with love, jackie.

this time next week, i’ll be taking step 1!

yall. i am very tired. this is, i think, the hardest i’ve worked towards a single exam in my academic career. i’ve still got a good handful of missed questions to re-do, and half of first aid to re-read, but i can’t wait to go in and be on the other side of this test.

this morning, my mom commented, "you round on your plants like they're your future patients." 🤣

plants were a surprise add-on to my 2019, and what a wonderful thing it has been! i'd never thought of myself as having a green thumb, but i've somehow gathered quite the little jungle over the course of the past year. get yourself a golden pothos and you'll soon realize that a having green thumb really only means having patience and a willingness to pay close attention :) a couple of new additions on my list of favorite things:

taking a quiet bit of the morning, coffee and watering can in hand, to walk around and check up on the plant bb's

visiting home improvement stores and plant nurseries!! exponentially more fun now that i have some plant ID knowledge under my belt

sending off plant cuttings to friends / getting excited plant updates when their plant blooms, etc. 🌱✨

1 week down, 5 to go 😤 my daily outfits are different combinations of my sweaters + leggings. repping my school colors today with this fleece!

during dedicated - maybe it's the forced isolation or the constant reminder of facts forgotten - it is SO easy for doubt and panic to build up with each day that passes. i'm having to repeatedly tell myself to trust the process...these study days are not being wasted; learning just takes some time and work before they pay off on paper.

5:53 am - my main view for the next six weeks, as i prepare for my step 1 exam (the first of our medical licencing exams!)

it’s been a whole minute since i last posted on this site! since then:

my research project finished up for the summer and i got to present my work in august (and start up a couple other projects in the interim)

some of the higher-stakes things came and went - i took my final osce of pre-clerkship and presented at my first poster session back in november!

i can’t seem to get enough of streaks - did one in october to draw every day (haven’t exercised that drawing muscle in a while) and doing the #rwrunstreak now :) 

we had cardio, pulm, renal, endo/repro this semester and now we’ve completed the systems part of medical school!! this last semester went by so incredibly fast, and i can’t believe how close i am to step 1 and clerkships

these days consist of early mornings and hot coffee, marveling at our little apartment tree while shaking off any sleepiness, and squeezing in a couple of practice questions before class. 2 weeks of classes and 1 small research presentation stand between me and christmas, but after that i’ve got to hit the ground running for dedicated study.

send a prayer out for me for those next 6 weeks! i anticipate long days of sitting around reviewing content and getting through a dizzying number of practice questions, so i could use a dose of energetic vibes

044 // phewww, officially been on break for 2 weeks! went home to get some sorely needed r&r, and now i feel ready to dive back in. ya girl's got many summer break plans in the works - a big one being bouldering regularly s/t i can handle V3 paths by summer's end. i went today and left with minimal bang-ups, which maybe is a sign i didn't push myself hard enough 😉 other wins from today:

finally got around to getting a recommended vaccine today, like a good adult :)

had a full day of work in lab! lots of pipetting, but it feels good to dust off my old bench lab skills, and i also got to help harvest some brain tissue!!

i have my car for the summer, and driving to/from the climbing gym + being the one to carpool friends for a change, was v satisfying

the grad student i'm working with gave me some reactions to do on my own tomorrow, which i'm looking forward to! it feels good to know she trusts me to handle things on my own this early in the program ☺️

043 // in love with mornings like these. a steaming dark roast, a quiet home 🥰

042 // here is your weekly reminder that UVA men's basketball are national champs 🏆

also, happy long weekend! we're in a strange part of the year, when everything is winding down for summer and ramping up for the last exam at the same time. said goodbye to my patient for the summer break, received some (much needed) validation during my year-end clinical evaluations, and still finding joy in the last stretch of studying in M1. plus, i got some big n fun dreams for this summer!!

041 // i feel like i've come by a lot of lil life goodies since i last posted a week ago! and since my dilated eye is really bumming my work flow rn, i might as well take a break and recount all that's happened :')

last week led up to our last (and arguably most difficult) anatomy practical on friday and i spent many evenings in the lab preparing for it. i wanted to end year 1 of anatomy on a strong note, and thankfully the studying paid off! now i know way too much about the holes in our skull 💪😂

shadowed inpatient nephrology rounds on friday since a last-minute opportunity came up, and listening to these doctors manage so many co-morbidities with their patients (and break down everything so my M1 brain could understand) was great! i get why they say nephrologists are some of the smartest docs out there.

celebrated my birthday this weekend!! with friends on friday, and family on saturday 🥰 one of my friends gifted me pandemic: legacy! we got to start it over the weekend, and it has immediately become my new fav board game.

in clinical skills this week, we dilated each other's eyes to practice using our ophthalmoscopes! i've now seen 3 optic discs in my lifetime, although idk how anyone can do it with normally-sized pupils...

and onto the big goal for this week: study study study and kill this quiz on friday!

040 // big sigh of relief bc ya girl passed her first OSCE (and first neuro/psych exam) !! only 4 weeks + 1 exam sit between me and summer break. studying this time of year reminds me of prepping for final exams, some of my favorite days of the semester. it was stressyyy at times, but something about getting to make my own schedule and work towards a singular goal without distractions... my ideal study day :)