The Lonely Raisin and her Grape Friends

Time 2021-10-29 10:11:21

Web Name: The Lonely Raisin and her Grape Friends

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skip to main | skip to sidebarThe Lonely Raisin and her Grape Friends

Life Studying Medicine in a (Not-So) Foreign Country.

A Question of MotivationI came onto my blog just out of sheer curiousity at what I had stopped doing 3 months ago, and realized it was too pink. Just shows how influenced by other peoples websites you can become without realizing it. Then when you no longer like those other people, the pink-colored glasses come off.

I recently was talking to a colleague who had an exam coming up, and had not started studying for it yet. After a couple of minutes of conversation with this colleague, I came to realize that they were suffereing from Idiotpathic Antilabinitiology, syndrome i have many times come across in my educational career. Loosely translated from latin, despite being the one having come up with the term, it means an inability to start studying for no apparent reason. She was exhibiting all of the normal symptoms.

1) Desperation - ie. i want to study **, i need to study*
2) Lack of Motivation - I don't seem to be motivated to do it (tho exam is in a couple of days)
3)Being distracted by possibilities of doing other things - The people around me are talking of going dancing/skating, while i have to sit here and study and can't concentrate.
4) Instant messaging/Texting on the topic of studying, instead of studying - means that their guilt of not studying is their main focus
5) Asking how it is going for other people - creates a sense of where other people are so one doesnt feel as guilty about how far they arent
6) Describing themselves as knowing very little at the moment - which is simply a symptom of low studying self-esteem. The fact itself is not likely after completing a course and already have prepared for 2 exam sessions in the course. This is also a way to feel more guilty about not studying, an attempt at self-motivation.
7) Reasoning the reason for insufficient studying as because they are "stupid, irresponsible
, lazy, overprocrastinating."
8)Reasoning it to the weather, outside people, frustration.
9) Comparing self to other people who are able to study, and wishing they could "crack down"like those around them.

All of the above symptoms are coping methods to try to understand why a specific person is not motivated like they should be. Generally people think that if you are more stressed and under more pressure you are more likely to be motivated to complete what is needed. This in fact, is a flawed ideal. Many people respond to pressure and stress by simply shutting down and focusing on other things. That which is stressful brings along a very negative association, and the mind can deal with it by simply avoiding it, thus despite a very important deadline, the negativity is so strong that people generally attempt to escape the problem entirely. This results in complete lack of motivation in moving forward with the task.

The solution is not to induce more stress or pressure but rather to reprogram the associations that push someone to the point that things become too stressful to deal with. The constant negative connotations with the task at hand build up in one's mind to the point that something that would have probably been really simple to do and quick to finish ends up seeming like an iron giant you can't defeat. The general advice to avoid this type of stress is usually to divide the task into seemingly smaller tasks. This way, upon completion of every small task, a sense of achievement grows and gives motivation to complete each next task, without the stressful association of the task as a whole.

Within the realm of studying, there also comes into play the technique used to achieve recall of the required knowledge. When studying for certain subjects that we enjoy, we tend to look forward to each detail, and our mind is relaxed and we feel enthusiastic. This allows for a lot larger quantity of information to be absorbed, without negative emotion or stress coming into play. When approaching subjects that have been difficult for us, or not as enjoyable to read, we automatically are faced with the negative associations that translate into negative emotions, and we suddenly are faced with a mental block preventing us from being efficient.

This mental block doesn't have to be overcome with forced studying, because that simply deepens the problem. Instead, the solution is to change the pattern with which we approach that specific subject. If the pattern is different, the negative emotions don't arise with the same strength. There are a ton of ways to achieve this, but the main idea is to look at it differently. In this sense we end up perhaps even enjoying the subject rather than associating it with past negative experiences.

And so, in trying to help my friend (despite her strong independant personality attempting to take over and reject help of any kind) I asked her to find herself a textbook from the subject, rather than using the slides from the lectures and conquer that particular topic of her general studying in 4 steps.

1) Skim the written part of the chapter in the chosen textbook, focusing only on diagrams and pictures.
2) Reread a bit more carefully, still focusing strongly on the graphics.
3) Reread a third time very thoroughly but try to envision the graphics in her mind instead of looking at them.
4) Summarize on paper, or to herself, or her roomate the written text and the diagrams without using the book.

And then i told her to get back to me after a few hours. Although the idea to change perspective on the subject was my idea, the technique was one a friend had described for another subject, and personally think its very efficient and goes well as a pattern of learning well suited for how the brain works. The main idea here, though, is that the simple idea of a new technique was enough to give my friend outside motivation to start studying for the upcoming exam.

