Ahh grad school. We are successfully through half of our first semester and still we are all here. I would be lying if I said that we haven’t mostly all had a “What the heck am I doing with my life” moment. Not that what we’re learning is uninteresting- more that it is just so daggum much to learn in not a whole lot of time. Right now we are sort of walking anatomy zombies- seriously we walk around and talk about anatomy, constantly asking what inserts where and what muscle does what. We’re kind of obnoxious right now but the good news? We mostly just see each other so we aren’t exactly annoying the general population. Somehow we are slowly but surely making our way through anatomy, even if we do sort of look weird walking around touching each other and saying “Oh! There’s the greater trochanter.”
What’s really sad is that people are always asking how much I love living in Charleston and how wonderful it is and if I’ve been to this place or that. The problem? Ummm I don’t really have a life outside of class and my classmates. All of those delicious restaurants? I might have driven past them. Fabulous stores? Looked in the windows and walked right past because I’m in grad school y’all and Publix is having a sale on diet coke! More embarrassing? I get excited about specials at the grocery stores and I will print coupons thank you very much.
When a friend on mine got married here a few weeks ago (which by the way was probably my favorite wedding ever as evidenced by the ridiculous number of pictures I took of the decorations and was just so filled with love), I was so excited to see everyone but sort of embarrassed that I really couldn’t show anyone around or tell them places to go, mostly because I had not ventured anywhere but my apartment, the Chick-fil-a and class. I hated that I couldn’t hang out with everyone from the wedding late that night or on the beach but anatomy was calling – as it always is. Its gotten better over the past few weeks and I can actually say that I have now been to more places but that mostly happened over July 4th when everyone is in town.
I definitely went through a time where I really felt like I had no life- I existed in class, studying, and working out in the gym (where generally I was reading anatomy notes). My life was (and still is) anatomy- I literally would wake up the morning of a test thinking of muscles and nerve innervations and have actually fallen asleep with my beloved Netter cards. I don’t think you can ever really prepare for the emotional upheaval of graduating and moving onto real life- whether a job or graduate school. Everything I learn now is completely valuable to my profession and I truly have to learn it. Yes I will be expected to know that loss of the common peroneal nerve will lead to foot drop an I should be able to rattle that off. Even having friends go through this last year didn’t prepare me. You really can’t know what its like and what a life shift it is until you go through it yourself. Sure, you think it can’t be that bad and that yes you’re ready to be a grown up. But then your bike gets stolen, you can’t figure out how to unclog the drain and it might flood the kitchen, and dear lord you have so much to learn in a week! So you call your mom and cry and she tells that you that yes it will be ok, even if it sucks right now, and to just call the maintenance guy already. You learn to rely on yourself but also ask for help. I think there’s a reason why graduate class are generally very close- there’s only 42 of us and already we are all close, mostly because we see each other everyday and we are all going through the same thing. We rely on each other, cry and complain to each other, laugh and joke together just to relieve the stress, and yes we palpate each other for surface anatomy. Here’s a tip- you get really close when you have to feel each other’s ischial tuberosities.
So basically, all I do right now is school and study (yes even more than I did at Furman) but it is all actually very interesting to me. Even if I have moments, of not liking it all and wondering why the heck I decided to go straight to grad school, overall I really do love it and love being here in Charleston- even if I don’t get to go out and experience it that frequently, when I do I adore it. So right now my life is school but that’s ok because of the people I have around me and what I get to experience everyday is pretty good most days. So if I don’t answer my phone, its ok because I’m probably off somewhere studying or maybe drawing the nerve innervations all over myself and putting up pictures of the brachial plexus to decorate my apartment.
