(127/365)
First of seven Summerfest shifts completed last night. It was not without its quiet moments, but the night was still busy enough for me to get some practice in–some minor traumas (blisters, cuts, nosebleeds), a couple of medical situations that were most likely just anxiety/panic attacks, but nothing catastrophic. The flow went something like this–long periods of downtime alternating with short bursts of multiple persons to tend to. I like to think that Fate or whoever was screwing with me, because the night was pretty slow up until I took the first bite of my dinner (a brat from Mader’s). It must have been at least 30 minutes until I was able to get a second bite. Not that I minded–it felt good actually doing something useful.
If my next shift is at least as busy as this one was, I might regret thinking I’d be up for six consecutive nights. oy.
In the days following clicking “Submit” on my primary med school application, that initial sense of accomplishment has been increasingly replaced by a sense of dread, realizing that, by having done so, I am subjecting myself to critique and judgment orders of magnitude beyond the yearly employee performance review. I suspect this may not be so bad for the more typical med school applicant, who hasn’t had time enough to develop not only a significant body of experience but a sense of…well, I guess it’s entitlement. Not so much the “I’ve had everything spoon-fed to me and I expect it to continue” unjustified sense so much as the “I’ve paid my dues and then some–to reject me is an injustice” unjustified sense of entitlement. But, in line with not self-identifying with the “entitlement generation,” any feelings of indignation I might feel are subsumed by worry–worry that I didn’t market myself well enough on my application, that I might be judged unqualified or unprepared; and then where would that leave me? (“Oh, yeah? Well, I’m gonna build my own med school. With blackjack. And hookers. In fact…forget the school.”)
Humility. I should keep that in mind.
And there’s so much waiting. Waiting for my transcripts to be verified, waiting for secondaries, waiting for interviews… one foot is moving towards the future, but the other foot has to stay in the present and take care of present responsibilities, despite all desire to continue moving forward, making the wait more intolerable. Oh, and the uncertainty. None of what I’ve done so far is guaranteed to result in the outcome I want. (Amusing thought: does the uncertainty principle imply that if I knew that I made it into med school, I would have no idea what I did to get there?)
Maybe I need an actual vacation…especially before the secondary applications start to kick my ass.
(91/365)
I started my 29th year trying to make the most of every day. I wish I could say that I have, but at least I’ve been somewhat successful. Maybe it’s unrealistic to do that with every single day; the weekdays, for instance, are hard, and it’s tough to stay motivated when I’ve got two major focuses in my life–work and school, one of which is more out of necessity and the other being what I want to do. Spending my free time with friends and family, in creative pursuits, and in service to others does bring a measure of fulfillment, but it isn’t enough for a net positive feeling. And losing Fred on the heels of losing Scott–well, Scott would have used the adjective “tenderized” somewhere.
At least I’m making some progress towards the future.
I wasn’t expecting to make those calls again so soon–those calls that no one ever really knows how to make, those calls that, if you’re on the other end, you don’t know what to say in response. If not for that always-on connection that is my iPhone, I might have been relieved of that responsibility. But because I did get the message when I did… it’s one small thing I could do for a friend I hadn’t seen for years. Fred, I will try to make it out to see you, one last time.
This is always how I picture Fred.
By the way, I’m way past done with tragedy for this year.
“I want to be a comfort to my friends in tragedy. And I want to be able to celebrate with them in triumph. And for all the times in between, I just want to be able to look them in the eye.” -Josh Lyman, The West Wing
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
1. I can be pretty sensitive to sound and perceived sound, especially my own heartbeat, so my first attempts at taking a blood pressure weren’t helped by being in a noisy environment or by having the sphygmomanometer tubes bumping all up against the stethoscope.
2. I need to retrain myself to pay more attention to my senses. Engineers need to make accurate, precise measurements that are repeatable, which we do using various tools (multimeters, oscilloscopes, network analyzers, software debuggers). Nowhere do the five senses factor in as collectors of primary data. On the other hand, medical workers, first responders especially, have to rely on their senses to assess a situation.
3. I’ve become too…left-brained. Back in undergrad, I kept my engineer-side balanced with a healthy dose of acting (some of my fonder memories are of late nights/early mornings during tech week). And after hanging out last week with a couple of high school friends who are also drama babies, I started to miss it. Not to mention, some of those skills would help ease this career transition I’m slowly working through.
