Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Happy Halloween

I am alternately bored and procrastinating, while I bare my fangs out of the window to scare the evil spirits (who are no doubt hoping to have some good old fun) quivering and shitless. (Yeah, I have a bit of that in me. I believe in that delusion that I am too crabby for any spirit to try to haunt or terrify. They stand to gain nothing in trying or in doing, but they lose a lot of their credibility in trying or doing.) In the spirit of All Hallows Eve, I just wanted to share the seven majorly mortifying thoughts that have turned me into a right old mardy for the longest bleeding time. It might sound like a load of bollocks to anyone, but hey, I'm the jessie here. 1. I am mortified to have realized that I am no longer interested in trying to learn as much as I could. I am scared that somehow this will affect my future patients, in the sense that any other practitioner might be able to spot the problem in record time while I try to remember that tiny memory that contains a smidgen of recognition for whatever my patient complains of. I survived so much (until today) because I was such a nerd way back in high school. Maybe I have been too complacent, especially in college and more so in med school. Maybe I am bored, I find the pacing or the teaching style way out of sync, or I simply cannot accept the fact that passing most of the med school exams entails a lot of memorization without understanding. 2. I am mortified that I am no longer trying to keep myself in good health. It is a given that medical school students do not get enough sleep, yet I am not taking advantage of the sem break to catch up on some snooze time. I do not eat when I am hungry, yet I stuff myself full of empty calories or the wrong proportions of food groups simply because I am too tired or lazy to prepare a decent meal. The idea of going to the gym does not hold any appeal because I make a lot of excuses for not going. The prescription for my new eyeglasses had taken permanent residence inside my wallet since July, and has never seen daylight since. I do not even visit the dentist every three weeks like I did before, so now, the removal and transition to retainers has been delayed. Topping all these health sins off is my forgetting the proper schedule of immunizations. Demmit. 3. I am mortified to find that my recent entries here on LJ have been nothing more than terse phrases or rants. Nothing like the very first entries of the blog. Writing was one of my secret pleasures before, something that could give me immense happiness in a short span of time. My journal entries were highly treasured, for they held more than memories or emotions captured in words. These entries allowed me to see how I grew as a person, how my own views of the world had changed, how I was working towards my goal. As of late, my muse seems to have had the knickers in a knot, because I have leashed her to make way for things that now seem terribly unimportant. How did I let one part of my life enroach what I previously held so dear and high? 4. I am mortified to realize that I am crippled in the relationship department. Romantic interests are not quite my priority right now, because I am actively seeking for the tightest circle of friends I could have. I have lost touch with my bestest friend from elementary school. High school was pretty much spent in complete isolation. College was wonderful and colorful, however, no matter how much effort I put into keeping touch, I quite understand that my college friends are caught in the wonderfully woeful grind of academia too much to even reply at times. I really cannot trust my classmates here in med school; playing the part of a wallflower pretty much lets me see that they are not interested beyond the person who can do their presentations or tutor them in tough subjects. Even the guidance counselor in med admitted that most of the people here are cut-throat and ultimately user-friendly; in her own words, real and good friends are a rarity in the institution. Somehow being too independent or aloof has afforded me the seclusion I have loved so much, yet I feel I have traded in the joys of companionship for that. It does not quite help too that my parents are grappling with the idea of me already a young adult that they keep a too-tight leash on me (more like caging me in), which actually cannot allow me to go about building good relationships with ease. 5. I am mortified to find myself failing the very reasonable expectations I set for myself. Even if I can blame my horrible habit of procrastination stemming from my absurd perfectionist tendencies, the very reminders of my lack of responsibility in the achievement department irk me. Banging my head against any solid surface would not give me answers in any way, and most likely would leave me a mild concussion that may be enough to change my personality permanently. Maybe I failed to think of a back-up plan, too confident that things would fall exactly where I though they would. Staring back from the plate set before me is a jumble of broken dreams, nuggets of opportunity, slivers of reality that wound invisibly, morsels of hope, little heaps of regret, portions of truth and a smattering of memories. All that is left for me to do is to chew on the 'meal' and move according to what I can synthesize from them using what's left of my neurons that have seemed to be moving towards a gradual extinction as of late. 6. I am mortified to realize that I am second guessing every little thing I do. Admittedly, self-esteem was/is not one of my strongest points, as my life experiences so far can attest to, but I never found myself in a situation where self-doubt clouded every single decision I make. Making monumental mistakes or failing my expectations (see above) reduced me into a veritable coward. Never mind the thought that second-guessing is a protective mechanism being used by my over-deflated ego. There is such a thing called prudence that I have indeed learned to exercise (albeit a bit too liberally as of late) as I changed into a young adult, but second-guessing is entirely unhealthy and can never be described as a virtue. 7. I am mortified by the possibility that I am trying to live up to the expectations of the people around myself instead of dancing to my own tune. Anyone will surely hate being reduced to a puppet made to perform to please others. Anyone will truly hate trying to do what others would deem proper, when doing so actually grates against one's personal style. I am quite terrified that I am becoming a plaything. I am quite terrified of the possibility that I am being groomed to become part of a zombie-like herd (forgive me if this sounds way too paranoid) when I quite enjoy sticking out like an 'errant' (more like maverick) animal. Expectations from observers merely weaken or severely limit what anyone can accomplish through time, short term or long term if allowed to do so. (Don't get me wrong-I am in, and enjoying med school, but I feel hopelessly disappointed in the learning institution; I never realized until today that not sharing the views of the institution is so hard to live with.) So...there. Maybe working through these mortifying thoughts will help me overhaul my life right now, or even spark the change I think I desperately need. Happy Halloween, indeed.

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