Posted by alexandra_k on April 25, 2015, at 19:20:46
In reply to dr bob, posted by alexandra_k on April 23, 2015, at 21:25:02
my grades. kinda feeling demoralised. i thought the first test went fairly well, but disappointed with how i did. i walked out of the chemistry test feeling fairly good about it... hoping for 75... ended up with 60. which is very bad, really. only just above the bottom quartile. only worth 15% so not irrevokable... but typically people do really well in the first test and then grades get culled downwards because things are cumulative and the pace picks up...
i failed my population health assignment. thirty-something. for a 20% assignment. i was expecting some kind of B... i'm going to employ university policy on that one. get them to appoint an independent person to regrade it. i know what a fail looks like... c'mon, people... my tone might have been a little informal but i know full well you aren't failing the kids who really are incapable of stringing sentences together...
i wonder if part of it is to see how people do in the face of bad grades. if you can persist when things are demoralising. but i guess some people are picking up the good grades. i don't quite know what to say.
population health turns out to be just awful for me. they really are ramming their own opinions / values down our throat. lots of distinctions that simply don't make sense. the most un-critical thing i've done, i think. and really old research. and lots of woffle about nothing. and pictures that are all brain stormy etc. e.g., some picture that was supposed to show how little shared vocabulary there was between nursing and management - only i know full well that they have done actual analysis on languages and german and english have more overlap than that and no nurses or managers try and talk to each other in journal-speak, anyway... just one thing after the other thing after the other thing...
i guess i'm not doing so well at nodding and smiling. don't seem to be able to pull it off, particularly. i think... i respect people too much to feel that that is (ever) appropriate.
i don't suppose many people will understand that.
anyway... i guess this means... i don't think there is much hope of my delivering what is required of me for population health. even if i go to all the lectures and read through them and try and understand / remember the key ideas at whatever level of superficiality they require of us... there simply isn't much hope for me. the other one... i think they were trying to teach me some kind of lesson ... which is a bullying thing to do, really. trying to get me to feel afraid. trying to get me to invest even more time into something when i simply don't have more time to invest in it. not unless i put chemistry and biology on the back-burner... in other words... give up on what i care about in order to hang about with them...
i want to see what an independent person has to say about the grade.
i'm scared about bio... i felt fairly good about it... but of course finding things afterwards that i'd done wrong when i looked them up... i'm mostly scared because i felt fairly good about chemistry, too, but did badly at chemistry. and ditto population health.
chemistry... lots of silly little mistakes. missing the double bond on the aldehyde (yes, i know to really check the oxygens for double bonds). mistaking a first order reaction for a half order reaction. but then also lots of... i simply didn't know.
i've gone right back to realatively early lectures and i... well.. honestly... i haven't done problem sets for a while. i really did get behind... while i did really try and cram the reaction schemes i am having trouble reading condensed structural formulae. i need to 'translate' to hyrogliphs and back... i need more practice with condensed structural formulae, basically. and arrow pushing... practice drawing reaction schemes... practice seeing the kinds of bigger molecules and how they fit into the reaction schemes... i didn't realize just how far behind i got...
i guess because i find biology fun / interesting... i have a really hard time with chemistry. i keep wanting to say 'it's different from anything i've ever done before' only i have done some of it... i have a lot to learn about how to learn for it. and there are... too many people. too many people for us to be given sufficient instruction, really. i guess that is basically the situation for this country. you have to take the kids who display the natural talent at the earliest age because they will have to struggle themselves up, really. don't have the resources to invest in nurturing any of them.
i do feel like they... kick us about something chronic. not sure who 'they' is... someone said something about how if you get out of poverty or whatever then you have some kind of duty to go back and help others out... kicking and screaming. something like that. and that's basically it, huh, helping people even when they abuse you for being near them.
i kind of remember a lot of lashing out. when i was younger. just hurting so much. and sort of realising that if someone couldn't survive that then they couldn't help me. not sure if that makes sense even to me. this testing thing... sort of testing... i really didn't mean to be malevolent or whatever... but it seemed important.
