The Gentle Grind

Well, I got my periods first and then the day was for me to join the surgery rotation. Did that but came back super exhausted. Then I had feud with my batchmates on something petty which ruined my whole day.

Then the next day, due to the feud i didn't go for my rotation. But no worries because I actually studied while I stayed back. I read the topic ulcer. And it felt good to complete it. Then I also did a study session on obgy. To be more specific, I read endometriosis from the textbook. The same night I had this urge to listen to some music and I did while i doodled in my diary.

I was going to watch a video lecture but my right ear was aching on using earphones. And I live in a shared room, so I can't exactly blast the lecture on the speaker. Then just when I decided to sleep in early, the power went out and in came the mosquitoes and sweating. By the time it came back, it was way past midnight.

The next day I woke up, showered, and had breakfast. I went to the clinics, felt really unwell in between, but i couldn't just leave so I endured the 3 hours somehow and came back and basically was on my bed the rest of the day because of high fever. No study that day.

So that concludes my 15 days. The next 15 days come with their own challenges that I have no idea how I am going to tackle. But let's hope for the best.

So Saturday was surprising tbh. The exam that was scheduled for Monday was suddenly taken on Saturday. So with as much preparation I had done, i completed the exam. And it was easier than I thought it would be. So now I had a whole weekend completely off. I watched a few episodes of xo, kitty and then went out with friends for a college event. Got back pretty late. But it was a fun and rewarding day.

The next day I was so tired that I woke up at 10 am. Fixed a quick breakfast somehow and went to shower. Was basically starving till lunch time came around so i went and had some good lunch. Then I watched some more episodes of xo, kitty until it was time to do a whole lot of laundry. Did that, got super tired, lied down a bit. But I had to iron my outfit for the evening out with my other friends, so I got up to do that. Then my first pair of scrubs came in the mail today and I tried them on and oh my God, did it feel nice. Something close to a sense of achievement came to my heart. Then the rest of the evening went by in a blur. Got ready, went out, had good food, a few laughs, a few good pictures, came back and watched some more netflix and slept.

Yesterday, the day started on the right note, with a good breakfast, and an obgy study session before lunch. Post lunch my stomach felt a little funny so i decided to lie down a bit. Completed watching xo, kitty (kinda disappointed in how they are now just stretching it out. Taking too long to just make new seasons). Had some tea in the evening, then wrote a poem about tea and recorded it to post on insta. Tried to edit the reel but couldn't find good videos for it, so at 11pm i gave up and got ready for bed. That's it. That's how those days went by.

Today was weird and productive at the same time. Woke up with a to-do list already written the night before.

As i previously mentioned, I have my ward ending exam on Monday. So I have been consuming all the clinical jargon that I possibly can for that day. Today I originally planned to complete the CNS examination but I made the grave mistake of counting the pages I had to read to complete( it was over 200) and I panicked and procrastinated.

To counter this I cleaned the room a bit, took a shower, had lunch and then sat down again. But this time I changed my target to CVS instead, only because it seemed doable.( Only 50 something pages) So i adjusted my to-do list and shifted the CNS bit to Sunday.

I also had to go to the hospita in the evening l to take a case of the respiratory system as tomorrow it is my turn to present a case in the ward. Send some good luck!

Then i completed the cvs part before dinner, then moved to ecg reading practice after dinner and then called it a day.

Well yesterday, i attended the clinics, came back, had lunch, took a nap, studied for a bit, had dinner, studied a bit more then slept.

Study time: almost 2 hours

Today after attending the clinics, i was feeling a bit under the weather, so decided to rest a little. My study sessions looked like: one hour in the evening, 40 mins before dinner, 40 mins after dinner.

Study time: a little over 2 hours.

I have my ward ending exam on Monday so all my study sessions are for that exam.

Anyway see you tomorrow.

Today was a success.

I got in 4 hrs of study today and I enjoyed all of it. Everything was making sense and it felt right. I would have done more but i have my clinical rotation tomorrow which I have to wake up for.

I also had a good night's sleep and the weather was amazing.

2 hrs in my morning

1 hr in afternoon

1 hr in evening

This has been the most productive day yet in this series and I am very happy for that.

May more days like this come by in the future.

Also I realized that reading textbooks and understanding something is more rewarding than watching a video lecture. You get to form the concept in your mind your way. And it feels amazing when something just clicks in your mind. Like it makes a place in your mind and feels... right.

I attended my clinical rotation and got back by 12. After a phone call at home and lunch, I got busy in some chores that couldn't be pushed further. Then I experienced peak summer bliss of icecream and a cooler cooling my dorm room to the perfect temperature.

After which I picked up some clinic notes from earlier today. I dabbled here and there from this book to that to make out the best way to understand a concept.

And I am happy to say that I did find a fantastic way. So how I did it was not reading the textbook first because no matter which book I picked it was not helping me build a mind map of that concept. So I switched to ways that can help me start from scratch. So that my brain retains it. I chose anything and everything that my brain found interesting. Videos, free online notes, etc. Not what everyone said the right source is, I basically let my mind choose what's interesting enough. i didn't think that this way was making any difference but then I opened my textbook, which I was previously struggling to read and voila, I understood what i was reading!

Though because I had a movie night planned with my roommate, i couldn't complete the topic. So my plan for my next session is to complete that and also test out this method with other topics.

Overall a good day with good progress.

I don't have much to write about because I was sick today and didn't do anything substantial. I picked up some study material around 7.30 pm and focused for a bit until it was time for dinner.

Also I finished watching modern family while i was rotting in bed all afternoon. It was Sunday and though I had some good plans for today, i didn't feel like doing anything so i didn't push myself too hard.

Anyway, I hope that I will feel better tomorrow and make some progress.

