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Over-emphasizing and obsessing is something I do well.  It is quite possible I do it all too well.  I don't have enough phalanges to count all the ways I could improve - I suppose more accurately, all the ways I perceive my faults that I so desperately want to improve.  But, what I find more telling is how suddenly other people can snap at you for noting your own faults.

Okay, I totally know you're not supposed to go around pointing out other people's faults - especially those people you live with, no matter the reason they moved in with you.  It isn't nice.  But, I was studying at MY dinner table under MY dining room lighting using MY computer and writing with MY mechanical pencil.  Okay, the pencil may have been hers.  And I don't actually own the place.  But, I'm the primary inhabitant.  She came to be my boarder.  I suppose it is more polite to say roommate.  Hmph.  I'm unsure.

And what is more.  It is a very hard few weeks.  These are some terribly pivotal weeks.  If they don't work out, I may be remediating for a year.  Or, I may have to travel to another foreign land - or, at least another city, to catch up on Organs during the summer.  Either way, not passing my exams in the coming weeks - with some pretty high marks - will influence a huge chunk of my upcoming life.  It doesn't impact her.  I've been very careful to modulate what I say.  But, there are times when I cry.  There are times when I talk out loud to myself.  There are probably more times than there should be where I lament and say outcries - at the paper, at the air, just to get them out from burning below my sternum.

But, I shouldn't have to tip-toe around my roommate...my sister.  It makes her feel bad that I'm "bad-mouthing myself" and looking down upon myself when I'm in graduate school.  Apparently, she can totally twist what I say and inwardly infer that I'm actually talking about her - because she failed last semester in undergrad.  And, I'm not.  Apparently, already having degrees means that I'm no longer allowed to be worried about my future.  But, the reality of the matter is that I don't actually care that she passes or fails - not emotionally at least.  It has no bearing on me.  So, why should I have to modulate what I think/say to soothe her insecurities?

And, what I really want to say is why in the freaking HELL does Organs of all classes have to be the class that plays musical teachers with not one, not two, not three, not even four - but FIVE people.  Five teachers, thirty-two lectures, and no time to ever adjust.  And I wonder why I'm having a hard time getting the material.  Oh, did I ever say I don't adjust all too well?  Pah.

Cancer

It is odd.  Cancer is a clinical word used probably six to eight times a week in my classes.  It isn't something real.  It isn't tangible.  It is this overgrowth, overproduction, unhindered process.  It is something that is cellularly going out of control.  Tumor suppressor genes are no longer effective.  Apoptosis is inhibited where it should be precisely regulated.  I mean - this doesn't happen to PEOPLE - it happens to cells.  Lots and lots of cells are affected.  No human beings are harmed in the making of any of this.

Until - someone goes to an actual doctor with actual knowledge and is diagnosed with an actual disease state.  And then, it is real.  I've spent the better part of two weeks lamenting about how hard my life is progressing.  Just last night I cried most of my night away because I can't seem to grasp the endocrine system.  I was feeling so down on myself.  My world was inwardly focused.  I was insulated.  And this afternoon, I got a phone call from my mentor - a friend - someone who has been a guide since my move here.  She has cancer.

Ironically, she has tonsil cancer.  She doesn't have her tonsils, but she has tonsil cancer.  I feel so lost.  It doesn't seem fair.

I guess life isn't fair anywhere.

Second Chance?

I’ve always prided myself on my plans. I have always had a strong sense of where I am and where I plan to go. But lately it is starting to feel as though my control over where I’m going and what I’m doing has diminished. I want so many things. I have so many goals. I’m trying so hard to achieve said goals, but it feels as though I’m just a few steps shy of where I need to be.  But, they’re the integral steps. It is as if I’m running to catch up to where I need to be – to the goals, or to the ideas I need to learn… and for every step I take, my goals have advanced ten more.  I feel as though I cannot catch up. I know that I’m probably so enmeshed in this-that part of my problem is I’m too close to the issue.  But, I’m scared.

I don’t have a back-up plan.  Okay, I do.  But, I don’t have a feasible one.  I don’t have a solid idea on what I should do if things don’t work out.  It may sound melodramatic, but these are the things I’m feeling.  And, ridiculous or not, I feel as though acknowledging my feelings is important.  I’m so scared that I won’t make it.  What if I get kicked out?  What if I can’t be a pharmacist?  What if I don’t learn the material appropriately?  What if they let me “pass” when I don’t deserve it – and what if I kill a patient?  What if I hurt someone – all in the sake of getting my goals to happen the way that I want them?  What happens if I was wrong?  What if I developed the wrong plan?

I don’t feel like I was wrong.  When I’m counseling patients for practice, I feel like the world fades away.  I feel as though I’m in my place – like the world dissolves and all that exists is the patient and the knowledge I have to help them.  I feel drawn to it. 

It is up to me to learn the material…but what if I need a second chance?  Perfection is a steep expectation.  Second chances aren’t bad.  It’ll put me behind.  But what really is behind?  This isn’t a race.  This is a journey.  The more worrisome part is what if the administration determines that I don’t deserve a second chance?  And then what do I do?

And the other reality: what gives any person the right to expect a second chance.  I mean, if I, as a pharmacist, work for a predicted forty years – and I am 99.9% accurate for all forty years, I will either kill or disable five people.  That is five more mistakes than is acceptable.  So, what gives me the right to even hope for a second chance if I cannot pull greater than a 70% on organs by the end of the semester?  How many more patients am I killing with that statistic?