and yet now... when i feel people test me... typically... i can't often deal with it. i need to get away. becuase my even keel isn't so strong as to be able to deal with it. so if they can't manage themself (i remember i used to not be able to manage myself) then... i can't help them. crabs in a bucket.
you have to be in a really very good place to be able to put up with that kind of testing / abuse and be resilient to it / be able to respond rather than react. i think about what i would need... i'd need a really nice space for me to have my solitute in. because that's where i re-find my even keel. i'd need some supportive people around me who i could talk to to get a more objective ear... starting to see some of the things...
i'm reminded of this thing on this video... this dr working in part of the developing world. he had a nice hut. really nice. i mean... given how most people were 13 people to a hut or whatever. he said something about how the chief (or whoever) gave him that hut to live in 'because he saw the work that i do'.
i think... it is okay to have more than others if you help others more -- if that makes sense. to use the position you have for good. to appreciate the privaledge.
that's one thing i remember and admire and respect about my past supervisor... he was always (in his prefaces / intros) appreciative to funding people etc... honest about how the quality flights and accommodation... the dinners and drinks... all of that allowed the academics to keep their focus on the work. talking to each other, developing their ideas. the quality was better than it would have been if the conference / workshop had been less well resourced.
and of course... the academics had a responsibility... to focus on the work. and to use those things to help the focus. not to... just piss about. not to... let personal insecurities get in the way of handing in the best work they could do and just being like 'its the best i could do even though it falls so very very very very very far short of some ideal'.
i hope this year is kind of a trial like that... i think that it might be. i think htat... the healthcare situation here is significantly worse than what the public is aware of. i think... the whole country situation is significantly worse here than what the public is aware of.
i keep coming back, now, to how we are a country with a population of a little over 4 million people. our public health system is... staffed by student doctors / recent graduates (who need to work there while they apply to be accepted to further training programs - at which point i think most need to go to australia) and... international doctors who are working towards practice requirements / english language proficiency requirements. 1/3 of people have health insurance... but without that...
i've been upset about how much is getting sold to overseas. at the moment... council land... parks. being sold to overseas investors. they point out that nz investors could buy in... but of course they can't afford to with the overseas investors driving up the prices... but anyway... our country is progressively being sold off... state owned assets... sold off... our firefighters are volunteers (unpaid). our ambulance is a multi billion dollar 'charitable trust' or somesuch and we pay $700 for an ambulance call-out. we 'contracted out' a major prison to a british company (aka they are building a british detention facility on our shores).
but we are all excited abotu sending people to iran... we didn't get in behind september 11... 'we refuse to send people to die for a war we don't believe in' but we are sure as hell stepping up to the party for allied forces at present, since we are selling vast tracts of our real estate / buildings to asia. our economy is doing great... dollar approaches the aussie dollar... lots of ads about how now is the time to travel to australia for shopping...
Why would I be upset that we are becoming more like Australia or the US or Canada or the UK when I probably would be fairly happy immigrating to any of those countries 'for a better life' (aka if i got a decent job offer in one of those countries)? I mean... if most of our skilled people are pissing off for better money / opportunities... Then it seems we need to move in those directions in order to have a hope of keeping some of our skilled people. I mean... We can't compete properly (we don't have enough money) but we need to do better than we have been doing...
Because we simply didn't (still freaking don't) have jobs for our skilled graduates.
They reckon there will be a graduate student tsunami of medical students coming out of Aussie because they have really stepped up the number they are training. Trying to address a shortage of GP's in rural communities, primarily. Apparently the problem is that there aren't enough skilled senior people to train them all. Apparently it is the same for nursing and the like. We don't have enough skilled senior people to train them all. So... As always... People need to struggle themselves up.
And I guess there is a lot of 'I did the best I could but oops they died. They might have lived if they got a doc who knew what they were doing but oh wells they got me'.
If you can't push on in the face of that... Best learn that now, I suppose.
all i can do is my best, i guess.. but feeling pretty demoralised. yeah. just gotta keep on trucking...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1078452
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20150214/msgs/1078490.html