freedom

It's not that I was ever restricted before... it's just different to have your own space, your own rules, your own things. Responsibility is something that I never stray from, so I suppose handling the bills and mopping floors can be a good thing.
But I'm bored...working full time is not fun at all, especially when you're not doing anything you want to be doing, and this is regardless of the fact that it does not even require the education I spent the last days four years of my life earning.
But I am not bitter... I will rise to the occasion, I will get the score I need to get where I want to be, I suppose I just never figured it would be so hard, and I never realized how difficult it really has been until recent reflection.
We have a new doc who started at work this week and I talked to him for a while yesterday about different medical schools to apply to. He gave me a lot of insight into how I should be approaching the situation-- I should look at their learning approaches and their programs, to see if residencies are based in local hospitals who have their own university-based training program or if they rely on uncredited non-teaching hospitals to do most of the training-- regardless of if the program is an M.D. or D.O. program, because both would get me to essentially the same place.
Some of the D.O. programs in the midwest actually look appealing-- they follow a problem-based learning method, which really gets you in to your elbows if you know what I mean. At TCOM and OSUCOM they present you with case studies in groups and each member of the group studies a particular aspect of such a case.
Good stuff, huh?
k

something mindless

my mind is burned out with genetics, and I can predict that I won't have much to say this week with finals, graduation and moving. I don't know if I have much to worry about with finals, but I'd like to finish out this semester with the best grades possbile... like always. I have two things from blogthings.com... something political and something that goes along with the animal association thing I was talking about a few posts ago...

Your Political Profile

Overall: 55% Conservative, 45% Liberal

Social Issues: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

Personal Responsibility: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal

Fiscal Issues: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

Ethics: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

Defense and Crime: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

The Keys to Your Heart

You are attracted to obedience and warmth.

In love, you feel the most alive when your partner is patient and never willing to give up on you.

You'd like to your lover to think you are loyal and faithful... that you'll never change.

You would be forced to break up with someone who was emotional, moody, and difficult to please.

Your ideal relationship is comforting. You crave a relationship where you always feel warmth and love.

Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment.

You think of marriage something you've always wanted... though you haven't really thought about it.

In this moment, you think of love as something you thirst for. You'll do anything for love, but you won't fall for it easily.

k

life as an adult

this is what I've been contemplating today as I've just experienced having to set up the utilities for our new place... there's so many things you don't want to know about life as an adult, so many details and formalities that are apparently important, yet mostly unconscious. By the way, see pictures of the new casa here, it's humble, but it's charming.
I'm taking a break from studying... all of my finals are next week. I've really just wasted about an hour and a half watching this movie with Colin Firth and Heather Graham on one of the satellite movie channels. The movie was pretty dumb, and he's much better in the Bridget Jones movies. I think in a lot of ways Colin's character in those movies seems like the perfect man... Mark Darcy-- he's intelligent, kind, softspoken, thoughtful, artistic, charming, adoring and handsome. So what if he's a bit too many years my senior and not a real person? It's a mere triviality, really-- I have hope I'll find mine someday... or else he'll find me.
k

ghosts from the past

Why is it that we get an odd dropping sensation in our stomachs when we discover someone from our past has turned out to be incredibly... successful? I stumbled upon the website of a friend from high school who used to be amazing in all things in art. It turns out he majored in graphic design at ASU and then got an incredible offer to be the director of a television station in Ohio... I haven't spoken to him in years, so let us just say he is removed enough to be a mystery to me at this point.

Some blossom sooner than others. Some never blossom. I pray I'll never be in that second category.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to undermine the fact that I'm graduating with a bachelor's degree with my disappointment. However, those of us whose goal professions require at least a few more years of training will agree, it feels pretty damn useless until it actually proves to get you there! (and if even then...) It feels like I might as well have graduated from high school again-- having no specific vocational training and just a "general direction." (I know, I know...all my fault!) Then again, it can't be HS, because now I'm forced to be (gasp!) an adult, when all I want is matching furniture (which I can't afford yet) for my pink house, which I will be obligated to share thanks to my meager full-time salary. I'm a materialist. It's disgusting. With hope, someday I'll be over it.

yikes.

I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. (that is after all what pessimists say, you know)
I need to throw myself a bone here... and this presents itself to be quite a feat to accomplish when you're on your own.

k

the more you see the less you know

Having it all together is simply a perception...

When people say things like that, all that it means is that someone's hiding their misery better than most...

It's all a lie--no one person knows how the world really works enough to "have it together," there are just a lot of people who think they know how the world works. Making the concession that you simply cannot control it is excruciating for some. Don't interpret this as a substitute for saying that we shouldn't have any accountability for our actions or inactions, that's just laziness...

The biggest and most difficult admission is realizing how much you don't know.

It's odd to come out of a four-year program of study feeling like you know less, but at least you know more truth, or you think you do. College isn't about what you learn, but a test to see how well you can deal with things like stress and deadlines and putting up with bulls*it when it's the last thing you want to do. You know, the sorts of qualities that make you a fine commodity in the work force. If you learn from example, it can teach you how to deal with the world on a more composed level. I think any already observant individual would also come out of a bachelor's program feeling more confident to further observe and deduce. My conclusion: you don't "learn" anything you didn't already know before you started, the truth has simply become more evident, for better or worse.

In science they teach us: you can't ever really know anything for sure, and there's always more research needed on any hypothesis. Yes, that's right... and can you believe science is a field some study because they seek concrete facts or reality. The truth: no field can give you concrete answers, but at least science is honest about not knowing... unlike some fields.

Ah, now for some mindlessness, another something from blogthings.com, my "inner European":

Your Inner European is French!

Smart and sophisticated. You have the best of everything - at least, *you* think so.

k