Day 604: Hitting the ground running

I have had enough of my little pity party. The past few days have involved me having minor freak-outs and panic attacks about applying to medical schools again next year. I have resigned myself to the fact that I won't be getting in and it sucks. A lot. After accepting the suck-age that is (eventual) rejections from 18 schools, I have decided to cancel my reservation for a pity party of one and, as the title of this post says, hit the ground running.

I walked into my principle investigator's (that's fancy research words for "boss") office and asked him flat out if there was anything I could do. I was avoiding his awkwardness and "well, you don't know anything" talk for the past week because I didn't want to hear it. You know what? That was pretty much his response. "You've been here for a while and you haven't really learned anything." "You should ask the other people in the lab if you can help them." Et cetera. And you know what, rather than feel bad and dejected about being such a "failure" in his eyes, I just stared right back at him and I said, "you're right. I haven't learned how to do any surgeries on my own but I have been able to participate in them and I know how to do X and Y. I was hoping you could provide me with some reading so I could see what we could do in our lab and see if I could start helping out more." I fully accepted my weaknesses and was actively trying to improve them. So now, I am not afraid of being called out but annoyed at his inability to help.

So. The new plan is. Get reading. Find something to do. If Dr. Z continues to be disdainful of my presence, then my time can be better spent...elsewhere.

In other news, I submitted an application to volunteer at a homeless shelter. I'm looking up phone numbers to start cold-calling doctors I could shadow. I don't know what has been holding me back, but I'm slowly getting over whatever it is because at this point ... I have to go, go, go.