Posted by alexandra_k on November 19, 2014, at 22:05:56
In reply to Re: balance » alexandra_k, posted by Twinleaf on November 19, 2014, at 18:07:40
Hi. Yeah... Sometimes I am my own worst enemy, I know.
I could be wrong... But I think posting helps. Helps me to articulate it instead of it going round and round. Then I can look back on it from a more objective position. Sometimes I see how to recast it.
I don't know. Maybe I should post less and do something different to shift my focus / get it out of my head. I don't know.
I know I often read back and cringe, rather, at the way I view things. There is a reason I try not to take it to my interpersonal relationships IRL.
Later year medical students... Say that they remember the overlapping year one as being really very stressful. Because at this stage all you know is that it is really really really really really unlikely that you will get a place. Around 1,300 students trying to get what can only be around 70 places reserved for people from first year who aren't rural or part of a targeted minority ethnic group. Only around 1/2 of the 1,300 are serious... But even then.
The students say that while they do have to work hard later, once they are in medicine... While they miss not having breaks etc... It is easier in the sense that you know the program is invested in you passing. The program has invested in you. This first year (my next year) is hard precisely because it is most likely that the program won't choose you.
I know that it is a completely pointless waste of my time and energy to get upset about various things... That it is only useful for me to worry about factors that are within my power to change. That it is only useful for me to worry about them insofar as it motivates me to do what is necessary to change them.
I know I'm grasping at straws with this whole 'trying to figure the trick' thing... It is because I'm feeling a little desperate that certain things are random or that I'm unable to grasp whatever it is that you are supposed to which means that things seem random to me even when they aren't...
I am actually fairly sure that they view it as a kindness that the distribution is decided by the first test. That way it frees up the 700 or so not particularly serious ones to go join their clubs and make the most of their social opportunities / go find their future husbands / wives... I don't think they see it as unfairly advantaging those who come in well prepared / not giving those who are less prepared much of a chance to catch up... I've just been having a conversation with the accommodation people about how it would be nice to have a quiet / silent floor option for students who are keen to do that. They don't seem to realize that some people refuel from being alone and that they might well have lots of students who collapse into stress-balls during the first batch of tests (where things are decided week 3 / 4) because they are absolutely exhausted from the social pressure to get out there! get in there! join clubs! go to concerts! go out drinking with your fellow floor mates! do every f*ck*ng social activity you can and then 5 more! during the (dis) orientation that they do through weeks one and two...
Anyway... I have decided to draw more pictures instead of focusing on lists. Because it is something that I can do... And because it is the only thing I can think of to do in response to having done crap in that Biology class. I mean, aside from 'don't take comparative animal biology if you don't want to learn about invertebrates, bugs, worms, fishes, dinosaurs, amphibians, birds, or bats'. It was either that or plant biology, you see, because I had to save the course I really wanted to do (cellular and human development and then anatomy and physiology) for next year.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1058481
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20141012/msgs/1073605.html