working too hard

…can’t get ‘Gladiator’ out of my head… (>.<)

Posted on by studentofsyncope

are you not entertained

…is what I want to scream to the heavens and to hell and everything in between…

I have just found out that, by literally the thinnest margin, I have failed 3rd year and have to retake the year.
What makes it especially bitter is that I only failed 1 exam and failed it by technicality…
I achieved well above the pass mark, but one of the conditions of passing is to not fail more than 4 questions/stations. I failed 5…
However, a fail by technicality is irrelevant, because a “fail IS STILL A FAIL…and if you want to keep your place in this course, then you’re going to have to prove it to us” as one of the teaching staff, who has never met me, said.

So…after all the hard work, effort and stress of the past year, I once again have nothing to show for it.

But, as I said before, I am going TO CONTINUE SHOWING EVERYONE JUST HOW AMAZING I AM AT FINDING WHAT DOESN’T WORK IN LIFE!!!  (^o^)

I shall win this test

…ok, ok, am done with the gladiator memes…I promise…(>.>).

Anyways, there was a real serious point behind all that meme abuse…
I just can’t remember what it was….(>.<)
Oh, wait!! Yes I do…heh, and you thought you’d be getting away having read a short blog post…

Once again, I could have walked away and chosen another to do something else…but if I do, then it’ll only be after it has been proved that I just don’t have it in me to do medicine. I shall make it through this 3rd year of a medicine course…for the 3rd time (>.<)

I shall have my revenge

They tell me that it is not shameful to walk away and choose something else to do instead of medicine…but in a world where we are constantly told that WE CAN DO ANYTHING WE WANT TO DO, ESPECIALLY IF WE PUT OUR MINDS TO IT, to walk away would be to say that I did not give medicine everything I had, which would be a lie.

Furthermore, people tend to have a weird perception of failure. If X personally fails at something, then usually X attributes that to an external factor (I wasn’t able to perform at my best due to…whatever). If Y fails at something, then X will usually attributes that to an internal factor (Y just wasn’t good enough to do it…). I’d like to believe that people are more understanding and empathetic, but experience tells me otherwise.

In any case, whilst I could have worked harder over the past year, I still failed by the thinnest of margins. So I believe that I do have it in me to pass this year…I refuse to turn away and yield.

Resilience week 4 image

And if I fail…then I can continue to showcase my ability to spectacularly fail at everything (which is still an impressive skill to have) (^.^).

1st of 8 weeks of Resilience.

Posted on by studentofsyncope

So, as part of our course, we get a module where we spend 2-3 hours every week, for a period of 8 weeks studying/exploring an area of medicine that we find interesting.

Whilst other people assessed the interaction between genetics and the environment, took part in NHS audits, assisted independent research trials, I spent the 2 hours a week doing:
…hard work mindfulness and resilience.

…yes, I was looking for an easy way out and I scored BIG TIME (^.^). NO ENERGY-DRAINING, TIME-DESTROYING, HAPPINESS-DRAINING WORK FOR ME!!!!!!
An opportunity to spend time doing absolutely nothing and making stuff up on the spot to address the ‘wishy-washy’ concepts that are associated with mindfulness.

The above paragraph did sum up part of my decision to choose to focus on mindfulness; BUT there is more to mindfulness than giving yourself a defensable excuse to procrastinate and use ‘fluffy, flowery, emotional’ language.

Part of the reason I chose it was because I knew that it is now time of year when deadlines, sign offs and exams are maliciously creeping nearer. And knowing how unlucky I tend to be, I knew that other things will crop up that shall add to that stress and potentially push me over the edge of my sanity. Choosing something that would help me to deal with all these stresses rather than adding to them was a key reason for doing this module.
As it happened, our first 2 hours of mindfulness was to focused on reminding ourselves of how to let go of all the problems that are plaguing us and to just give ourselves some time to be free from them.

Resilience week 1 image

“YOU’RE AN IDIOT!!! You could have spent those 2 hours actually getting work and revision done instead of procrastinating and doing NOTHING!!!”

I can understand why you could view those 2 hours as a waste of time…because you’re right, I COULD have gotten some more work done, I COULD have done some more revision, I COULD have gone shopping…blahblahblah, etc.

