I spent my Sunday off sleeping in then lounging in bed, bonding with my ipod. Indie music reminds me of college. In 2004, Questionable Content, with its countless name-dropping of indie artists, introduced me to the genre. Sufjan Stevens, Cat Power, Broken Social Scene, Architecture in Helsinki, Pavement, Deerhoof, etc, were the soundtrack to what remains to be the best years of my life. Where am I heading with this? Like Aika, I’m starting to be afraid that I’m becoming that girl who peaked in college.

Simply put, we were bright-eyed in college. We were going to change the world. (Lol.) But while trudging through med school (first year for most of my friends and I), we lost that light. We allowed the last four years to beat us down. We left med school feeling disappointed with ourselves. A lot of my friends were valedictorians and salutatorians, and most of us had latin honors in college. But you wouldn’t know that with our performance in med school. We got honors and awards here and there but they were the ones we got without trying. The big tragedy is that we didn’t even try. We allowed the pervading culture of mediocrity to swallow us.

I’m most disappointed with how I played the victim card for the past four years. Entering med school wasn’t my idea but I went along with it. I should’ve owned that decision. I wasted energy focusing on what I didn’t have and what I wasn’t doing.

I allowed the powers that be to choose my career path because I was afraid they otherwise wouldn’t pay for my college education. But I stayed, and I am staying in this path because medicine- being a doctor- makes me feel useful. I’m chucking this need to be altruistic to my Aquarian nature.

I always thought that I had to choose between feeling useful and feeling happy, with happiness being associated with my true passions: art, literature and music. But I’ve come to realize that I cannot have one without the other(s). I need that which makes me feel useful and those which make me feel happy.

I’m quite sure that I won’t be satisfied with just being a GP. I hate stagnation more than I hate hospital politics. I will eventually enter a residency program. Whether I’ll do it next year or a few years from now is what I’m currently deliberating. No matter when I decide to further my medical career, I have to find a way, and to find the time to pursue art/writing/music at the same time.

This entry is actually a long-winded ad to find people who could teach me to paint or play an instrument. Anyone know anyone who could work with a when-I’m-free-and-when-you’re-free type of schedule? Email me. Lol ;)