I'm back, and boards is (not yet) looming

I've had several requests to return to this blog, so I will.  It was never just for me, after all, and the only reason I stopped updating it is because I thought interest in it had waned.  It's kind of gratifying to find out I was wrong.

I'm currently three weeks and one test into the spring semester of my second year.  A lot has happened since July whatever when I last wrote in here.  Let's see if I can summarise it reasonably well:

• I had an autumn semester, surprise!  It was rough but I guess not unduly so.  I had a lot of tests.  I learned how to give shots and that I am really terrible at doing a cohesive review of systems on a patient.  I failed utterly to learn a single fact about pharmacology despite apparently having taken a full semester of it.
• I went to a medical missions conference, and it was amazing.  This is the kind of thing that probably sounds like crazy talk to people who aren't Christian, but there's a certain kind of bright joy that comes from taking another step down the road God wants you to travel, and feeling His approval.  Spending one ridiculous, sleep deprived weekend surrounded by missionaries of all stripes - including all of the wonderful people I met at CCHS this summer! - was enormously affirming.  These are my people, even if I'm just a student still, even if I won't get to be a missionary for years and years.  These are my people.  It was awesome.
• I was basically attacked - almost repudiated - by a family member.  It was pretty heart-wrenching.  I don't think this person has ever said such terrible things to me.  The irony is that this person has no idea s/he played right into Scripture.  "Do you remember what I told you? ‘A slave is not greater than the master.’ Since they persecuted me, naturally they will persecute you. And if they had listened to me, they would listen to you."
  
• I spent a fantastic, road-trip-heavy Christmas break driving around half the country with my husband.  We had a lot of people to see, especially because Matt probably won't get to see most of those people again before he deploys.
• Speaking of, he left for training in the very beginning of January.  Thankfully, he is only four hours away, which means he has been able to come home every weekend, which I have needed because
• I am desperately burned out when it comes to being a full time student.  Not in the slightly interesting, tortured way that people get burned out on TV.  In that way where every day I struggle with a total lack of motivation and investment in what I'm doing.  For two weeks I could barely bring myself to organise my notes, let alone study them.  My house was a total mess, I lost weight... it took that long for me to figure out that it really was because I felt so miserable about returning to school.  I'm doing a bit better now, but it's still a struggle every day.  I feel like God is slowly leading me out, though.

As an interesting second year topic, let's talk about boards!!!!!!!!!!!!!  And by that, I mean let's talk about the irritating mass hysteria that boards incites.  Just so we all know what I'm talking about, medical students have to take a 3-part set of board certification exams over the course of their schooling.  The first test comes immediately after one's second year.  And it's meant to be really arse-hard, since it covers all of the material you didn't really learn during your first two years of med school.  You have to study for it.  A lot.  And the score you get determines what sort of residency program you will get into, what caliber doctor you will be, how everyone in your life will see you, whether your firstborn son gets to be named Jonathan or Maximillian-Pierre, etc.  Essentially, it determines everything of worth in your life.  EXCEPT NOT.  Yet when med students are faced with anything remotely important, they totally lose it.  People have urgent, stressed conversations in the hallways about which study program to sign up for.  Students that normally never talk to each other are expected to bond over Kaplan QBank questions.  All generally agree that "30 minutes of boards studying a night in January is totally doable," even though the test is in June.  In general, most people are terrified that there is A Key to acing boards, and that everyone has it but them, and thus everyone else has a clear, solid plan for boards and is going to do excellently while they sit alone in the dunce's corner.  That sort of thing.  It's so unnecessary.

To my poor class and all other second year classes ever:
No one has a plan for boards right now except that one gunner who wants to be an orthodermasurgicardionephrologist, and the joke's on them because they'll never have more of a life than the nonlife they have now.  Everyone is nervous about boards, but no one is working that hard for them yet because they're six bloody months away.  No one is doing 30 minutes a night.  No one is doing 10 minutes a night.  No one has read First Aid all the way through yet, and even if they had, no one would remember it.  We're taking like 482 classes this semester and we have 6 tests in the next four weeks.  I think we have more pressing concerns. 

I thought about sharing what I am doing, but I won't.  You know why?  What I'm doing should not be important to you.  Just follow the instructions we all get for hashing out a plan for boards studying: choose a target score, choose how much you are actually willing to study a week for the next month.  Stick to that.  Revise every 4-5 weeks, or sooner if your plan isn't working.  And stop obsessing over it.  And stop asking people what they're doing, because they're probably lying, and their plan has no bearing on yours.

I'm not type A enough for this crap.