finding my limits

I graduated with a 2.67 in high school. Right in the middle of my class. I didn't apply myself. It was easier to fail without trying than it was to try and fail anyways. At least that's what I thought. My junior year I did better, pushed myself, did well, got into college. After I got in to college, I was done tho, and thus, the 2.67.

I didn't adjust well to college right after high school. After a semester I left. At which point I got distracted by sex, drugs, and rock & roll. After a baby, a husband, and a house, I went back to college again. It went better this time, but once the divorce started, I had to stop again.

Fast forward five more years, and I'm back in college for a third time. And? Third time's a charm. I did brilliantly. I was shaky at first, thinking that I was pulling a fast one with every 'A' I earned, somehow fooling the university into believing I was smart. It was sometime during my sophomore year that I realized I wasn't pulling a fast one, maybe I was just smart.

Scholarships, accolades, awards, ceremonies, honors fraternities, speaking engagements, more A's, more 4.0's, more scholarships, endless success. There was nothing I could not do. Working full time, pulling 6 credits, then 7, then 9... plus social activities, mothering, wife-ing, hobbying, all of it.

So when I decided to go to med school, and I decided to finish all the pre-req's in a year, I figured it would be hard work, but I figured that I would just put my head down, work hard, focus, and it would all work out just as it always had. Brilliantly.

Chemistry 2 and Calculus. In six weeks. At the same time. Difficult? Sure, but it's either easy, or it's impossible. I was in the business of impossible. Can't and won't weren't in my vocabulary. The first day of Calculus, he casually mentions sin and cos and that we better be familiar with them. I wasn't.

I ordered a solutions manual. I read the textbook. I went for help. I got tutoring. I spent hours and hours pouring over material I didn't understand. I worked through problems, I met with other students. I devoted everything to Calculus. And it didn't work.

Yesterday I failed a chemistry exam. Not in the "oh, you got a B, and that's failing for you, isn't it?" way, but in the 49% failing kind of way. This morning I withdrew from calculus. And I visited my chemistry professor. And I took a nap. And a walk. And watched some tv. And did some chemistry homework.

I can't do everything all at once. I have limits. So I take algebra in the fall, trig in the spring, and pre-calc next summer. And then I try calc again. I'm not giving up, but I'm going to stop trying to climb up the front of the empire state building and maybe take the stairs instead. I'll earn it when I get to the top. Even if it takes me longer than I thought it might.

It ain't about how hard you can hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. And you know what? This makes a great story for "overcoming obstacles" for those med school interviews.

and having a life too

I woke up this morning and realized that I need to find a way to fit some exercise back into my life. I'm toying with the couch to five k plan, but last time I tried that I wound up with a whole new batch of aches and pains, and really, the goal is to eliminate those. I have an elliptical machine, but it needs taken apart and put back together because something is wrong with it, but I don't know what. And it's raining.

In addition, I think it's just been laziness that keeps me from doing anything health-wise. I use the excuse that I'm always studying, or busy, or in class. I don't remember where I read it, but there was a list of questions about going into medicine that was trying to determine how badly you wanted it. One of the questions was: Are you willing to get fat?

Sure, I'm willing to get fat, but I'd like to avoid that if I can. I really want to become a runner, because you really don't need any special equipment for that (unless it's raining apparently) and... well, it seems cool. It also seems like something you can bang out in 20 minutes and be done with, and that fits into my hectic schedule.

Speaking of hectic schedule, my first sciency term is over. Bio 1 and Chem 1 with labs are over, under my belt, and on to the next adventure. This summer is Chem 2, Calculus (for the first time), and Bio 2. Bio and Chem with labs. Calc with apprehension.

I'm waiting on the grade on my Chem final, which was so bad, I immediately went to the bar and started drinking at two-o-clock in the afternoon. Thank goodness I had a friend with me because it somehow mitigated the eyebrow raising quality of the act.

I figured out how to pay bills and go to school at the same time this week, so that's a major accomplishment. I'm also extremely thankful that I didn't have to take any loans up until this point in my college career because now I get to live on those loans I didn't take. I actually feel good about this decision because it seems more manageable and more likely to keep me on the path. Not that I had doubts before...

iTunes emailed me this morning to tell me all about the Business books they have on sale. And my stomach turned. See, at one point in my life, I was all about going into business. I would own my own business, wear power suits, and plan mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures. But it seemed somehow false and wrong, and as the years wore on, tedious.

This doesn't feel like that. This feels like every day is an adventure, a step closer to the ultimate goal, a cherished part of my life that fills me with immeasurable joy. And I'm fairly certain scrubs are more comfortable than power suits anyways...

Finals week

So here we are at the end of my first "science semester" and it's not going nearly as well as I would have liked. I'm about to finish up Bio 1 + Lab and Chem 1 + Lab, and I'm staring down 30+ more credits of just straight-up sciences for the next year and a half. It's intimidating to say the least.

My entire college career up to this point has been met with stellar success after less than stellar effort. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there was a class or two that gave me challenges or made me think, but for the most part, I just memorized a bunch of stuff, regurgitated it onto paper, and walked away with A's.

I have 123 credits of "not working that hard" on my transcript, thankfully giving my GPA a buffer against "holy crap there's ten steps of glycolysis and you want me to memorize ALL of them along with four thousand other things and then be able to apply that knowledge?!"

