Week 5 - Thank God its over...

This was an incredibly long week. My buddy/mentee decided to take a one year leave of absence from his medical school. He didn't know what he wanted to do, so he spent the week calling me and Eboni almost EVERY DAY to get advice. The whole business ended up leaving me feeling very emotionally spent. As a result, I did not do much studying and what studying I did do was not effective studying. So, that means that instead of really moving forward this weekend, I have to go backwards and make sure that I consolidate several days worth of material.

My sister also drove down; I didn't want to tell her "no" as I know that she is lonely now that her daughter has moved out, but Eboni and I really don't have time to play host. I would have felt bad if she had come and I didn't spent any time with her, so I spent time with her this afternoon. As a result, the only thing that I have done is take my WFA quiz. I did grill ribeye stakes, made some cream spinach, and baked some potatoes for dinner; it was nice for the three of us to eat together and catch up, but Eboni and I are going to be up late. Eboni started medical school interviews this week and she needs to put in review notes for the applicants that she interviewed. She also has a couple of school assignments of her own to do. I marvel at how she is able to get up early with me everyday to prepare breakfast and lunch for me before I head to school. She then starts work so her days are actually FAR longer than mine. And now that the interview season has started, it won't be uncommon for her to have 13-14 hour days, five days a week. Yet, she still makes time to make sure that I don't have to do too much so that I can focus on being a medical student...

One thing for you guys to note is that in medical school, you have new stuff building on old stuff everyday. Its important to NOT fall behind and at the same time, you have to make time to go back and review old material as the more times you review it, the more likely it is to stick to memory. Try to establish a study schedule that allows you to do this early on. My plan going forward, until our final exam this semester, is to spend two hours each day reviewing old material in preparation for the exam. The class that we take next semester, Musculoskeletal, is going to be a lot more dense and we won't have the benefit of being eased into things for two weeks. We'll have to hit the ground running from day one so I need to make sure to make alterations to my study schedule early on...

Praying that next week will be a better week...