And me being my usual helpful self, wish I had someone like me to give that external motivation, cuz im still screwed and havent started studying :P
Autor:Eva Lee Najubez0komentarze The Highlights of Facebook StalkingWell, I took two months off to reflect on my life, instead of writing about it. My conclusion was that there is nothing much to reflect on at this point because I've lived too short a life. But I do think it's that much sweeter if you can share it with other people.

Today was my last day of my official 1st [3rd(5th)] semester of medical school. I enjoyed it realizing that i've come to meet about 135 [270(350)] people in the time that I've been studying medicine, as you can tell by my vast amount of friends of facebook. LoL. I should delete about 100 of those people, but just to lazy to reflect on who i actually know and who I've simply lived beside, barely acknowledging their presence, and rarely crossing paths with them. On a normal day, there's only about 20 people I actually stalk on there (because really, what is facebook for, but to enjoy the monotony of someone else's life and contact them when they've said/done/been caught doing something of interest = facebook stalking). One thing on there I do find amusing, is people who add all kinds of people for the fun of adding people, not having ever really met that person. (That's usually my rule on adding people, to at least have met them in real life.) You see their friend list and its like 700 people, most who live in other states, cities, and countries. And everytime they express a new facebook status, they have about 6-7 strangers they've never met commenting on it. I suppose its a way to feel important to other people. And ironically sometimes its easier to pour your heart out to a stranger, but this is overdoing it just a tad. If you travel, go to university, study abroad and such, then you end up meeting all kinds of people, and yeah, Facebook is exciting for keeping in contact with your old friends, acquaintances and colleagues. Its always fun to reminisce your past, and see how people have changed. And now that they even have facebook chat, I myself have become a facebook whore...somewhat similar to what you refer to myspace addicts, although even those are becoming scarce.

Facebook just keeps getting better (or worse, depending on how you look at it). There are many out there facebook whores who sit in front of their computer and keep refreshing their facebook home page, just waiting for something to happen. Technology just keeps bringing us new ways to avoid living among other people.

This video rocks, and this is what facebook USED to look like.
Autor:Eva Lee Najubez0komentarze Ahhh. Gastric Ulcer!My great plans to wake up before 9am on a saturday and spend 6 hours studying anatomy in the library were thwarted this morning by a funny surprise this morning. I started feeling some acid reflux in my throat about 6am, and so I thought, maybe my body is overproducing acid. Sadly, the lemons in my fridge were hard as stone! So I tried an apple instead.
AHHH! Worst mistake of my life (at least up this point). Because suddenly it wasn't my throat that was the problem. My abdominal area quickly became inflamed in severe throbbing pain! Of course, me being myself, my passion for medicine went into overdrive (it might have also been a tinge of desperation due to severe pain) and i started reading up all I could on ulcers, and of course, the quickest fix. (One that wouldn't leave me permanently scarred or have long-term side effects.lol) Now, one might wonder how I knew right away it was an ulcer. First of all, I've had a duodenal ulcer before that was medically checked out, and secondly my symptoms were all pointing in the same direction:

Throbbing, or stabbing pain in abdominal area between breasts and navel (check)
Increase in pain when changing position (Deeeefinately)
Pain occuring at night (often a couple hours after eating)
Got worse after I ate (which simply means that its gastric this time and not duodenal)
Radiated a bit to my back (kind of worried me, because that could lead to internal bleeding somehow)
It was associated with Nausea and in this case, even some vomitting. Though there was no blood or brown sediments in the vomit, so no internal bleeding was occuring)

I took some mint and chamomile tea to soothe my stomach lining, and eventually the pain subsided a bit. I woke up still feeling the tenderness in my abdominal area, but for now the pain is faint enough that I can deal with it without medication.

Oddly enough, the day before one of my friends was complaining to me that she had gone to one of the medical centres nearby due to severe abdominal pain that turned out to be an ulcer. I told her I could relate. I didn't realize until this morning how well I could relate. I ended up calling her up (at 7 am!) and asking her what the doctor had prescribed her, and where I could go in case I needed medical attention. Yeah, she was pretty pissed about getting woken up. But I was desperate, in pain and a bit freaked out.
Ulcers can be caused by a number of conditions but in my case I'm pretty sure it wasn't stress or a bacterial infection. Rather, I blame the horrendous yoghurt I ate last night, mixed with Cherry Coke, A Kit Kat, a Milkshake, and some fried chicken. That's like the perfect recipe for an ulcer. It's also a perfect recipe for obesity and a heart attack.haha. In fact after getting an ulcer the normal precautions to take are to avoid eating everything on that list. And on a more personal note, avoiding dairy is also very much advised, because milk is composed of lactic acid and sugars. Acid is acid, and sugars slow down the healing process.
And my abdomen is still warm:(