I am not unhappy about this. This entire semester has been a paradigm shift in my universe. A wake-up call and glaring evidence that memorization will only take you so far. At some point you have to use what you know to figure stuff out, instead of just memorizing cause/effect.

There are going to be B's. Straight out, no one to blame but myself, B's. My old tactics will not work here. Oh, I'm going to need to memorize. But then I'm going to need to take that stuff I memorized and learn to apply it. I'm sure there are lots of people in the audience thinking "duh..!" but bear with me. I've been lazy for years, relying on my near-eidetic memory to carry me through whatever challenges I faced.

I have to admit. While I'm not happy at my rapidly sinking GPA (still within summa cum laude range), I'm happy to be doing something challenging. I'm happy to feel like I'm actually doing something real - something that I wasn't instantly successful at. I suppose I'm happy to have "failed" (in my mind) because it's only then that we are forced to learn.

I'm also happy to notice subtle shifts in my understanding. Last night I felt light-headed and almost passed out. So my brain starts thinking... "Well, what causes that? Drops in blood pressure. And what can cause that? Dehydration, ion imbalance... well, let's try drinking some water and see if that helps..." I'm years from being able to actually safely diagnose anything, but the mere attempt made me happy.

I'm finally learning something that matters.

volunteering

I started volunteering at the hospital this week. I'm in the Emergency Department of my local hospital, doing ER Tech-like stuff. Transporting patients, cleaning rooms, getting equipment. While I'm freaked out about knowing the layout of the hospital, I'm not worried about interacting with the patients. Honestly? That was the best part.

I've always been a bit of a misanthrope. (A bit?) But of all the things that made me nervous last night - which elevator? which floor? which nurse? - that didn't intimidate me at all. I was lucky that I had a good group of patients, none of them difficult, but it was incredibly rewarding just getting to interact with them.

I was a little, like, back of my mind, worried about that. It was never a surface concern, but I was somewhat concerned about being good at it. Everyone following my path is, I believe. But the moment I stepped into their room, introduced myself, and started pushing them towards their destination, I felt born to interact with them.

It was a fantastic experience. I'm really glad I started volunteering. It's made me realize that I can learn biology, chemistry, and even gasp, organic chemistry. I can learn the layout of the hospital, how to change over an O2 tank, and which nurse is taking care of room 16... but learning good human interaction is probably harder. And I feel well equipped in that department.

So who knows why I didn't like my job, I just didn't. Perhaps it had something to do with the random discontent I felt at not making any contributions to things that matter to me. Perhaps it had to do with lack of appreciation. Perhaps it had to do with always feeling like management was working against me.

It doesn't matter now.

A month after I was let go, I was laying in bed one morning (malingering, no doubt) and it suddenly occurred to me that I was now free to do whatever I wanted to do. Weren't there things I wanted to do that were impossible because I worked full time? Wasn't there something?

I attended a women's conference later that week with one of my mentors from school, and it was sometime during the keynote speech when it hit me. The speaker was talking about how women always put what they want on hold because they are helping others get what they want instead, or how they are looking for permission to follow their dreams. She stood up there and gave us all permission, told us to stop putting others first, just this once, and be honest with ourselves.

I'm taking notes. Writing things down. Somewhere around the phrase "one precious life" I wrote in the right-hand margin... "Hey. Go to med school."

When one door closes...

I'm 33 years old. It's the Friday before Labor Day, 2010. I have a mortgage (two really), a brand new car, and I'm two semesters away from graduating with my first bachelor's degree. And I've just been fired.

The entire process - signing the legal papers, telling people how to carry on without me, graciously accepting my firing, and cleaning out my desk - takes about an hour and a half. I was "exceptionally nice" and made the process very easy on the people firing me. It was actually mentioned in the days after how nice I was.

I'm driving home when the panic sets in and I nearly hyperventilate.

Thankfully, I had plans that evening. Driving out to Canfield, Ohio with some of my best mates to watch a demolition derby and eat fair food was probably what saved me from emptying my liquor cabinet directly into my bloodstream.

It wasn't until that first official work-day when I wasn't sitting in a cube that it began to sink in: my goodness, I hated my job.

I was a technical project manager and application administrator. It was my job to get applications up and running using a variety of resources - internal and external - coordinating tasks between vendors, clients, and employees, training those necessary on the things they needed to know, migrating legacy data, performing upgrades and fixes, and basically being the person on the other end of the phone when whatever application wasn't playing nicely.

I did this for 3-1/2 years. In that time, I managed to completely phase out an existing legacy application that had been in use for nearly ten years, launch and integrate a web-to-print process using "the latest" in web-to-print technology, AND serve as part of a two-person team to get the company ISO 9001 certified. Which we did. (And I have the champagne cork to prove it.)

When I was let go, all my projects were working. There were no new mountains left to climb. I innovated myself out of a job during a time when business was not picking up and clients, despite our awesome technology, were in-sourcing tasks.

The actual tasks were wonderful and I loved the impact my work had. The doing of the tasks, the tolerating the user-base, the panicked phone calls, the late nights, all of those things I could deal with... in fact, I even liked them. I liked being the star quarterback who came in and "saved the day" with a combination of technical skill, excellent contacts, and panache.

So why did I hate my job?