Sorry, Fresh Out of Interviews, Try Again Next Year

Last week they got around to posting rejections for EIS.

Not surprising I failed to make the cut ("record number of applicants" is a phrase floating around), but it took me a couple of days to get over the sense, not of rejection, but that the potential was still hanging about in the air. Very odd. The last time I was deeply invested in an application that did not turn out, I felt terribly shot down the second I saw the e-mail saying, "Many qualified applicants..."*

This time was more: "Wait, was that it? Bit anti-climactic, muttermuttermutter..."**

Ah, well, it obviously is not yet my time to go into a public health fellowship of that magnitude. 

And yet and yet. It took a couple of days though to even start considering the possibility of doing something else. I mechanically signed up for the internship match program, although for the time being I feel far more pessimistic about my chances. I have started lurking by the door after class and asking professors about projects with more of a communications focus. And one night I spent a few hours browsing the internet on unrelated topics, ending in a pity-party during which I convinced myself that everything I thought about the world is wrong, there is no justice, yadda yadda yadda.

Then I got my hair cut, suddenly realized I look like Diana Rigg from the Avengers (at least have potential for it, if I can ever recreate what my stylist did), had tea with a friend who studies 19th century French literature (how about that for a different perspective?) and discovered that KT Tunstall is THE best music for when I'm feeling down.

Having recovered equilibrium and done some studying, today I was finally up to sending e-mails to the kind people who helped me prepare my application. And they replied with so much generosity, whether brief avowals of support or more elaborate advice on how to cope (cake decorating may have been mentioned), it was a lovely reminder that yes, I was applying to something that would have been a huge challenge, but they had faith in my ability to do it enough to support me and to continue supporting me now, whatever I set my sights on next.

*Of course, I immediately signed up for a three-week intensive art course which turned out to be the most personally fulfilling experience outside of vet school I've had, so it worked out okay...Forever raising the stakes on what I do after rejections, because it must live up to the bizarre expectations raised by the times my alternative plans worked out.
**Stretching the waiting out to 40 days (or thereabouts) may have had something to do with this.

School rumbling on the horizon

So.

Second year!

Oh boy.

Last year around this time I was contemplating the mysteries awaiting me as a first year vet student, the challenges, the joys, the large amount of cleaning my apartment required. This time, much more sanguine about the apartment. I didn't know how exactly vet school worked, going in, but as time passed I found that, as harrowing as it was, I loved it. I have trouble with studying enough, of making it through long lectures and labs with my attention span intact, but it's the sort of challenge that is exhilirating when I succeed (mainly because if I do a good job at it, my brain goes into its happy place and I find myself with a lot of really weird cartoons illustrating my notes, and only a vague sense of time having gone by).

If I were going into first year again, there are some things I would try to do better. I would be far more obsessive about anatomy (though goodness knows I was pretty obsessive the first time around, it just didn't feel like it). I would try to sketch everything, since I found out a little too late that I learn things by drawing pictures of them. Besides, all those missed opportunities to publish a complete anatomy of the cow. I would make flash cards for neuro after every lecture. I would actually USE said flash cards. I might still slack in nutrition, but I would try to more wisely slack in pharmacology. More flash cards (again) and fewer charts. Charts were lovely for histo, lousy for pharm. I would still take that one afternoon off early from lab to go to the zoo. I would think long and hard before taking on quite so many bloody electives second semester.

Of course, most of the things I learned that I should do don't easily translate to second year (at least I don't think so). No gross anatomy, so sketching animal parts is probably out.

We only have one lab that runs all afternoon, though there's always opportunities to stay to the end or to skip out (mentally if no other way presents itself). I learned you should always stay to the end (although a judicious walk to the bathroom that just happens to involve collapsing on a couch for a thirty second time-out is sometimes necessary).

I have a shelf full of index cards awaiting my loving attention--that, at least, I'm sure will be a common theme.

Things I'm worried about not doing so well with: being utterly fascinated with everything. Getting to class on time (usually with three seconds to spare).

Managing to exercise every day. I did so well all year, and then summer came...

And things I want to improve: food management. I'd like to avoid some of the more dangerous of the free lunches (pizza hut's idea of pasta is a macabre joke).

