My brain is crying.

Information overload. This weekend I have covered bonding, (ionic and covalent), polished off proportion and started on graphs. Fortunately I was able to skip the whole first section of graphs seeing as it was a subject I actually listened in. I would have done more graphs only I discovered that I need graph paper and don't actually own any. I'll get it tomorrow. I then tried to more chemistry in the form of specific heat (calories etc) but my brain told me to GAGF and now it's trying to ram itself in my stomach.

That being said, I looked at an online study guide and was pleasantly surprised when I discovered I have nearly covered 1/3 of what I need to. Chemistry doesn't bother me too much, it's not that hard to grasp (unit factor conversion just drives me NUTS though because its nonsensical and written inefficiently) but I have this propensity for forgetting small but important facts. For example, ionic (or electrovalent) bonds are generally between metals and nonmetals. By the time I got to the test at the end of the chapter, I managed to forget this. There were many questions on whether particular compounds were ionic or covalent and I was all WTFBBQ how do you tell?! I somehow managed to get 15/18 though, while also forgetting that the family number referenced the amount of valence electrons (another small and important fact).
And electron dots. Don't get me started on the dots.

Truthfully though, this is challenging me. I dont remember being challenged, well, ever. Unless you count the physics exam in uni - which I dont. It was only challenging in a rote learned kind of way. Now I am being compelled to solve problems from several different angles, not something I've really ever done before. I'm not rote learning either so I can't study for hours and hours anymore. My brain keeps hitting walls. I wonder if brilliance or genius is the capacity to take all this stuff in for hours at a time?!
Saturdays I can manage 4 hours. Sundays my brain is wise and at best I can do 3, but usually 2.

But but, I did notice this weekend that things were ever so slightly easier to pick up. This in itself was a huge boost - the content gets harder but my capacity to cope with that has improved, and from the small amount of maths I've learned thus far, the way I attack a problem has also improved. Still though, the more I learn, the more I realise what a novice I am and how much I dont know! I still haven't got an SAT maths question right yet although I'm beginning to understand them better. In fact once I look at the answer I know how they did it, but its knowing how to do it myself thats taking the time!

Somehow though, in 3 months I have to at least grasp this stuff, and add biol and physics into the mix. Worse still, the prep courses do not coincide kindly with my working days. I'll try for two days leave to go to one, but I'll be pushing it.

And what if it's all for nothing? I'm realistic, I know that I've hardly got the requisite time for studying, and yet I'll be outlying all this money and paid leave for something I could quite conceivably go terribly on. I could play it safe and not worry about it and work towards sitting the GAMSAT in 2006 but that in itself is an even bigger risk, because by that time I will have invested a year of study in something I havent experienced and could still quite conceivably bomb. Also my Mum told me that she spoke to the doctor at work whose daughter made it to the interview (and still didn't get in) and he told her that everyone who sits the GAMSAT are 'quite high flyers' and have all got law degrees (his daughter is doing law/sci) which naturally kicked my inferiority complex up a few notches. My Mum mentioned that I had no science and he told her that while his daughter scored well, she had zero interview skills. He also warned me off applying to Sydney uni because apparently everyone wants to go there or to Melbourne so their cutoffs are quite high. It all depends how I go on the GAMSAT I guess, ANU and UQ are still my first prefs, Sydney was on there because it was close.
The doctor said I was better off applying to an 'obscure' uni. FFS. There's no such thing! Obscure != non popular!

Okay so I'm not a brilliant law student who did science all the way up to year 12 and got high marks and then got into law. I'm just me who bombed vce, dragged herself through tafe, and got a non traditional degree at a non traditional uni.

But wouldn't the story be all the more sweeter if I did get in? Would that make me a 'high flyer' then? Or would it make me someone who was living proof that you could do things a bit differently and still go far? I hope its the latter, I would so like to prove that. Mum told me that the doctor tutored his daughter every night in the science necessary. I told her I should be so lucky - but if I can do this with 5 textbooks and a genius brother, again it will be all the more sweeter. Also this girl already sat the UMAT (the undegrad version) and was good enough to get interviews and monash one year, then syd the next - and got into neither! I'm the reverse, I'll probably have to sit the GAMSAT twice but jeez if I get to an interview I know I will own it.

serp just asked me if I was writing another essay blog hehehehe I am. The other reason I dont want to wait a year and a half to sit is because I'm afraid I will change my mind. That in itself is not a bad thing, as Damien said I need to examine my motivation - but I do know that 100%, if I change my mind it will be out of fear and low self confidence. I know I want this. And I do know I have been prone to settling. I don't want to settle. I want to be a doctor. I want to be challenged every single day of my life by other peoples medical problems.

Dont get me wrong, I have plenty of selfish reasons for wanting to do this. I want to challenge myself, be able to travel and find work, be able to assist in third world countries, make money, and have a lot of room to move and develop. Medicine fulfils all those needs. But I also want to make a difference, educate people on the quality of their own lives (I am an expert in this), provide access for everyone to health services as much as I can (including third world citizens), and instil in people the same sense of control over their own lives as doctors have done for me. I could go on (you know I could), but I'll stop here. Wanting to medicine reminds me of two unrelated but important changes in my life.

The first was breaking up with Dieter. It was frightening and I felt like shit through most of it. I felt like I wasn't good enough and spent a lot of my time explaining my reasons to the disbelieving (namely my sister and her boyfriend). I had no one good reason for them, and all of the smaller (and important) ones, weren't grand enough for their ears. I simply could not justify in terms they wanted to hear. I'm sure if I went around saying things like "I want to save humanity" people might listen, or if I started up with in depth monologues on the state of our health system as a reason for doing this, it might be some kind of justification. I dont have either except for the simple explanation that studying medicine would fulfil my needs, and my desire to contribute to the world and live a meaningful existence.

The second was learning to sew. I could give no clear explanation to anyone where the desire came from. I just woke up one day and thought about it. I continued to think about it until I could think no longer and just had to do it. I had no idea how to do it, and no explanation to give as to how I would do it, I just had that need that would not go away. The same goes for medicine. I thought about it when I was a teenager and it remained behind that cloud of low self worth until J told me I could do it. Coming from someone so intelligent and who had gone through every inch of academia so brilliantly, it made me think maybe I could. And again, I thought about it and thought about it until I couldn't think about it any longer and just had to pursue it, again with no one resounding explanation as to why, just that I had to. I could lecture everyone for hours as to why, but I do know from both those occasions, that any justification I gave wouldn't be enough. The best reason I could show, would be to do it, and do it well, and show everyone how happy I am doing it.

You can't tell anyone anything. You have to show them. It's the first rule of writing (which I always break), and a good one. I can't show anyone that in my mind, medicine is the only thing I can see myself doing for the rest of my life. You guys all saw my posts in the first half of the year about how all I could see in my future was darkness and that there was no clear way, and not much want to do anything.
Now I can see it. I can see it with such frightening clarity that all I can do is pursue it. It makes sense. I can't give anyone a big impressive motivation because I dont have one myself. It's not because I want to be rich or prestigious or overworked or divorced or anything. I dont see medicine (as a lot of people do) as something impressive. I see it as traumatising and hard and meaty (haha in so many senses ;). Which is pretty much everything I crave.

Funnily enough I was in the meat section of the market the other day and came across some skinned lamb heads. They still had eyes and teeth. My first reaction was repulsion but that didn't stop my legs from carrying me forward for a closer look. I noticed the shape of the teeth and the cataracts on some of the eyes. I forgot that I was looking at a particularly gruesome object and became fascinated by the sum of its parts. That's all.