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Ogre2QT
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Country: United States
State: Pennsylvania
Birthday: 10/24/1984
Gender: Female
Interests: scandals, pinkness in the sky, the moon
Expertise: buying pants
Occupation: Consulting
Industry: Entertainment
Message: message me
Member Since:
11/26/2003
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| This was originally an email to Mike. Then I realized that I just wanted to whine. And lately, I've read my fair share of medical student blogs where other students admit that they just need to whine. So here's me: last night, I stayed up late learning about the Match and Couples matching and read some more SDN forums and medical student blogs. I must say that these activities discouraged me and by the end of the night, I was a mess and pretty convinced that I wanted to quit and do something easier and less damaging to my sense of well-being (and actual health). One of the things that threw me for a loop is that ENT--which is now in the normal match (prior to 2006 it was one of the early match specialties)--is among the top 4 competitive specialties, in line with Derm, Plastics, and Radiology. I am starting to wrap my mind around the concept of not being able to get into something...I wonder about the value of being more realistic. Unfortunately, this all goes back to my lack of planning when entering medical school. I didn't know what kind of doctor i wanted to be and sort of ignored the fact that the desirable specialties are harder to get into. When I was an MS1, residency was a pretty intimidating behemoth of a concept so I largely avoided contemplating it. However, I don't think I want to be miserable in medical school, just to settle for some miserable specialty that i don't like because i was too miserable in medical school to get into something better. So what do I do? Do I take a deep breath and burn through to the end of med school, doing all the "right" things and sleeping for 4 hours a night? Do I shrivel up and not go outside until spring? I can't really berate myself all that much for being burned out at the end of college, because what has happened is in the past and now I just have to pick up the pieces. I was so discouraged that i woke up in the middle of the night at 3:45 am and couldn't go back to sleep. I was scared, nervous, felt pressure in my chest, and illogically trying to avoid going to that ENT conference this morning to begin making contacts. I felt weak, afraid and like a bad student who foolishly thinks she can get into ENT. The guilt of not going to the conference, like the guilt of having skipped out on classes and events in the past just sort of gobbled me up and I felt extremely overwhelmed and unhappy. How did my nerves become so friable? Is this stress normal for medical students? For people our age? I suppose I had a choice either to continue feeling weak and defeated or to feel rebellious and just say "fuck it, why the hell should I constantly feel bad about myself. who cares if i attend all the necessary things, why do i have to be 'on' all the time, even while i'm trying to sleep at 4 am!! Good lord, people there's a time and place for things!" When I was reading medical student blogs and SDN forums, I was struck by a few things. There really are 2 types of medical students: The ones who flounder and complain that school has infiltrated and ruined their lives and the ones who suck it up and adapt their lives to put school first. I wonder why, despite how hard and miserable it is, pre meds continue to fight to get into medical school. It seems like it's only becoming more competitive. Is this how hard it is to get a stable well-paying job in any other wake of life? If this is just how hard life is supposed to be...well I guess I'm not very well-prepared for life, rather than just medical school! Well I know a few things that would make me feel a thousand times better: 1) to make money 2) to get into residency, but mainly because that means I will have stopped borrowing $40K/year to be miserable in school Lastly, I will probably be "ok" in any residency anywhere, but "ok" and "settling" are not usually in my vocabulary. This sort of attitude sets people up to be insane Type A go-getters with high blood pressure and friable nerves. I should quit school and open up a fruit stand. | | |
| another dream shattered, another day's begunnnn! The weather has turned cool and rainy. yesterday, I couldn't reel with this change. I slept practically all day. Maybe the same thing will happen today, but it feels more poetic with music in the background. :) I've been surveying a lot of different websites for fashionista hipsters. An artist wrote an article about black and sadness being more beautiful than wholesome happiness. i must agree. There is some depth or enigma about still, adynamic sadness. It makes you wonder about the unseen complex thoughts lurking beneath the surface that drive the emotion. Apparently, black is *the* color to own for this coming fall/winter. woot! And black lipstick is no longer restricted for adolescent goths. Why am I more nostalgic during the fall than any other season? I started rotating on the wards. My hours aren't usually terrible; as in I've seen other people manage their lives with such work hours. I haven't really been able to master it. When I was coming home at 7-8 for psych, i couldn't do anything for the rest of the day. I just vegged until 9-10 