28 April 2011

On hope for forty days

Firstly, I apologise for the amount of time it has been since my last post. In two months, it will literally have been a year since I posted. But, as no one really reads this anyway, it's okay.

Secondly, the forty days. For the next forty days, I will be attempting to memorise First Aid and go through Rapid Review with Robbins and remember every little detail Goljan and his little snicker and sometimes crass jokes can impart. Because in forty days, I will have determined the most quantitative and one of the most consequential portions of my application to residency. Which basically determines my future.

Needless to say, I am pretty overwhelmed, nervous, and kind of bummed that this is what my life has been reduced to: forty days of memorising, forty days of dread, forty days of...I don't know, agony, maybe.

I know this is what every student in medical school does. I know that I am no different, that every student's life comes down to one test at some point. It's just that this process is so unpleasant and it seems to permeate every corner of my life. I am no longer able to carry on a normal conversation with the friends I have made here without some allusion that turns into a full-blown discussion about the boards. Aside from boards, I feel incapable of discussing topics of an intellectual nature. My brain wants to watch trashy TV shows or sports because at that moment it can indulge itself in doing absolutely nothing, and the little current events I still keep up with are the things I see on The Daily Show or The Colbert Report. Thank goodness for those shows that I still know what's going on in the world around me.

At the end of the day, I have to convince myself that this is all worth it, and I obviously believe that it is. But it's just hard to get through it without complaining, without looking for that light at the end of the tunnel.

And so it is, in forty days, Mickis and Sina will be arriving in San Francisco, and I will be done with the boards (hopefully forever). In forty days, I will have my freedom for a brief three weeks before I live in the hospital. In forty days, I will get to see (not through Skype but in person) friends that I have not seen in two years.

So, I hope for motivation for these forty days. Motivation to do what I have to do to do what I want to do for the rest of my life. It shouldn't be hard, but these days, it seems motivation is particularly hard to come by.

Send motivating thoughts my way please! <3