Almost There

I'm geared up for a second set of holidays and boy I'm excited. Between playing Pokemon Go and reading "what is an abscess" for the fifth time, I've discovered that my life is boring and stale and I should really do something about it.

Pokemon Go has been all the hype lately, and I'm the kid who EV trained his Alakazam for 405 special attack back in the day, by killing what must be generations of spindas. Honestly that is 90% of the memories I have in regards to Pokemon Emerald. The other 10% is split between cloning rare candies and challenging the battle frontier- which was all the hype, but that got waaaay too fucking hard.

RIP Spindas

I'm going to hang out with some friends hopefully tonight and for the next two days as well- good way to start my holidays, I suppose. 2 weeks off is a luxury, isn't it? I got my results back from last semester's examinations. I did fail the course I thought I'd fail, but I did pass overall, so I guess it's fine. I wasn't surprised by how poorly I did- you need expectations to be disappointed, and I don't think I had any. I was kind of sad that I didn't do better in the topics I DID study for though; I read through an entire textbook and only got 78% correct. That's kind of atrocious, isn't it?

Now I know how most people feel, when they put in effort and receive very minimal returns. I liked it better when I thought I was clever- back then I could play games all day and pump out an A+ essay in one night. Right now I still play games all day, but my grades are suffering and I don't have a lot of motivation to do much about it.

I'm just glad that semester was over. I had minimal interest in what I studied and I think a change of scenery this time around will be nice. Not that it's helped my enthusiasm. I received a kind evaluation today for finishing my first rotation- the first time ever anyone has given me an "above average" score since medical school started (it's kind of brutal for a previous straight A student to handle, I tell you). Then only "suggested improvement" I got was "needs to be more proactive", which I think is a very nice way of reminding me I should at least pretend I'm interested, even when I don't give a shit.

I should do something about this seemingly endless negativity I have around me. Maybe a good time with friends will remedy a bit of it.

How to spot a pansy

You know how Facebook has these notifications for whose birthday it is, and you can write something generic like "happy birthday" on their wall?

Well apparently it's "fake" to wish someone a happy birthday on their birthday, because I'm "not even friends with them" and we "don't even talk". I guess you can show sincerity by writing 2 paragraphs about how birthday-boy is such a good friend, and how we've known eachother for so long and how touching this event is. For me, maybe I just wanted to wish him a simple, "happy birthday", alright?

I think some people just read too much into these things. I thought I was just doing a nice thing, casually wishing someone "happy birthday"- I would've said it to a stranger, if I knew it was their birthday. It's not like I'm trying to get on his dick or whatever, I'm literally just saying "happy birthday". Only because it's nice to hear, not because we're best friends or that it's super-meaningful.

People criticize social conventions all the time- like saying, "how are you" without expecting anything other than "good, thanks". I get why it's frustrating- especially if you have problems understanding social "rules". But sometimes they're in place not for a particular reason, and maybe we'd save a few years of our lives if we cut out these little things--- except they're nice to have.

It's nice to have people wish you a happy birthday, even if they're not your particular friend. Because it's nice to be acknowledged and remembered, even if Facebook does the reminding for you.

So if you call people out for writing "happy birthday', my God you're the fucking pansy I'm talkin' about.

Goddammit Med School

Med school is the worst thing for your self-esteem, I swear. I went from seeing myself as someone with natural talent, who could achieve anything with effort, to seeing myself as a complete drop-kick. Sure, there are plenty of people who are worse than me- but really that's no comfort because we don't compare down.

This feeling of inadequacy has been haunting me from day 1, and it really hasn't gone away. Every day I known more about medicine than I did the day before- but it just reinforces how dumb I am and how much stuff there is that I don't know. People talk all the time about memories failing- well, I thought I was too young for that, but apparently not. I still remember ridiculous details about useless things, but everything else... not so much.

Some days I'm sure it's just because I'm not trying hard enough. I often ask myself, "do I regret it, do I regret this, do I wish I'd done something else and just declared to my father, "I DON'T NEED YOU OR YOUR MONEY" --- well, I think about it, but if you threw me back in time I'd choose the same thing. Not that I love med more than anything else in the world, or that I'm passionate/ think it's my one-true-calling. It's just that question which I ask myself: "is there anything in the world you'd rather do more than this".

The answer is no. There is nothing I'd want to do more.

But that's not really anything inspirational or dramatic, it just means I have a pitiful imagination and I curse myself for it when I realize at times how I don't like medicine at all. Well that's too negative to say I don't like it... uh
- I don't hate it
- I do find some of it interesting
-I just have no motivation to learn and I seriously don't give a shit about a good 90% of the content
-And some days I wish I was a tree or something, just stay in one place and be useful, make some oxygen.