Then again, maybe this is a wake up call to severely change my college student diet. I think i'll start by dedicating myself to cabbage juices to get those babies healing. (My ulcers..lol)Autor:Eva Lee Najubez0komentarze Anatomy and Medical Specialties
Alright, so it's approximately 1.5 months into my second year at this medical university. It's going surprisingly well considering my week consists of approximately three classes every two weeks. Every other week its only 2 classes. And they are going surprisingly well, considering one of them (Anatomy) I am doing for the second time officially, as I was not allowed to partake in the final last year due to lack of the 5 points required from my midterms, and the second one (Immunology) is completely new to me and an incredibly difficult subject to grasp if one does not know their basics (which I don't.)



First of all, in reflecting on how many times I am repeating the anatomy course, one could easily infer that it would be quite absurd for me to pursue psychiatry as a specialty at this point. My knowledge in that subject greatly outdoes my knowledge in any other subject I've ever studied at medical school, thus it would probably be a better idea for me to pursue surgery. Or even better NEUROSURGERY. I would have probably passed the anatomy course the first time, had I not wasted my time writing and randomly vlogging on youtube about how I am wasting my time, and the other million of ways one such as myself finds to avoid dealing with a difficult and very intimidating subject. This time around though, the subject is neither intimidating nor difficult for me to master, thus I no longer search for ways to avoid confronting it. In fact anatomy has become quite a pleasure for me. Now I spend more time avoiding cleaning the "shithole" I live in. That is where the nearby library comes into use, with regards to my study needs. And of course, there is also the anatomy study group my friend organizes, which is also such a pleasureable experience that I honestly can say, I love anatomy. Immunology on the other hand, a class in which I'd love to sleep through. Half the time I have no idea what the teacher is talking about. I just remember random facts like T-Cells are CD-40 positive. (That might not be true, im just giving an example) What are T-Cells and what is being CD-40 positive mean is something I really have no idea about. Unfortunately, I have a dire need to start getting A's on all the quizzes because recently I found out that the final exam is about a week after I plan to leave for Canada, and the only way I can solve this conflict of plans (I NEED to go home for the break!) is by getting all A's from this point on and getting exempt from doing the final exam.

Alright, reflecting on the last paragraph, I'm starting to think that this has got to be the most boring, nerdy post I've ever written. But be not weary. It is all due to my choice of clothes today. I went shopping to Peek Cloppenburg and bought myself the preppiest looking sweater I've ever come to own. Became so enthralled by the option of looking preppy that I put it on almost immediately upon returning to my loathsome and revolting dorm room. Even put on a headband and curled my hair to look like someone straight off of Gossip Girl. Lol. Thus it has also changed my whole thought process from. "Omg, Omg, Everything is so AWESOME!" to "Yes, I do in fact enjoy my current state of affairs." How unbelieveably great is that. The clothes do in fact make the man! I also tried to put on my glasses instead of contacts, but that just looks repugnant.



Other than that, in the past three weeks my optimism for everything to do with my life has been tainted by the inability to sleep in the normal hours of the night. I'm not quite sure what caused this disarray in my sleep pattern, but it may have been too many nights and weekends partying it up in clubs with friends and watching random shows at 4 am till I passed out. Simply put, no matter what time I to go to bed at, it always takes from an hour to 2 hours to fall asleep for me. I usually imagine random things that make me happy but with these conditions I'm starting to run out of things and people to think about! I even tried to pull an allnighter to get my sleep cycle right and it still took me 2 hours to fall asleep the next day AND I ended up sleeping 11 hours and waking up at 1pm. Now that is just ridiculous! I tried everything from avoiding caffeine to avoiding light and drinking water and its just not working. Some chemicals in my brain aren't being secreted when I need them most. I'm just not that far in my medical career to figure out which ones, and too lazy right now to Google it:P

Then there's the issue of the people in my hallway. This year I was unfortunatly cursed with all first years living in my hallway, and one second year that is missing in action. I thought that the first Anatomy midterm would scare them into hibernation, as is what occurred last year at this point, but sadly no avail. These people are generally quiet...at 6 in the morning and loud the other 23 hours of the day. And interestingly enough, they are the loudest about the time I am trying to fall asleep (midnight until 3am) and about the time I wake up (12pm -2pm). Other than that they are nice people:) Fairly messy, swedish, unsocial to non-swedes, cooking very strong odoured food in the kitchen and enjoying writing threatening letters in swedish about my laundry being in the machine too long. What more could a student like me want to be happy?