But with all the stresses on me, if I didn’t take that time out, I would have BURNT OUT…and that’s a fact. If you can manage all the stresses that I had on me without spending those 2 hours on the beach, then infinite GOLD STARS to you. Let me know where you’d like me to post those gold stars…(-.-)

And yes, you could view it as me being lazy and procrastinating…and again I agree that I was procrastinating. But it was the lesser of two evils: procrastinate and lose a little revision time or over-extend myself and lose everything I have worked for this year.

For the record, we spent those 2 hours at the beach relaxing…‘FAB’ is the word I would use to describe the experience…and the name of the ice cream I had (^.^).

Fab-Lolly

(I did also have a ‘BEAST’ice cream…you can look that up yourselves…recommended for chocoholics like yours truly.)

A part of me is disappointed that I couldn’t keep working and needed to waste those two hours…and I have to accept that. Another part of me is also disappointed that this is essentially an excuse for not working. If I were stronger, maybe I wouldn’t have needed those two hours and maybe I wouldn’t be ashamed of my wasted time…

Or maybe if I were stronger, I’d just beat the **** out of those parts of me for being close minded, for not looking at the bigger picture and for being ****s (>.>).

…KABOOM!!!!

Posted on by studentofsyncope

….if there is one phrase that accurately sums up the state of my life over the past 6 months, it would be: “the best-laid plans o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley…”
Or for those who are not familiar with the language of that Scottish poet Robert Burns: ‘no matter how much you prepare or plan for something, there will ALWAYS be something that can completely and utterly ruin it.’

For example, let’s take a look at the very thing that you are currently reading:
The aim of this blog was to detail all the experiences and thoughts that I would have whilst going through my third year of a medicine university course…KABOOM!!! BANG!!! CRASH!!! SMASH!!! BLAST!!!

KABOOM1

Those are the sounds of epic explosions of failure, heh. And rightly so…after all, I haven’t typed anything for 6 months on here.

Things generally haven’t worked out well…but when you wake up somewhere with no idea where, when, how and why you got there, then is only one thing you can do:
GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE!!!!!
Well…that’s one option, but it’s probably wiser to figure out what happened the night before that led you to your current predicament (you can tell that this happens to me a lot…*cough*).

To be honest, like the poor mouse of Burn’s poem, I didn’t foresee serious problems at home that would distract me from one of the most important years in my medical career, as well as other commitments, like keeping this blog up to date.

BUT…those are just excuses, regardless of how relevant they are. And it’s not as if I have been idle. I have been drawing cartoons over the past 8 weeks, so I’ll post those up in the next couple of days as there are stories behind them.

…I love how committed I am to making this blog less empty when the follower list for it is even worse (^.^). But it’s the principle that matters…and the fact that if I don’t, I might have nightmares about an angry Scottish poet for not doing so…(>.<)
(FYI I do not mean to offend anyone with the dialect in the drawing…I evidently need to spend more time with Scottish people…).

KABOOM2

“Don’t give up, the beginning is always the hardest…” (-.-)

Posted on by studentofsyncope

So…someone, somewhere, at some point in time, for some reason, said that if you ever think about giving up:
“Don’t give up, the beginning is always the hardest…”

That person was EVIDENTLY not a normal healthy adolescent male. I don’t recall a normal healthy adolescent male ever having problems getting his penis erect…although I think the quote has beaten me on this one as am sure a normal healthy adolescent male probably would have quite a hard erection if you get my drift…let’s try that again:

That PERSON EVIDENTLY did not play video games, which get harder as you go…wait…ugh, damn it, the quote’s beaten me AGAIN. I guess being a newbie (I save the word ‘noobie/noob’ for someone who is just stupid at a game after playing it for a while.) is always going to be tough as you have no idea how to do anything at the beginning, but once you’ve got the basics, you watch others/ learn how to handle the harder parts that you come across later on…what the hell? I am being intellectually beaten by a proverb!!!….I refuse to yield…(-.-)

