my life, my pace

Tada! She’s alive! Ugh. I’m so bad. If I can’t blog when I have all the time in the world, what’s going to happen when I’m back on the wards and have no time at all? Well, we’ll see. Maybe I’ll have more to write about since everyday will be a new adventure. Yay.

What have I been up to? Absolutely nothing. Seriously. Nothing at all. Which sucks because when I decided to lengthen my break from school, it was so that I could do some clinical review work to make myself feel more confident when I return. Well, the powers-that-be made it sound so awesome…like they were going to totally hook it up…but when the time came, all I got was nothing. Don’t they know how hard it was for me even to ask for help in the first place? Why must they make me fight for it every step of the way? Well, I didn’t fight hard enough because *gasp* I thought they were actually going to keep the lofty promises they made me, so I ended up doing shit during my time off. What a waste of my time! I’m not getting any younger here!

Well, I’m not that dumb. I didn’t sit on my ass and twiddle my thumbs while I waited. I got cracking on studying. Big time. I’ve lost count of how many books I’ve read, but I’ve read at least one book for each rotation, plus Bates, plus Step 2 Secrets, plus others in the time I had off. I don’t know if I retained much. I probably still can’t tell you the difference between croup, bronchiolitis, and epiglottitis, but at least I can make some wrong guesses that don’t sound completely stupid. I got ambitious and tried to set up Step 2 at the last minute, but without having done third year first, I wasn’t going to be able to study enough to do well enough for my standards in less than 60 days, so I gave up on that. If only I’d come up with that idea say 6 months ago? That would definitely have been enough time. But silly me, I was still waiting on my miracle from the administration. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Me.

I’m not whining. I don’t care anymore. I’m just trying to finish it all up now. No more breaks. No matter how scared or overwhelmed I feel. It’s time to just plow through. I’ve got more Chanels to buy, dammit and I can’t afford them with my stipend money! Just a word of caution to other MD/PhDs out there: don’t expect any help returning to your clinical years. Actually, you should expect sabotage. They will do everything in their power to make it harder for you than for everyone else. I guess it’s punishment for being such overachievers. So if you want anything from them, demand it and don’t stop until you get it. There is no being meek or being afraid of seeming too demanding. If you don’t get in their faces, you just get totally and utterly screwed. Like me. Don’t be like me. You deserve better.

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1. one step forward, three steps back…The good news (I think): I'm finally almost done with my dissertation revision. I could have it done by the end of this week if my thoughts didn't keep fluctuating and then focusing on how ephemeral life is. That and the fact that all I have left to finish is the discussion. One section doesn't sound tough, but it is the section that needs the most work and the one that is the most difficult for me to write. The bad news (or maybe not so bad if you really think about it): I've been asked to consider stopping my clinical work (read: my third year) and starting up again with next year's class so that I would have my dissertation completely behind me and be able to start completely fresh instead of jumping back in with now super-experienced third years with only psychiatry under my belt. I have mixed feelings about this particular strategy. On the one hand, I do need that extra time to "prepare" myself as best I can by reviewing things like the physical exam and clinical reasoning, which I never was very good at in the first place. Also, since I've already done one rotation, I can take my last block off and study for Step 2, which I need to do well on since I'm going after Radiology. Oh yeah, and if I were to really return on rotation 5 as planned, I would be so far behind that I would not have any...
2. a taste of things to comeThe grant that partially funds my salary includes several MDs as co-investigators. These MDs somehow find time in their oh-so-busy schedules to attend our marathon monthly meetings. I try to stay away from them because they seem kind of...mean. Especially this one peds guy who looks like he has a stick perpetually stuck up his ass. It doesn't help that he seems to have something against my major professor and his work. Could it be perhaps that he knows that he's a fraud? Well, at one of these said meetings, I show up early because I want a seat far away from the chair of the department and as close to the door as possible. Mean Peds Guy is also early as well as a coworker of mine, Teacher's Pet, and my major professor. Of course, I choose to converse with my coworker rather than talk to and feed my major professor's narcissism. Being the narcissist that he is, he can't stand sitting there unnoticed, so he opens his big mouth and starts talking to Mean Peds Guy. MAJOR PROFESSOR: You know, she's starting her rotations soon. [obviously referring to me] MEAN PEDS GUY [looking like he could care less]: Oh really. I give a sheepish half smile. MAJOR PROFESSOR: Yes. So you're going to be nice of her when she's on peds, right? MEAN PEDS GUY doesn't say anything and just kind of looks pissy. And I really want to hide. But my major professor is not one to...
3. feeling under the weatherSo I didn't go to lab today because I'm sick. Not really deathbed sick. Just can't think sick. I went to lab once when I was deathbed sick only to have it totally unappreciated by my major professor. And I only went in then because I was afraid of his reaction to my calling in sick. How sad is that? I'm entitled to be sick, to take sick days, but I feel bad about it because I have a messed up major professor who thinks that he owns his employees. No, really. He bitches about it when we call in sick. And he bitches about it when we take vacation time even though we tell him months in advance. Anybody else thinking slave driver here? Unfair labor practices? But I didn't care what he thought this morning when I decided not to come in. I'm sick of living my life trying to please people who don't even deserve being given the time of day by me in the first place. Whether or not I came in today or not, the end result would still be the same: he'll still treat me like crap. So why bother suffering? That's what I find myself wondering all the time these days as I continue to deal with not-so-dear brother-in-law's psychological warfare. No matter what I do, he will still hate me for pointing out to him the fact (which is 110% true, by the way) that his super psycho super fugly girlfriend is...

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