It has been longer than I’d like to admit since I’ve
last posted anything. But boy, it feels good to be back.
Life certainly has been eventful. There were
end-of-block exams, ebw celebrations, random and completely spur-of-the-moment
lunch dates, presentations, a road trip, the OSCE and finals. All of which are
one hundred percent blog-worthy.
Initially, I chalked it up to the fact that I haven’t
had time. Maybe I just haven’t felt like writing. A statement which borders on
blasphemy, I know, but that’s how I feel. For a while there, I lost the will to
write. Quite frankly, that scared me. Who am I, if not a writer? Albeit an
amateur one.
But after several deep breaths and a moment to quiet the
chaos in my head, I figured it out. I had no reason to write. There was nothing
I needed to deal with, nothing inside me that needed to get out. That sense of
urgency was gone. Or perhaps it was still there, but I’d thrown myself into
studying. I found myself wanting to write, purely out of habit, but I couldn’t.
Because, on top of it all, I had a severe case of writers block.
Then, one night, it came back to me. Out of the blue. I
had been up until 2am, studying for finals; of course I was going to have
strange dreams. Curious though, was the fact that I woke up crying; it hurt so
much. My first thought, as I wiped away the anomalous tears, was “What the
hell?!” My second was “I need to tell this story.”
And so The Dotted Line was born… and, along with it, my
muse had returned and I felt the need to write again. Purely out of sheer…
inspiration. That urgency was back. I’d found something inside myself that
needed to get out. It feels good, familiar.
Well, the lunch dates were the of the usual
lose-track-of-time variety.
The road trip and presentation go hand in hand. Would you
believe it; we were sent on a road trip on our own, by our university- for
educational reasons. Who wouldn’t love that? We certainly did. We went out to
Ceres for the day, and it was epic. [This is just a quick aside to say thanks
to the [P]eeps for amazing day.] A group of fairly random people we lumped
together, given a map and a set of keys and sent along their merry little ways.
We spent time at the state hospital, the rural clinic in Bella Vista and some
time amongst the locals of the township. We even had lunch together, along with
two interns from the hospital. And the, all too soon, it was time to head home,
get our acts together and deliver a presentation about what we’d learnt.
The OSCEs are practical examinations, where your skills
as a medic are tested. It happens every year, right to the end of your studies.
The biggest part of it [because having the theoretical knowledge is important,
but mean nothing if you can’t execute it] is confidence. If you can just get
over having to work on a complete stranger, in an interrogation-like room, with
an examiner giving you the stink eye all the way through, you’re good to go. Of
course, being a little first year means you have to dig real deep to find some
confidence from somewhere, anywhere.
Then, what can I say about the final exams? They were a *insert
foul word here*. But here too you have to have faith and confidence that you
have prepared well enough. Or you go blank in the exam and fail. Fortunately, I
managed to pass, and I am so grateful for that.
I have been on holiday for quite some time now and the
one thing I can tell you with absolute certainty, apart from the fact that I
enjoy sleeping in and writing, is that I cannot wait for Second Year to begin.
What can I say? I’m a city slicker; the rat race is what I live for.
11 December 2013