Dont give up 1

THAT PERSON EVIDENTLY NEVER…formed a romantic relationship with anyone…in our modern times…in the UK….(I have you now, you proverb). It’s easy, as a guy, to casually walk into a bar/club on a Friday or Saturday night and walk out with a girl who will engage in some lustful loin luvin’ with you. I assume it’s the same vice versa…as I have a natural fully functional penis and no attractively sized mammary glands, I can’t confirm that experimentally. But I can say that I have observed girls hunting for men and dragging their triumphant prize home, and also girls stalking girls and guys pouncing on guys (and why not? If that’s how you roll, then go and roll people!!!). But am sure most people will tell you that once the sex is over, trying to keep a relationship going past the honeymoon phase can be NOTORIOUSLY difficult.

And I seem to have digressed…getting back to the main point I was making: please do not misunderstand me. I do understand what the person, who came up with the “don’t give up…” proverb, was saying. But it really isn’t always the case that the beginning is always the hardest. They don’t work in all circumstances…and yet people still consider them to be undeniably true and hold onto them with blind faith…

ANYWAYS, why am I talking about this? Well, technically, I am now passed the beginning of my 3rd year of medicine…
WOO!!! CELEBRATIONS!!! AM STILL HERE!!!! Blah blah blah, etc (-.-). It’s only been over a week…and it’s felt like quite an easy week too…I can’t help but feel the ominous hand of fate creeping up on me, ready to punch me into an oblivion of stress and exhaustion…

Dont give up 2

But am sure…*gets punched by a massive Hand of Fate, experiences stress and exhaustion as a result*…FML (-.-).
It’s only the second week, and I seem to spend more of my time in lectures and in the library THAN I HAVE AT HOME!?!?!?!?!
*Actually only just realises how much more per day: 15 hours of medicine v.s 9 hours out of medicine. Of those 9 hours, 1.5 is used travelling…that leaves 7.5 at home….aka cooking and SLEEPING (>.<).

Why am I spending so much time with medicine per day? Because I LOVE IT...obviously….(-.-). I’m still working in the library after the others all have gone home because I’ve got a memory like a goldfish…who seriously thought “I am going to see how long the memory of a goldfish is today”? I mean seriously…people just have too much time or too little sanity…and before you animal rights people start screaming about how goldfish deserve to know how long their memories are:
IT’S A GOLDFISH…IT ALREADY KNOWS HOW LONG IT’S MEMORY IS…unless it has forgotten…in which case: IT DOESN’T CARE!!!! It’s like a patient going under general anaesthesia…as long as they are unconscious and are not going to remember, then he/she/it REALLY doesn’t care what you do.

And I’ve gone off topic AGAIN…I may need to hire someone to keep me on topic…So, medicine so far? In this past week, I’ve actually done more medicine than I have done in my previous years of the course. I HAZ ACHIEVED ADULT LIFE SUPPORTER – RANK 1…rank 2 will come when I actually save someone’s life, rank 3 when I save 5 lives…etc. But it is nice to now know how to actually save someone’s life, after all, that’s why most people do medicine.

It almost makes me wonder what the **** was the point of all those previous years of pointless lectures…I shall throw away all my anatomy notes, burn all my physiology notes, shred all my pathology notes, DESTROY all my histology notes, devour all my edible notes…wait what? (o.0)…oh, I’m hungry again, that’s why…
But, in order to stop you from ruining my dream, I shall ruin it for myself by saying “YES, I do know that those previous years of information will underpin my understanding for this year…blah blah blah…”
After all, all those pointless lectures informed me that adolescent guys have strong hard on’s (although experience also highlighted that to me), that general anaesthesia hypnotises and relieves you of pain and that to save someone’s life, I have to stop their unconscious tongue from selfishly suffocating them and kiss them with the love of a deflating bariatric air mattress.

…the fact that I seem to be remembering this info seems to suggest that maybe my staying behind in the library, after all my classmates go home, and revising is making a difference and although it was very hard in the beginning, it will get…
OH SHUT UP AND GO HOME ALREADY!!!!!! YOU NEED SLEEP AND FOOD…DON’T CARE WHAT ORDER THEY COME IN!!!! (>.<)

Dont give up 3