Planning

It seems that my life revolves around planning at the moment, booking my UKCAT, planning open days, sorting out my revision schedule for the summer, figuring out my dissertation topic, all requiring lots of planning.  I don't seem to have much time to do anything between volunteering and working towards the summer exams and next year!  I don't mind because I know that it'll (hopefully) be worth it in the end, but it would be nice to have a little bit of "me" time without feeling guilty and thinking that I should be doing something else instead. 

I'm sitting here waiting for my dad to call me so that I can go and pick up something from him, wishing he'd hurry up as I'm wasting time that I should be spending reading for my dissertation so I can send my proposal to my lecturer and have a supervisor assigned to me.  I still can't believe that in September I'll be in my 3rd year, this degree has flown by.  I've really enjoyed it, I wish I hadn't had the health problems I've had with it but I'm pretty proud of myself for being able to continue with it despite them.  

I think today I'm going to meet my dad, finish doing some reading, write a draft proposal, do a spot of note making for my exams and then catch up on some other work. My other half has plans this evening and I'm going too, so I'll probably be shattered by about 9pm, just in time for 24 hours in A and E.  Frustratingly I wake up pretty early most days and I'm shattered pretty early in the evening too, which also makes me feel guilty and feel like I should be working rather than crashed out on the sofa.  

Anyway, my dad has just called and told me he's not meeting me for over an hour so I'm going to get back to my reading.  Hope everyone has at least had the chance to enjoy some of the lovely sunshine we've had, fingers crossed that wasn't our summer.  

Open Days

Open day season is almost upon us and as I have signed up for pretty much all of the open days I want to go on it has dawned on me just how real this is.  I want to go to medical school in 2013, I think I'm probably one of thousands who do to be honest but I'll be happy to wait another year if I have to.  But I will be spending the summer going to open days, studying for the GAMSAT and UKCAT (and possibly BMAT) and writing my UCAS form, regardless of the outcome, the application stage starts here.  It seems like yesterday I was getting ready to start the first week of my BSc, yet here I am, my second year is almost over and I'm going to be a third year (results pending).  

I still can't choose which Universities I'm going to apply to (as you can tell by the volume of exams I'm considering taking).  But I have to be honest I'm having a lot of fun choosing between them.  At first I found I was getting frustrated by it, and I'm not going to lie - I would prefer it if the UCAS form had 8 options instead of 4...but I'm really enjoying learning about all of the different courses that are on offer.  I'm slightly concerned that I'm going to pick the wrong uni, choose 4 medical schools that won't like my application/won't like me at interview, but I've come to the conclusion that it is just one of those things.  I'm not going to pick unis that simply have the largest intake number, I'm going to pick schools that I really think I will love, located somewhere where we'll enjoy living.  We're really really lucky here in the UK, there are so many fantastic courses to choose from.  Reading people's blogs, posts on twitter and on various forums, I think there will be lots of competition this year for places.  All I can do is give it my very best shot and hope one of my choices wants to offer me a place! 

Fingers crossed....

More to life

So I've been revising (almost) constantly lately.  We've had a few lovely "date nights" as we call them, we have another tonight, a mid-week one to break up the stress of work/essays/revision etc which will be lovely.  However, I was procrastinating earlier and came across a blog that I once read from start to finish (and sobbed, literally sobbed) the whole way through.  In a nutshell, the blog was written by someone who married a young lady who battled with cancer for 5 years, but sadly lost her fight in 2011.  It is about their life together during their fight and there is another blog attached describing life as a widow.  It breaks my heard as the age gap is the same as the gap between my other half and I.  We always feel so lucky to have met each other when we're still young, but this blog serves as a cruel reminder that youth does not mean longevity.  

It got me thinking about how I would cope if I was to become a medic and I was faced with a young couple in a similar situation to the couple in the blog.  I concluded that I would probably go home and cry, lots and lots.  I can't imagine that I'm the kind of person where death would not affect me over time, I think no matter how long I was lucky enough to practice medicine I would still hurt every time, I would probably just become more experienced in processing the emotions.

This young couple went through so much together, I would be beyond devastated if that happened to me and my other half.  It is not just what they have already shared that is lost, but also the loss of the promise of forever.  (Did I forget to mention that I'm a hopeless romantic).  I think that when we get caught up in the whole revision and work malarky, we forget what is most important in life, the little things that may not change the world, but will always stay with you.  So when I'm sitting here in meltdown mode over my exams, I think I'll try my hardest (and it will be hard) to remember that there really is so much more to life than a perfect grade.  

Little deep for a Wednesday perhaps, but I thought I'd share what I've been thinking.  Now I'm going back to revising about the joys of thrombosis in pregnancy.  Have a lovely day everyone, make the most of it.