. Has that really ever happened to me before? Maybe in moments, but never like this. I always felt like there’s no challenge I can’t overcome. What changed? I mean yeah I haven’t been doing that well in med school, but I haven’t been trying my hardest either. I’ve definitely noticed a regression in my focus – it’s like college again where I overloaded my plate and I have to re-discover my balance. In Boston there was no question of this – all I did was school and that was it. Why did I all of a sudden think I could balance in labs and clinical stuff I didn’t have during Boston AND school AND a life? That’s stupid. I should have known better. I’m slowly realizing it now and for some reason it’s depressing to me. I should have anticipated this. Everyone around me has their personal lives, but I don’t think that’s meant for me right now. Some people can handle it, some can’t handle it and don’t have a choice - it’s thrown at them anyway, and me, well.. I just can’t. Circumstances-wise there’s absolutely nothing that should hold me back. My parents are delightfully supportive of me being here and keep saying that they’re ready to pay for any resource I need. I need my own mind to work with me… it’s too bad they can’t pay for that. So what are we going to do about this? What needs to change? Which parts of my life are distracting right now?
- I can’t be the one to hear people complain about school all the time. Even though this isn’t the source of my problems, it definitely exacerbates the situation. I need to be around more positive people and away from that kind of negativity… I think the library is a good place for me, I’ll keep coming here.
- I’m largely social with the people in my floor, getting caught up in conversations at the spur of the moment or whatever.
- I still think that doing some kind of research will improve my focus. Reading that kind of intense literature forces you to think on a deeper level, and I just have no exposure to that right now. I think I just need to do some of that on my own… maybe read up on articles related to the block I’m in or just on something else for interest or something. Anything.
- I get upset at the monotony of my neighborhood. I can’t really do anything about this though – we all know that I won’t function well if I have to commute. But I think it’ll be worthwhile to explore different places around here to study so I can have a break. I’ll make that my project after coming back from Mexico. Finding a new study spot with a reasonable commute and good atmosphere.
- I have good instincts. I need to learn to take action on them and lose this inertia, this laziness. I’m not a lazy person – Dad pointed this out years ago. When I care, I do. I haven’t been caring about how do I here because I let this feeling of why bother? overcome me. Fuck that. I’m here to bother. When it comes down to it, I want to be a doctor. Let’s be honest, I’m not going to get anything I want out of life without this career. Yes, it’s going to make a lot of things hard. Yes, my family life is going to be more difficult and yes, this worries me. But so far I’ve had every single resource I could ask for, and I have no reason to believe that won’t be the case later. I don’t want to end up some kinda spinster who can’t find a man because she’s been so picky all her life, but that’s not going to happen to me. Look at who I’ve dated – I’m obviously not that picky. So I do the work now, get on top of my shit, and I’ll have the life I want. The prestige, the money, the job that lets me do something bigger than myself every day. That’s what I came here for, and why the hell should I try to leave without it? I still want all of those things. Playing with make up is fun, but beauty school isn’t a good option for me. I’d feel like my existence is useless and superficial and I’d probably be even more depressed trying to pay off the debt I’ve already accumulated without having the job I want. I know I would have regrets if I left med school now. That’s not what I want. Right? I don’t think so. Probably not.
So here’s what we’re going to do in Spring break:
1. Go shopping after the test. Retail therapy is in order.
2. Hit up Mexico and have a good time. It’ll be a good break, just relax and don’t let anything get to you.
3. Upon coming back, explore Brooklyn a bit. Find a place you’d like to spend the day reading.
4. Think about what you’d like to do research in. Your own research, just for fun. Find a few papers, download them, even print them and keep them in your backpack to read when you don’t feel like reading school crap. Then when you want to play solitaire, you do this instead.
OK that’s it. No more bitching. Get to work.
