Logging on again || ER || SGU Term 2
Our neighbor gave us a puppy stoller, why not wheel Kal around the house??
Life Updates
I remember dreading the spotlight when we returned to school and had to tell the class what we did over the summer. Yet, here I am.
So we moved to our first home! We packed everything we owned into a small van like the ones amazon people delivery peeps drive. I couldn’t believe we could make it all fit. Almost as unbelievable as getting free street parking right in front of our SF apartment. I’m grateful for the city and my experience, but I was ready to leave. Living in a city during a pandemic produced a lot of anxiety.
What’s surprised me most about moving back to the suburbs as an adult, is the domestic hobbies I’ve taken up. I don’t know why I grew up thinking that female empowerment was rejecting traditionally “female” hobbies but hey cleaning your home is satisfying. Making furniture and DIY projects for the home is obsessive!
I’m into gardening now which seems to be a popular quarantine hobby. When my family came to visit us and my mom bought me 10 plants. She even gave me a clipping? She just chopped off a part of her plan and told me to let it grow in water? Seems like black magic to me, I didn’t know plants can do that. School has only ever taught me that plants grow from seeds. I reckon some plant parent out there is laughing at me now. I’m currently building a worm compost bin for my fall vegetable garden. Something about seeing my plant babies grow just gives me bliss.
From shared living room-office to my own room to study in! Wowza! It’s almost inspiring to have your own space that you can decorate and express yourself in. I feel like I’ve forgotten because I haven’t had my own room in a while. I’ve got a whole vision for me and my green babies to grow in.
My person goals this semester are to:
Keep my plants alive!
Cook meals for my loved ones every day
Finally, be semi-fluent in French
Read 3 books
I think I’m developing a…habit
School Updates
I’m in Term 2! Due to COVID, we are still remote. Now, we have mandatory live lectures, small groups, and labs. I’m a little bummed because I feel like I worked so hard to make a good system last term. Since I’m on the west coast, I have lectures at 7 AM or 10 AM Grenada time. Grenada does not do time savings and honestly, I didn’t know you could opt out. However that means in the Fall, I’ll have to attend 6 AM lectures? I have to remind myself I don’t have it that bad because I know some people that have lectures at 11 PM or 1 AM. There are alternative lecture times, but I’m guessing they aren’t perfect either.
We are currently a week into the first module, Endocrine + Reproductive (ER). The school switched up the lecture order. So treasures from past terms are a little harder to use. I guess it’s true that SGU is always trying to switch things up and improve.
Did I study over summer break?
Not really, to be completely honest or at least not to the extent I expected. I was an MSAP facilitator during July. It was more workload than I anticipated because we, the facilitators, also had to watch the lectures and make slides to discuss. It added fuel to my burn-out fire, but I’m glad I chose the January start term because there was still space to relax after it.
About a week and a half prior to the start of the term, I started watching lecture recordings from prior terms to get a taste at what I’m looking at. I didn’t really know what to expect for ER or Term 2. All I really knew about reproductive science is the female cycle and basic anatomy. We’ll see this prep helps at all!
My ER Schedule
I’m not a morning person or even a great lecture person. So 7 AM lectures, I can anticipate that will be a challenge to absorb anything. At this point in life, I know I can’t force myself to be good at things I’m not. At least for things that require some skill like learning at ultraspeed. I wake-up around 6:50 AM. I usually have time just to brush my teeth and wash my face before heading downstairs to where I leave my laptop. I log into Zoom around 6:58 AM and get those clicker attendance points. During the first hour, I complete the rest of my morning routine (+1 self-care points). In the second hour, I start with SGU M1M2/Zanki deck. Then after lecture, I do my post-reads. I’m defining post-reads as going through lecture and making Anki cards and my one-page summaries and limit myself to 90 minutes per lecture. My goal is to shorten my post-reads to free up more time for self-testing. Then I end my day around 4:30 PM with Anki cards. I think the important lesson for planning out your study schedule is to know what you respond to and be open to trying different things.
I schedule my weeks to look something like this
Resources & Tools for Term 2
I really can’t stress how much Anki has helped me. Since I do Anki twice a day, I use a pre-made deck in the morning and use my own at night. To speed up making Anki cards, I use the dictation tool to write out my cards and then place the cloze sections where I want them. I’m the kind of person who needs information beat into my brain so practice questions and Anki are right up my alley.
I also love this desktop app Focus To-Do. It’s a Pomodoro timer and an easy to-do list. The sound when you click complete on a task gives me life. So I work for 20-minute sessions and then take a 5-minute break to play with Kalbi, exercise, anything to get away from the computer. I have a tendency to work pigeonholed in some kind of contorted pretzel for hours. Then I get up at 4:30 PM with 2,000 steps a day and this is not the way! It is also a to-do list. It feels so good to hear that bell ding when I click done on a task.
Extracirriculars for Term 2
Before I started at SGU, I tried to scope out all the connections of connections to find some advice. Some SGU students recommended being more involved in peer tutoring, clubs, research, etc to enhance my residency apps. I’ve heard the opportunity to participate in extracurriculars is a huge difference between US and Caribbean students. I’m going to be co-facilitating a peer learning group (PLG) and an academic enhancer program (AEP) group. PLGs are weekly sessions where we will review the Term 1 material of the previous week. AEP is the same, but the students are required to attend every week. In both, I’ll have to prep powerpoints and be ready to answer questions. I’m hoping that doing both isn’t too crazy because technically it’s the same material. I’ve been really wrong before though.
I’m also looking into a leadership position in the Internal Medicine Club and maybe starting my own club.
It’s not in my honest nature to be a try-hard and I don’t think I have the qualifications to be a teacher’s pet since I’m very awkward once I know someone is in an authority position. But I’m hoping that doing all this gets me a residency position near my home. Family is really important to me.
My goals for Term 2
Since our school is pass/fail. The only other designation is a high pass (+80) or honors (90+). I hope I can do well enough to earn honors. But my main goal is to continue to be a human. I am really lucky that COVID acted as an opportunity to reconnect with the people (and Kalbi) that I love and with other things that I love to do. Being in a medicine path, it’s easy and almost habit to turn down experiences for the pursuit of career. People even encourage it when they hear you want to get into medicine. It’s weird. I really don’t want to forget that I’m more than a medical student. I also don’t believe that I’ll suddenly learn to balance my life as a resident or even attending. Hopefully, I can start learning how to turn off the med student in me for at least some of the day.
Can’t wait to update y’all after ER is done (in 2 more weeks haha).