Choosing Your Adventures

Do you ever feel the need to just take off? I mean I felt this in second year, and I was determined that the reasoning for this was to escape. I was stressed about exams, my job. The relationship I had at the time was pretty bad at this point and I was finding it hard to cope. This feeling didn't really go away until the summer afterwards, and I thought it was just that I was less stressed, but now looking back at it I think it was because I went to Thailand. This was probably one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had. But now, exactly one year on, I'm feeling this itch again.

It's started by feeling dissatisfied. I'm starting my masters in a couple of weeks and the whole process of organising it has been so stressful. On top of this, actually studying my masters is going to be just as stressful. I've been feeling like I don't want to do anything, and the feeling of being so disinterested in everything has been pretty horrendous. I mean I have everything I thought I wanted, so what is wrong with me? I want to travel again. This time closer to home however. I want to travel around Europe - Barcelona, Berlin, Italy, Prague, Russia, Croatia, Belgium, Amsterdam. You name it, I probably would rather be there than anywhere in the UK at the moment. I even kind of want to do it alone again too. There's something so liberating about travelling alone, meeting people you're probably not going to talk to again, having completely new and amazing experiences, and they're yours. I'm dreaming about this and it's gotten to the point in which going to London, something I always said I wanted to do, is leaving me feeling trapped. I know I'm being ridiculous, but I think this is part of who I am. I want to explore everywhere, and the fact that I cannot do any more for over a year is making me feel pretty bad.

Again though, London will be an adventure, and I'm feeling anxious about it, but I think this might be a good kind of anxious. It's a new chapter and a once in a lifetime experience. So I should be more excited right?

I'm hoping this will change, I'll probably be there in a weeks time!

Here's to experiences!

XOX

Reflections on 3 Years of Biomed

I sat yesterday, staring at the final piece of coursework for my degree, and stressing over the fact that I have 2 weeks until my first exam, and I feel unprepared. This made me think back to my first year, the time when I actually started this blog, and reflect on how I thought I was stressed back then. Stressed about passing level 4, of which the grade didn't even count towards my final degree classification. It made me smile and feel nostalgic for those days. Things were completely different then, and in a way they felt so simple. A time where I don't think I fully appreciated how much free time I had, I didn't even have a job back then, all of my time was mine. I wanted medicine so badly, which was seconded by how badly I wanted things to work out in terms of my, even back then starting to go sour, relationship. I was desperately holding on to who I was when I was 16, despite the fact that everything around me had changed and as a result I could feel myself changing with it.

On top of that I was settling into a new city, feeling homesick often enough for me to jump on a train and travel home whenever I felt like it. Now this city feels like home, and although I feel like I'm ready for a new challenge, I'm really going to miss living here. I love Brighton, especially how vibrant it is, how much there is to do here, how beautiful it is, and most importantly the experiences I've had here.

Now I'm finishing level 6 - my final year. Understandably I'm stressed out, but I've really enjoyed this degree, and coming so close to graduating, I'm not entirely sure I'm ready to put it behind me quite yet. I've met some amazing people here, people who represent some of my very best friends now, and I've grown up, realised that change isn't always a bad thing, sometimes it makes life much richer.

I've changed my attitude on medicine too, trying and failing for the first time has made me far more realistic about the possibility of getting in. It's also made me question myself. Finally, instead of pursuing something out of habit, a 8 year long thought process, I'm able to think critically again about the pros and cons of pursuing this career path, and I feel like I'm able to explore my options and decide on if I still want to do this in summer when I've cleared my mind from coursework and exams. I won't go into the reasoning here, I've already blogged about it.

My last reflection is on this blog itself, I really hope I've managed to create a realistic account of what it's like to  be a medicine hopeful, and the fact that it isn't easy. It's always good to be reflective of where you've come from and actually learn from those experiences.

I'm going to pursue a masters degree for next year, it feels like the right move for me and it'll put me in a great position no matter what I decide my next move is, whether that be medicine, or if I decide to pursue research instead.

For now you'll either be bombarded with several blog posts with me procrastinating, or there'll be complete radio silence.

XOX

Getting Back to Basics for a Slightly Unusual Christmas

Anyone who's seen me in the last few weeks will know exactly how much I've been dreading Christmas this year. I didn't decorate the house, give out cards, I bought all of my gifts horrendously last minute, I didn't feel at all festive and all that Christmas songs managed to achieve was making me cry, which isn't the greatest reaction when they're played on loop from a speaker above your head at work. This year is the first Christmas in 5 years that I've been single, and with the two before that being so upsetting (I barely even remember 2006), this one was different to any I've ever experienced. 

Firstly what I realised is that over the last 5 years, whilst focusing all of my energy into a relationship, I missed out on all of the things that my family do, that have always made Christmas so great. My mum was really excited, definitely more so than me, and she woke me up at 8.30. Then we opened presents. We always wait and open them all together, each doing a present at a time. My mums partners sister always gets someone something that's so obscure we can't work out what it is, without fail every year, which adds to the entertainment. There's also always the relative who makes a present almost unopenable by use of copious amounts of Sellotape. Then the cooking starts, and of course the drinking (something I couldn't partake in this year due to driving!). Paul always tries to cook something obscure with varying degrees of success, and this year didn't disappoint with a sausagemeat and stuffing concoction wrapped in bacon which was actually pretty good. We usually have some relatives stop by. It's so nice to see people who you don't see regularly and just catch up on their lives, how things are going. It makes the family feel closer, something that my family in particular is bad at. Mid morning we usually collect my grandmother, she's in her eighties now and in a nursing home, she also has an almost child-like persona, of which an element of which is that she gets really excited about Christmas. Every year without fail she'll come through the door and proclaim she's home, which is lovely. Then, with the mandatory cup if tea in hand, she'll demand her presents, and it's so nice to see how excited she gets. Then we all have dinner together, eat turkey and pull crackers. My nan always insists on watching the queen at 3, and I think this was the first year that she actually managed to stay awake for it. Then we take her back, and she'll join the others, who have returned or didn't get to spend Christmas with their families this year, and we head home and spend a chilled evening watching Christmas TV. 

This year I didn't spend my Christmas afternoon with a boyfriend, but I have so many other memories that I will cherish. Watching toy story with my parents, making me incredibly nostalgic for my childhood, sitting in front if the wood-burning fire, holding my 81 year old grandmothers hand whilst she tells me she loves me, joking about needing L plates whilst crashing a wheelchair, attempting to get said wheelchair into a small hatchback, with little success, laughing in the kitchen about cooking techniques and my hidden chocolate. This year also bought something new, not wanting to spend Christmas dwelling over the past, I drove to Wales, spending two and a half hours alone in the car, just so I could spend a few hours with two of the most special little men in my life. They caught me when I pulled up and ran to the car, immediately begin searching for presents, and help me into the house. We opened presents together, and they began fighting the cuddly smurfs I got them. I got to read them a story, of which I laughed far too much at for a children's book! And put them to bed. However this ended abruptly. Christmas 2013 will now always be the year that Ben fell out of his bunk bed and broke his wrist. But what is Christmas without a little bit of drama? 

This year I'm feeling incredibly thankful for what I have, and not dwelling over what I don't have anymore. If I'd known this beforehand, I would have probably been excited!

Happy Christmas! 

XOX