Carrying stuff to class.

Egads! I have lost the adult sippy cup. Apparently this is a big deal for me. I had grown attached. Suddenly I'm not drinking so much anymore. I put getting a new one up as a quest in Superbetter.

The sleeping thing. I've forced myself not to nap when I came home, thinking that I'd get my sleeping schedule together. Maybe this is working. I'm certainly tired right now and I would go to sleep if I didn't have clothes in the laundry room. I'm not too keen on leaving things behind in public spaces since I left the sippy behind in class.

In other news, the last few days I've been thinking about death and the end of existence. Yeah, I know you probably weren't expecting that to come out of my mouth. It started up that night I spent some time talking to my friend. Truthfully that's the first time I've really talked to any of my class mates late into the night about anything philosophical  Something I used to a lot in undergrad. I know. It's been well over a year that I've been here. But I'm still not particularly close with them.

Well the problem is philosophical conversations discussing death, and life, and meaning, is that they follow you straight into class. We're learning about cancer in pathology in class right now. And I'm seeing cancer patients in the wards who are younger than me. And I saw part of this film, http://www.notasipictured.org/, in part of a discussion lunch meeting.

A very small turtle was attacked by ants two days ago. I swooped him up and started picking all the ants off his tiny body. He really could be no larger than a 50 cent piece. On further inspection one eye was eaten out and sunken in. I couldn't tell if he was dead or not. So I took him inside and washed his body. But it was really too late. I don't know why I got worked up over a turtle. Drying him, testing to see if I could get a withdraw reflex on his foot. But no. He was dead. I put him under a bush. Today, less than 24 hours later, I couldn't find him. But then I realized that a volcano of an ant hill had been built around his shell over night.

I don't really know how to describe I've been feeling the past few days. Quiet. It's certainly not the first time I've thought about all of this. It's just hitting a little harder than usual.

Then you compare to the grinding and churning rat race and...everything just feels like it's going by too quickly. Let's say I live a long time. To 100. Only get what I have right now three more times. Which feels like a blink. Is that selfish?

It's got me thinking about memory, and how I process time. I notice the moments I process time the fullest, usually I'm experiencing something very new, that my brain has had to bite off in little chunks. For example, my first semester of medical school compared to my second. Anatomy and histology labs were very engrossing for me, there was constantly something new to explore. But second semester, much like this one, there were simply lots of lectures and studying for multiple choice exams. Sure the material is new. But the pattern is the same crap I've been going at for years. It blurrs.

I spent five weeks in Peru last summer working in a clinic. Those five weeks felt twice as long as these last six weeks of this semester. Seven, if you count the first week I was back in town helping with our orientation events! But living in a different country meant that well, everything was new and different. Each day was a struggle just to understand Spanish. And it was fun.

I've never had that great of a long term memory. Things get filtered back into some vague space for the most part and there's no telling what I'll find. Often this is a good thing. I forgive people easily, because I truly forget. But some memories I truly wish I could keep. It seems that the years that have stuck with me better are often when I write more. So I'm going to write more in this journal.

Oh I'll still keep on writing about me striving to be a better person. That's just who I am. I've been reaching back for years with different thoughts about reinvention, getting in shape, having more experiences, "becoming better". That's really not going to go away any time soon. It is a part of who I am. I will always write about my quest to conquer health and schedule. But I'm going to write more about medical school too. Even if it kinda scares me.