and then went to sleep. Who am i kidding, i was working 11 hour days. On medicine, I was working 6 days a week! that was so brutal. elgughgh. Life is pretty calm nowadays. Routine and predictable. Although i suppose patients don't have to be predictable. And they're not. I can't believe I'm a junior medical clerk. haha. I keep on reflecting about how all i was really aiming for was to get myself into medical school and never really thought about getting out of it (with an MD). It didn't help that I had to do work for NIMH up until the beginning of August and we started in mid-August. I remember I couldn't care less about medical school at that point. And of course, my personal life was completed ravaged by my own mistakes and indiscretions. Oy. Somehow, the greater and lesser omenta became less salient to me. "be my friend....hold me, wrap me up. unfold me, i am small and needy, warm me up and breathe me" what a brilliant song. i heard it used on a commercial without the creepy Dependent Personality D/o words. I think I might like Psychiatry. I wish there wasn't a stigma that psychiatrists aren't real doctors because I definitely feel influenced by it. But imagine never again having to worry about the different colors that tympanic membranes can take on, or informing your patients about the newest glycemic control strategy. Or the greater and lesser omenta... Weirdly, I may have had a dream where Mike told me that i'm going to go into psychiatry. But maybe it actually did happen in real life? "I said it's too late to apologize ---ee yea-hhh" It's kind of weird, but I'm not angry at anyone. Like for real, i just feel like minding my own business these days. it's been a long time coming! I hope that I complete all of my tasks today. If i am good, i will reward myself with some ice cream! | | |
| Many of my memories from 358 Orchard Dr. are of me glued to a chair for hours being yelled at. Memorizing the room around me. The pattern on the wallpaper, the wall hangings. But never the look on my parents' faces. I would sit there, feeling my anger swell up in me, sometimes until it was unbearable, until it just gets to a point where i don't feel it anymore. It's like hunger i guess? After a certain point of being hungry, you just don't feel hungry anymore. Or so i hear. I think this is in the time frame of a day-few days because would definitely not know of a time frame longer than that. Sometimes, during the log phase of the anger, I imagine myself breaking vases and computers and smashing dishes. The thought would always start out satisfying, but as i went through with it and saw visions of my mom picking up the pieces of glass, or my dad picking at shards of computer....my heart would break. And there the balance would suspend me. This anger, and this regret for acts not yet committed. It just occurred to me....am i the person that i am because i just sat there and took the heat? I've been thinking about my teenage years a lot. I think a lot about how they define who i am. But what they defined were my college years which then defined the way i am now. Or maybe they don't really define me at all, and it's just my (skewed) memory of them that does. I'm being counterproductive because I got into a fight and now i've wasted 3 hours. Congratulations. I don't want to burn any bridges, though. So a few emails will go unsent tonight. They were just as satisfying to write as the imaginary vases were to break. But no one will have to pick my word-shards out of their cuts, except for me. | | |
| i've been listening to a lot of michael jackson. and studying for step 1 of le boards. how does it feel? how does it feel? how does it feel? (how does it fe-e-e-e-eel) when you're alone and you're cold inside? -like stranger in moscow, of course. An ever growing part of me wishes for upheaval. I've never been in a hurry to leave pittsburgh or start over or overhaul my life. I guess for a long time, I either liked my life enough or i didn't hate it enough. But now the thought of upheaval delights me immensely. I don't think that i'm running away from anything here because there are no loose ends! she always takes it with a heart of stone. yet all she does is throw it back to meee i spent a lifetime looking for someone who'll try to understand me and simply do the things i say.... haha "talk to me, wo-MAN" is my favorite line. | | |
| After rescuing her ophthalmoscope from her locker, she weaves her way through the detours in the building with eternal escalator repair. Her steps are muffled by the buzz of her own busy mind. As she rounds a corner in a deserted hallway, the encounter she dreaded for months startles her. Helter skelter, she stammers an excuse. "I was getting my ophthalmoscope." "But on a Saturday?" She never told him she was graceful... ref: http://www.xanga.com/Ogre2QT/59760903/item.html oh my godddd. why am I so awkward? I was always mortified because of the last voicemail that he left on my phone that I couldn't in good conscience respond to. As he entered the elevator, he had the keen eye to ask me if everything was alright. BWA?! why would anything be alright with me? I'm a crazy person, i thought he knew that already. <maniacal laughter ensues at hilarity of situation> haha, come to think of it, I did not misspeak the word "ophthalmoscope" which I usually tend to pronounce "ophtho-malo-scope" This, of course, is the reason why I choose to not go into ophtho-molo-gy. | | |
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