I don't know why I'm so apathetic. I literally saw open-heart surgery the other day- like, the technology involved was so cool. The heart is stopped, but the patient is kept alive with a pump, we put tubes in the heart to make a bypass- and the patient is alive all this time, even though his heart isn't beating. Even as I describe the procedure to you guys, it sounds cool. But when I was in there, man, all I thought was "whew it's cold in here" and "I wanna go home".

In my brain I know it's meant to be "cool" and I am pretty privileged to be able to see that- in person. It's not like a concert where you can just pay money and watch. Except it just looked like an arts and craft lesson to me, where you cut things open and sew them back up. And the thing about arts and crafts, right, is that it's fun if you're doing it, but when you watch someone else it becomes less fun, and if you have to stand for hours in a cold room watching someone else, it becomes less-fun still. I can see why people would want to be surgeons- it seems cool, you get to sound smart, the nurses do the set-up and the clean-up, it almost sounds too-good.

Then you remember back to the minimum 7 year training AFTER however many years of med school, how you get very little sleep and very little food, all those exams you have to do and all that knowledge you have to retain. Like, fuck that, man. Fuck that lifestyle. Even if I made a lot of money I'd blow it on comfort materials instead of hobbies or w/e.

I've gone so far with med school it's not worth backing out any more. People seem to think I know things, and seem to expect me to know things. Sometimes I meet those expectations, a lot of the time I feel like I don't--- but I'm pretty good at pretending that I do. Maybe one day I'll get called out on it- but I feel like I'm not the only one faking it hard. I assume at some point I'll know what I need to know- just gotta hope no one finds out how much of an imposter I am in the meanwhile.

Recently

Sorry for the recent depressing posts, here's a less depressing one.

My 22nd birthday passed without any hassle, and school has started once again. I have to wake early every morning to catch the bus, but I'm enjoying learning for the first time in about 4 years. Everything just started making sense all of a sudden, and there's this familiarity of "I've heard this before!" Or maybe it's because the topics have become more interesting, but either way, I'm happy about my education.

As for last term- well, results are released soon. I'm restless thanks to the anticipation, but if I fail it'll be a huge disappointment. I've had a good few weeks since the exams ended, and I just don't want the "feel good" phase to end. Over this period I caught up with friends, drank more alcohol than I should've (well, my friends would tell you it wasn't that much and I'm a filthy light-weight), and I did very little study. It's good now, though, I can open a textbook and not feel despair.

I did something really stupid thing today, though. I started arguing with someone on Facebook. I knew I shouldn't have posted, but I just couldn't resist. It wasn't much of an argument. Someone posted an article, and the situation described in the article was one I resonated with and understood-- though I did not experience it personally. Then you go into the comment section on Facebook and I almost choked on the bullshit someone tried to make me swallow.

I hesitated for a while (quite a while), because I really didn't want to be a keyboard warrior. I thought to myself, "well, I would have spoken up if someone said this to my face, but what use is starting an argument on Facebook". Then I remembered back to my grandiose dreams back in high school- because I was good at giving oral presentations, I thought I'd be a good debater. Instead I just flailed and got caught up in anxiety, and nothing ever became of it. I still have dreams of talking in front of a lot of people, being a motivator, an advocate- but that's just a dream, right? I'm not that kind of person- I want the fame without the publicity and all the shit that goes with it.

Then I thought, "if I want to be some kind of influential advocate, what use is sitting behind my screen, experiencing angst, and remaining silent. If I can't even play 'keyboard-warrior' in this moment, I really won't have courage to say what I think and stand for what I believe." I don't want to say things because I don't want my comment to be seen- I don't want to be scrutinized, to have my personal history dug up and used against me- but I realized, so what, if someone did that. If I won't speak for something- then it's because I'm ashamed of it. And if I'm ashamed it's because, deep down, I know there's something wrong. Well, I decided I wasn't actually ashamed in this case, and people can say whatever the fuck they want about it, but it's not like I was fundamentally wrong, or could be proven fundamentally wrong.

So I said what I said, to the comment which almost made me choke, and of course the original poster just replied with a further slew of bullshit, that if I took any of it in, I would have full-blown sepsis and die as a consequence. Instead of replying further to "prove my point", I decided to recruit my more argumentative friends, and made an angsty post, to attract attention and make other people join in the conversation. That worked, but my angsty posts are still there and I feel bad for being so strangely manipulative.

I don't even know what the point of me writing all this is. I guess I just wanted to prove that sometimes, I want to be a "social justice warrior", and there are things in this world which I feel passionate about, and there are things I want to change. I probably wont' end up as the protagonist in shounen manga, but I'll find a way to do something that means something to me, and to everyone else. One day.