Studying! Always there to improve!

And remembering people's names and actually studying with them. Heh. Found out the hard way that there are some things you can't learn by yourself (thy name is neuro...).

Finally, I'd just like to survive this year of being a surgery tech part time. I think it was a won-der-ful lear-ning ex-per-ience over summer. I think it's decidedly not my career of choice, and I say this now that I have gained a rudimentary level of competence. I'd like to get to a commendable level of competence, this year, but I'm afraid I'll have to muster the enthusiasm on a case by case, day by day basis.

Rant

Summer...a time of relaxation and recuperation from a tough semester. Or not. I had been really really hoping I wouldn't get called in on Sunday, since I didn't realize until Friday afternoon that I was going to be on call, and I hadn't spent time learning to be a surgery tech since before exams. 

And let's face it, I never really got a good chunk of training any time over the semester. Pretty much ever since the second week after being hired I've known this was not what I wanted to do, though I'll blame it on the stunning lack of any training program for student surgery techs. How much training do real surgery techs get? I'm sure it's more than "whenever you have a spare moment to be in the clinic." Not to mention "Don't worry, you'll learn it on the job this summer."

Ideally I should have been smart enough to not sign up so quickly and willingly, or at least, in that second week, to have returned to the person who hired me and said, "Look, I didn't fully understand what the job entailed, I have significantly more time committed to labs for class than your other student workers, is there a way to work this out?"

Actually, truly ideally they would give you a chance to shadow someone for a full shift before even hiring, so that they get a student who wants to work there, rather than someone who has been told "It's such a terrific opportunity, it's really easy, all you have to do is [simple, minor time commitment]." And then have a trainee manual, which has all of the relevant information for the job (like, on which one of the multitude of calendars you are supposed to put your on-call contact info, and where to find keys for the supply room).  

What sparked this off was me getting called in on Sunday and being an incompetent idiot. I don't like being an incompetent idiot, even when another student charitably comes in and takes over. I didn't know even how to open the supply room to get the surgery supplies, so it was assumed I don't know how to set up for surgery. Throughout the surgery I found other ways to screw up. At least I knew how to clean the room afterward. Then we were called in again, an hour later, adding up to 8 hours of frustrated efforts to be competent.

Unfortunately I'm the sort of person who generally ascribes all problems to her own failings, so most of the semester I was thinking, "I just need to work harder, it's my fault I'm having so much trouble." Add in lack of people skills and confidence to use them (I've been working on that), which makes asking for help that much more difficult. So it was my own fault I didn't speak up to the (extremely unsympathetic) student in charge of scheduling, my own fault I didn't learn everything I needed to know on the job, and my own fault I was having so much trouble with classes that I was spending a lot of afternoons trying to keep up with school rather than learning how to do a job where I was told "Don't worry, you'll learn it this summer." Well, it turns out I am  learning it this summer, the hard way, inconveniencing other people and really stressing out myself.

As a communications major, it astonishes me that the OR of a well-respected clinic has such a dearth of training policy that an inept student remains inept for so long, and then is expected to know everything they need to when the learning of it is left entirely to chance and the assumed tenacity of the student. There is no manual to refer to, there is no effort made to introduce the student to the job. I did not know that veterinary surgery endorsed the discovery learning method.

Meep?

The fastest physiology lecture ever--the lecturer just sped through the Nernst equation and let us go. I'm not sure I know what the Nernst equation is, but now I have lots of time to go find out.

They told us that we would be spending lots of time at the vet school, that classes would take all day and we'd barely have time to study. I'm sure that is true, but it makes the first week or two unsettling. There's all these random pockets of time that I'm not sure how to fill. The biggest problem is that now I'm not sure when to eat. Normally I like to wake up and eat breakfast, then go and have my time monopolized by work or class until it's time for lunch. Ditto for dinner. If I don't have lots of stuff to occupy my time I default to food. This works great during summer, when I eat food in very small portions about ten times a day. Not so good when I had a filling plateful of pizza during the student org meeting at lunch, plus cookie and candy to power through lecture (turned out they weren't necessary).

So. I could go look at cadavers and learn muscles better. Or histo slides. It's raining, so goofing off outside isn't an option.

Darn it, I need more stuff to learn!