Oh and reflecting back on NOT becoming a psychiatrist, one of my friends here (the OLDER ones, like to refer to him as Grandpa or Female due to the fact that he, like women does not like to openly admit to being 24. Even his ex-girlfriend was shocked to recently find out that he had been 4 years older than her when they were going out.) actually wants to pursue Psychiatry. He's already done a 4 year- Honours Degree in Psychology back home so that specialty really suits him. If he doesn't end up doing that he wants to play with Helicopters, *cough*, I mean fly in them as a professional medical practitioner. I found the following quite humourous comic about the different specialties, and it just reminded me of his plans. Autor:Eva Lee Najubez0komentarze It's funny. I wonder what is the core reason behind procrastination. Why do people really do it? It's a difficult thought, imagining that in this world there are actually people, who put things off so much, that they end up wasting away their youth, creativity, potential and mind. Sure, people put claims to many different "hypotheses": I have ADD and can't ever get myself to focus enough to actually come through with it; I'm a perfectionist. If I can't do it perfectly, then I give up eventually and never end up getting anything done. I get distracted easily by anything and everything. Never can get myself to actually do something full on through.

We keep searching for the answer to the problem, read tens and hundreds of books about being efficient and productive and finally ending our procrastination ordeal. Yet, personally I have not yet found a real solution, though I admit I often use searching for one a tool for procrastinating ;)

My first Idead was about the ADD factor. I am probably the most "ADD-ish" person around, and anyone that has spent a significant time with me can tell you that. But then again, that's not the truth either. Because "ADD-ish" is a term synonymous with being "random" and having a short attention span for certain subjects. It can also be related to being spontaneous, or simply high on synthetically produced instant coffee and having a bad reaction to too much caffeine (is there ever a good reaction?). Another thing that doesn't make sense within this idea, is that the same people who claim they cannot focus easily, somehow possess the ability to focus for hours on playing solitaire(lol) or drawing a picture. So, thus one could conclude that those people HAVE the ability to focus; its just directly connected to whether what they are doing is mentally stimulating. Not that I am in any way implying that ADHD is not a real psychological problem. I'm just one of those people that believe it's an overused excuse for procrastination, and that even when it truly manifests in a child or adult, there are always outside factors influencing it.


The other idea I've read of is the idea of perfectionists. And I've come to the conclusion that it does really apply to me (After years of Denial...lol). The truth is that I live off of passion. Perfection simply fits really well into those ideals. I secretly believe I'm a superhero that can do ANYTHING I put my mind to. I just never choose to use my powers. Which also plays well into an underlying fear of failure, thus the inaction. If I don't ever use my powers, I never have to face the fact that I dp not really have superpowers and finally get rid of the denial that protects my psyche. What can I say, Ignorance is bliss. When studying I imagine myself with perfect notes sitting in a crazy clean room in the middle of the day and all of my studying being so efficient that I surpass all my classmates with my innate superintelligence and studying abilities.
And yet. My notes are never perfect, or neatly rewritten like i imagine them being. And my room is never clean enough that I can study normally in it, because I never bother to clean. I never bother to clean because I have so much studying that I need to do, which I never do. Can you see the self-damaging cycle occurring? My perfectionism ruins my life. And while I'm imagining the perfect world without distractions, my colleagues are studying in their messy rooms from their imperfect notes and imperfect time management. And funny thing, they are actually getting somewhere, while I'm stuck in a hole I can't seem to escape. Unfortunately, it builds me a bad reputation, because although it worked in middle school, and many times in highschool, by College and university, innate abilities alone will not get you good grades. So, in a way, I'm still a super hero in my head.

I guess in a way, psychologically, failure out of lack of action is easier than failure because I'm not good enough.

Seriously, I should become the next Sigmund Freud:P.
Erm, about productivity, not sexual desires. Just to be clear.

Autor:Eva Lee Najubez0komentarze HomeSubscribe to:Posts (Atom)
Can't You tell I'm a Pisces:DAbout MeEva Lee NajubezGdansk, PolandI think, I write, I like People. They seem cool. On my planet they don't exist.View my complete profileA Real Doctor
Sometimes our skills of deduction might seem simple. But there was a complex thought process before every word spokenBlog Archive 2009(2) May(1)A Question of Motivation January(1) 2008(2) November(2) 2007(1) November(1)My Blog List

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