The unique perspective that being an alum provides for serving on the admissions review committee cuts both ways. The first-hand experience is an asset, as it allows for a particular insight on the type of student who would thrive in this setting. However, it’s also a burden once you realize that same privilege you were afforded could have just as easily been denied, and presumably, since you’re serving on the committee, you know what a Big Frakking Deal that would have been. When I think about that–and not only that, but that this had to happen for Every Single Person There–when, try as I might to avoid it, my mind attempts to ponder a life not having become friends with these Wonderful People… I can’t.
Ever since Scott moved out of the city in 2000-2001 or thereabouts, I had kept in touch with him mostly through the Internet. In so doing, he became less of a “real” inhabitant of my life and more someone who I knew through the virtual reality of ones and zeros. It’s easy for me, then, to chalk up his absence to simply having moved onto the Next Big Internet Thing, as he has done many times before; that, when I saw his Facebook profile on today, his birthday, it felt like I can still give him a ring the next time I’m in town and meet up for a drink and cheesy comestibles at NoMi, in a sort of blissful ignorance, a tacit denial of the reality of it all.
But with a blink of my eyes, I remember again.
I may run myself ragged during Jessup week, but the net effects aren’t unlike going on vacation: I get to forget about my normal life for a few days and, when it’s over, I’m loath to go back to it. This year felt a little different.
Though at the end of this year’s rounds I wanted nothing more than to be reunited with my own bed and to go motoring through some scenic, twisty roads, realizing the amount of work waiting for me in that whole “normal life” thing–the tasks at work I have decreasing patience for, the preparations for applying to medical school that I have decreasing confidence in as to my success–killed any happiness I had when I did make it back home.
On the other hand, I didn’t want to stay with the Jessup crowd, either. I dare say I was more removed than usual from the people (which is what normally makes the week worthwhile). This year’s rounds seemed to take its toll more than previous years have: added to the now-usual exhaustion that comes with helping to keep the competition running was a certain sadness, somewhat from this being Amity’s last competition as executive director, that I just couldn’t shake.
So, if I couldn’t stay in DC or be with my friends there, or go home… that left very little in the way of options. And I continue in my steadfast desire to be anywhere but here.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
(18/365)
So far, I’ve been trying not to shoot too many photographs so as to avoid having to choose one that gets the “official shot of the day” title; but I couldn’t avoid it for today’s post. Between a photograph with more meaning and a photograph with more visual appeal, I chose the one with more meaning.
The sticker appeared on that pole in the last week or two. I was struck by its economy of message–a black-and-white print of a nondescript, if somewhat creepy, face paired with a simple statement that people who encounter it are free to interpret as they wish. (Geez, doesn’t that sound like I’m reading too much into it.) There’s little question that I wouldn’t have paid it much attention were it not for my own struggles with goals: not so much that I lack them, but rather that I’m hard-pressed to make any progress towards achieving them. The situation is such that there is but one logical path I can follow–only one choice to make–and it may or may not lead where I want. The reasons for this could occupy their own blog entry, but I will, in the interests of time and discretion, leave them unwritten.
One foot in front of the other, I suppose.
(15/365)
Completing my first in a series of FAST training workshops yesterday, this one on trauma emergencies, it seems to me that this is not unlike what med school will be like: there’s a lot of information being launched furiously at you in a short amount of time and you’re expected to pick it up just as fast, but none of it will actually start to make sense or be internalized until you actually start on the job. It’s certainly not unique to medicine, but the experience is something I haven’t needed to go through in well over six years.
What I suspect isn’t quite like med school is the diversity of backgrounds of everyone who’s volunteering. There are medical professionals, sure, but there are quite a few self-proclaimed non-medical professionals–IT professionals/computer geeks–participating as well. Given my own motivations, it’s unsurprising. From my conversations with them so far, the running theme is that they aren’t completely fulfilled or otherwise satisfied by their jobs, usually because of the sedentary aspect of the job and because there’s little sense of having made a difference. And so it is that they came to volunteer for the Red Cross.
Beyond the full-time job holders are the students, some pre-meds, some of whom are switching into medicine after having studied something completely unrelated in their undergrad careers. I met two fine arts post-baccs who are slogging through pre-med classes, and of course I had to ask if they had already hit organic chemistry (isn’t that the bane of every pre-med’s existence?), but they couldn’t relate to that particular misery yet. We talked shop more than anything else–classes, MCATs, applying to med schools–but I would have liked to have found out more about why they’re changing course in life. It’s always interesting to me to hear the reasons why people decide to pursue a career in medicine; plus, it gives me a chance to continue hashing out for myself my own reasons for what I’m doing.
All in all, it was a good session, learning a lot and interacting with a variety of people. There were definitely some insecurities to work through, though. It’ll fade as I get into the swing of things, no doubt; I just wish I didn’t have to wait until the next workshop in April.