That's it for today.

The day was fairly nice. I didn't have to go to the hospital for my rotation today so I had some extra hours on my hand. Which ladies and gentlemen, this author used very productively. I got a bit of cleaning done and then had a rewarding study session.

I studied for 3 hours in 3 study sessions throughout the day. Which doesn't seem like a lot but it is progress so I will take it.

After dinner I got a little offtrack and binge watched modern family. But I won't beat myself up about it because it's the weekend.

So yeah, I had a good day.

Today was a disaster.

I attended my clinical rotation in medicine and it was finished earlier than expected. Which resulted in me having an extra hour before lunch which i didn't count while planning my day in the morning. So what did I do? Ofc i doom scrolled.

Then after lunch while watching a sitcom, i should have closed my phone and just sat down studying as there were no lectures scheduled in the afternoon today, but instead I watched way too many reels.

Then at 4.00 pm i actually opened my books to revise the ecg basics I studied yesterday. And I did revise the whole thing. And then as I was just about to start the next topic, i again fell into the pit of doomscrolling. Yes, again.

And then after having a breakdown on the floor, here I am writing this at 11.30pm having wasted the whole day. Yet again.

My day had a bumpy start. Not what I slept with in mind but after dodging some curve balls I sat down to study around 10.30 am and had a study session till 1 pm (with a few breaks in between ofc).

Then I had lunch and somehow got drifted away and it was 4 pm, I tried to study some clinical medicine but got super sleepy and decided to take a nap which lasted till 5.30.

The day after that just went by and I am way too guilty to write out what I did till now.

But as this is supposed to be a reflective space, I would like to write down some insights.

There are certain points of time in my day where I tend to get distracted the most.

As far as I have noticed it is

1. On an off day, after waking up.

2. On all days, off or not, after a study session where I think I deserve a tiny break which actually lasts longer than intended most of the times

3. After lunch as I have a new habit of watching some sit com while having lunch so I tend to just continue watching the next episodes after lunch. Same goes after dinner.

4. Right before sleep time. Mostly it is doomscrolling but yeah that's my weak points.

So my theory is if I somehow manage these crucial points then maybe I would have better results at the end of the day.

P.S. I am content with how I spent my day. It is better than a zero day. And I actually enjoyed my study session today. It scratched my brain the right way.

Ok, will see you tomorrow.

It's validating your hardwork yet making it feel like a dream come true part of your life.

How weird it is that here I am, trying to somehow learn everything I need to know for the sake of passing an exam.

But how can I forget the fact that this knowledge, these pages, hold the art of saving lives.

Decades of knowledge, mistakes and lessons, acquired and learned at the cost of death, sits here in my hand. Being entrusted to me to carry, apply and improve.

It is the muggle art of saving lives; but there has to be an element of magic somewhere in between the lines.

There has to be something divine calling me to it.

There has to be a blessing behind me being able to sit here and try to remember how to save a life.

My purpose is calling me to learn it. But I am busy trying to skim through it like it is some old school, must know, informative and boring data that I should somehow fit into my mind for long enough so as to pass an exam.

This is not ordinary. This is not mundane.

Whenever I start writing about medical school or anything related to it, unknowingly my thoughts are steered to everything wrong.

The toxicity, the hustle, the fake glamour it gets on social media, my bones straining under the weight of how I am not doing enough, the sacrifices it demands, the homesickness, the possibility of having chosen the wrong degree afterall and so on.

But this is not what I am here for.

What I am here for is the signs of being alive, the moments of feeling alive that comes with the life path I chose to navigate . I am here to address the gentle parts of it.

The never ending scope for learning, the astonishment of understanding the human body and appreciating its complexity, the tiny amount of growth that happens with those tiny everyday challenges, the days where I do feel enough, the privilege to call academic stress as my biggest challenge and so on.

Why? Because I need this. If I am going to have a space to share my thoughts, i want to have gratitude seeping onto this page like it breathes on it.

So yes, from time to time I may question the doability and the complications this course entails, but I am ready to love.

One thing that I never thought would be a part of this medical field was toxic culture. Because back then, my 15 year old self couldn't fathom how toxicity can coexist in the same place where healing and caring are due.

Now everyday I see myself and hundreds of other students go through this crumbled system in the hopes of one day escaping but we know-- there's no escape. We become the system.

Our tired hearts need to save enough energy to have tender hands.

A field which stands on the grounds of hierarchical discrimination and gets a kick out of students' and residents' misery is the field that needs the most compassion.

The gentleness it requires to serve yet the iron shield we need to build around our souls is truly astonishing. How am I supposed to do that? Why aren't we being treated as human beings while we are being trained to treat actual human beings?

Apparently my teenage self had a very roses-and-daisies kind of expectation from this profession. But the reality? Far from it. No real friends, no personal space ( because hostel life), no reassurance that tomorrow would be better, deal with such toxic people on a daily basis, being away from home, no matter what you do, you would be never doing enough.

My iron shield is still not built. There are still moments where I stop and take a step back in fear of what I have just experienced. And then I quickly rethink why am I here? Have I made a wrong choice afterall? Is this what i have spent countless sleepless nights for?

But the I have to remind myself that I am already in way too deep to go back now. The only way out is through it.

I don’t know if anyone will read this, but I think I need it anyway.

This space is for the slow mornings, the skipped lectures, the tiny wins, the big breakdowns, and everything in between

Med school isn't always glamorous. Sometimes it’s just me, a half-filled notebook, and a deep sigh I haven't released yet. But I want to remember the good too—the chai breaks after study blocks, the soft light on my bed at 5 pm, the way my heart settles when something finally clicks.

This isn’t about hustling harder.

It’s about showing up—gently, imperfectly, honestly.