I tell you, I’m doing a terrible job this year of blogging. Trust me that its constantly on my mind, but this year is just alot busier, and there is nothing I can do. We just finished tests today, and although we only had 4 tests (Pathophysiology, Pathology, Microbiology, and Pharmacology) it felt just as bad as when we used to have 7 tests in one week. It didn’t help that I just got a new gadget either:
I tell you, I truly have a problem. When I get a new gadget, or I get on some new self made project (like teaching myself to program, or researching an airspray to clean computers, lol) I become all encompassed by it. I can honestly think of nothing else but accomplishing that task. I guess this quality is great if focused on the right object at the right time, but it always seems to pop up at the bad times like during test week. So yeah, I would study for 20 minutes, then spend about 40 minutes on the computer, downloading stuff to make my new Pocket Pc faster…better than it was before, lol. Thankfully, the Lord blessed me to be able to pick stuff up quick, so I didn’t feel too bad when I took my tests. But only the grades will tell.
Latino Beat Down
On a more sad note, something pretty terrible happened to some Black first year medical student friends of mine. 2 weeks ago, on a Saturday night they were coming out of a restaurant after celebrating a friend’s birthday. I guess it was about midnight when they were walking to their car in the parking lot; all of a sudden a whole grip of Latino gang members jumped them. Two of them got beat until they were unconscious, and the other got his face messed up pretty bad. After the gang members did their dirty work, they left. This incident really opened my eyes up to the truth and reality of Southern California. I guess I had always heard how there was some feud between the black gangs and the Latino gangs, but I thought that was only in LA. I didn’t think it would make its way up to the quiet, quaint, well-to-do, predominantly white area of Redlands, CA. My friend’s experience initially caused me to look at any Latino male suspiciously, sizing them up, and making sure I wasn’t going to be the next victim. But I stopped myself very quickly from that line of thinking; by doing that I was being no different than those White women that would clutch their purse a little more closely when they got on the elevator with me. Because of a few bad black people out there, that woman felt like she had the right to fear me, and I didn’t want to get into the same mindset because of a few bad Latinos. I tell you…this world is so complicated and so dangerous.
Being Content
The more and more that I progress through medical school, the more I realize how hard it is to be content. You are happy with the 85% that you got on a test, right up until you learn that your study buddy got a 96%. As a medical student it is so hard to just be happy with how you have done. And you know what, it is slightly understandable; most medical students have been used to being at the top of their class since Kindergarten. Getting an A on a test was the norm…but it still brought lots of satisfaction. Then you come to medical school, and you study harder than you have ever studied in your life, and you can’t pull any higher than a C or a B on most of your tests. But your study buddy somehow seems to be able to eek out an A on their test consistently, even though you guys are studying the same thing. It happens with ranking too; right now I’m ranked somewhere in the top 20% of my class, but you know what I say in my head when I look at my ranking? I say, “I can’t believe X% of my class is smarter than me,…I have to work harder.” Isn’t that ridiculous? Rather than being content with the fact that X% of people are doing worse than me, I’m looking at those ahead of me, grabbing for their coat tails. I believe that it is imperative to overcome your overall lack of contentment when you start medical school, because there will ALWAYS be someone better or smarter than you. I’ve been working really hard at this and it has honestly made me happier. When I get my test scores back and X% of the class did better than me, I shrug my shoulders and start surfing the net or going on Facebook. If you dwell on the subject you will drive yourself crazy and you will probably end up doing more poorly in school because you are adding undue pressure on yourself to beat the man at the top.
So yeah, to be honest there really isn’t much exciting stuff to talk about right now as you will soon find out when/if you decide to come to medical school. By the time you get to 2nd year, especially this point in 2nd year you are just tired of the montomy and routine of it all. Your day mainly consists of studying your butt off, and your nights consist of Step 1 prep. I could blog about that but I’m sure my readership would drop like 20%. So yeah, that is what is going on these days.
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