Again I come here during exams. I don’t know if I’m particularly thoughtful during these natural intervals to take stock in performance, evaluate goals, and look toward the future, or perhaps it’s just a good study break/procrastination. Probably. Either way, here I am, in my last week of my second stab at the first semester of medical school. Wow that sounds a lot less exciting than I feel it is…

The third block of tests went pretty well. I did better on everything but anatomy, which I felt I had to sacrifice in favor of biochem, to stay out of the danger zone. I’m proud to say that I had the wiggle room to do that. Ideally I’d honor everything and not play the game like that, but we do what we have to do. If I get a chance to talk with 2008 Blake, I’ll tell her to go ahead and do the alternate pathway the school offers and save herself a lot of misery.

I’ve been and will continue to be candid in my opinion of my fellow MS1s, and at this point in the year, I can say to my class (as if they would even care) that on the whole, I do not love you. But I have grown accustomed to your face. It may be that my first love’s shoes are just too large to fill. So I’m not ruling out that with time we may develop a friendship, and I’ll take responsibility for my role, what with the antisocialness. I actually had someone to whom I had introduced myself the first week and chatted with on multiple occasions, when I ran into him and asked how he was, say, “I’m sorry – are you in our class?” Wow.

I want to do a better job of balancing in the coming months. Mostly I feel like I have so much on my plate that I can’t be the friend I want to be to anyone new, and I am so uncomfortable not being able to give my part. Once I’m keeping the family, school, and sanity plates spinning, we’ll see what happens.

Last year I made lots of friends and very poor grades. This year I kept my head down to survive, making the grades but very few friends. Those friends – notably my tank mates and last year’s repeaters – have been essential, by the way, and I know it. While I may sound like a high school drama queen, ranking my “peers” in niceness and other criteria, it’s important to me to be a part of my class and feel like we have a common goal. Because this road is too long and difficult to go it alone. I think most people want to have camaraderie in their careers, and in the team-oriented field of medicine it seems especially important. I chose to pursue this path after a life-changing experience and deep, deep introspection. I want to help people, and I’d like to think that’s a pretty standard answer among people entering medicine. I find it hard to believe that anyone would choose it solely because of an ability to make good test scores or a desire for prestige and income (because believe me – those last two are not compelling – or even realistic, anymore – reasons). So I’m making it part of my education to figure out some of what makes the people around me tick. It has been less evident with this group than with last year’s, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, right? I’ll find their souls.

All I have left now are two finals: devo and anatomy, and Friday I am a free woman for a few weeks. Amanda is spending the holidays with us here in Houston, and I can hardly contain myself! This break should be a good chance to catch up on the things I’ve been missing since August. Writing, organizing, music-making, and working on my fitness are a few. I want to start something: most nights, in addition to reading to Zoe, I want us to write just a little blurb about the day or what’s going on. We were doing that for her the first year, and then we got busy and abandoned it in favor of easier, less mentally taxing things, like taking pictures. Now my camera’s broken. But we can still write, and now she can participate. Anyway that’s a goal.

Alright. Back to the studies, for just a few more days!