But, this doesn’t really make me feel any better.  I’m still scared.  And, I still want to let the river banks of my eyes burst.  After all these years, it feels as though I’m in the final stretch…and I’ve hit the wall.  I have no more reserves and I’m trying to push through.  I honestly don’t know what to do.

All In

I'm not a gambler.  I don't even know how to play Texas Hold 'em.  But, I've thrown in all my chips on this one. I'm gambling with my future - my life.  Okay, maybe not.  Maybe I'm just overly dramatic.  I mean, how can I really know?  I am not an outer observer.  I am realistically not an impartial viewer.  But, if I had to say - things feel very dramatic right now.

Okay, so things have been worse.  But, I think sleep deprivation has a tendency to get the best of me.  I went to bed at just before midnight.  Woke up at four.  Studied.  Showered.  Studied.  Got in my car and at every damn stop-light - I studied.  Yes.  I'm probably lucky to be alive.  But, what can I do about it now?  It's over.

Lab this morning was unlike any lab.  I LOVE compounding lab under normal conditions.  But, when I'm tired AND my leur-to-leur lock has a freaking hairline fracture and shoots PLO all over my workstation AND my carboxomer polymer was apparently from the inactive bad batch the company purchased last month and wouldn't anneal AND I was on the side of the room with an electrical short on the magnetic stirrer/hot plate, I stop loving lab. Oh, did I mention that lab is timed?

Then, I went to class where the test that was printed was the wrong test.  What did the teacher have us do?  Take the test.  She said we're smart enough to compensate.  So, frustrations abound for today.  And, I'm studying for tomorrows test and all I can think is:

• tomorrow night at this time, I'll be asleep
• 20 more hours to push
• I still don't know the generic name for 20 drugs and one lecture.  I need to focus
• I get a new bed next Friday!
• hmph.  I should wear out my current bed as much as possible right now
• wow, I'm still typing.  Why am I not studying

And now, you can see why this next hour of final studying before I call it in until tomorrow at four - may turn into a much longer hour and a half.  Well, at least I have nothing to do until class at 1 tomorrow.

Things I've Already Learned

There is this joke: if you can identify something, you can also create it.  Those things I've learned in recent months - well, at least I can say my education is well-rounded.

I've learned to run an illegal drug cartel.  Actually, the lecture was on how to identify an illegal drug cartel.  We were supposed to be learning how to deny services and script fillings to these individuals.  Instead, if I need to find a job after school, or if school doesn't work out as a whole, I should still be okay.  I can probably run one of the best drug cartels, at least from the deceptive angle, in the city.  I don't suppose I'd be too good at the other aspects of taking over a city corner.

I've also learned how to make meth.  We were in a functional group class - looking at the structures of drugs - and the teacher asked, what can this scripted drug be transformed into?  Well, the answer was meth.  He then proceeded to state where within the molecule you'd cleave to make meth - oh, and then stated that a more difficult, though also more pure form of meth, can be obtained by breaking a different bond.  All of this is to say that if school doesn't work out, I can always go sell meth on the streets - or at least become a meth addict.  It seems I have so many options!

The problem is - the things I'm learning - they're questionable.  These aspects are the parts I master best.  My mastery in organs or cells - that is somewhat lacking.  I mean, who really needs to identify the kidneys versus the liver?  They're interconnected at a cellular level.  Isn't that enough to know?  Seriously, who can possibly remember every freaking cellular interaction?  It happens.  Eventually.  But not without a heap of a lot of head-banging.  And, apparently other people in my class aren't having quite the same difficulty.

We had a class last semester.  Ultimately, we titled it, "How to be a human.  Oh, nevermind."  It was terribly annoying.  I'd learn how to counsel a patient.  I'd learn how to ensure they understood their drug therapy and would receive the best benefits from said drug.  And then, I'd learn how virtually to talk over their heads.  Sometimes, I feel like I'm on-the-fence.  That, in some instances, I cannot quite grasp the 'oh, nevermind' portion of my lectures.  I still talk like a human.  Is this a bad thing?  Well, I would certainly hope not.  Unfortunately, it does in part seem to be a disadvantage.

Journey

I know this.  I do.  Within my core it is there.  I can step back from myself and remember that life is a journey.  That what happens today - the minute details - do not necessarily hold a huge weight on tomorrow, though it might.  And, it is not always guaranteed to have much of an impact on the grand future.  Each day, in a multiplicative though, does have an impact.  The journey and the things I learn - that is what may make the difference.

It is hard to pull away from the day to day stresses of school.  They make it hard for a reason.  You have to push yourself or you won't make it.  "They" - yes, a nebulous they - want for you to push you to your limits.  This is what will prove to make you capable of taking someone else's life and putting it in your hands with surety that you are unlikely to kill them.

Pah.  You still might kill them.  There isn't much surety.  And, along the way - each and every one of us is likely to go insane.  I can't see the other side of the forest, or even the path, through the thick branches covering the first step.  This first year of my last four years of school - this is the bramble lying on the road.  And I am trying so hard to clear the brush to make my first few steps without landing in a pothole.

Well, that is all I can do.  Try.  And, that is what I've been doing for the past eight months.  I'm trying to continue the journey of my life without faltering as I enter this newest path.