Week in the Life of a 2nd Year Med Student
14th April 2025
Today lectures started late (HALLELUJAH), which doesn’t
occur as often as you think it does. I still woke up at 7:30am because I have a
really busy day ahead and wanted to get a head start by going to the gym. I did
40 minutes of cardio and then took 10 minutes of lying face down on the floor
to recover lol. I’m trying to be consistent in exercising this semester but the
only results I’ve seen are the inability to bend my knees after leg day and the
inability to wash my hair after arm day. Ah the joys of self-improvement.
Another thing I’m trying to be consistent with is making my
own food instead of buying it. Which is actually easier than it sounds! For
breakfast I had overnight oats, and then I boiled some pasta, air-fried a fish,
and sliced some cherry tomatoes to make pesto for my lunch.
Unfortunately, I overestimated how much time this would
take, and ended up with an extra 30 minutes before I had to leave. Which, if
you’re a medical student, sucks, because any extra time spent sleeping is
extremely beneficial to your sanity levels. Nevertheless, with those extra 30
minutes I attempted eyeliner and mascara, which is always nice to wear and
difficult to remove.
Around 10:30, we reached campus and began our lectures for
the day. Although the first lecture was uneventful and slightly confusing,
during my second lecture my stylus pen suddenly stopped working – and if you’ve
ever been in a lecture where your professor keeps telling you which information
you need to add on and highlight, you know is practically a death sentence. I
immediately began thinking of the worst case scenario – I’d have to go and buy
a brand new one, costing me an arm and a leg, and I’d miss out on which slide
contained information pertinent to our exams, therefore failing, therefore
dropping out, therefore becoming homeless… This is just a very funny way of me
telling you guys that any small inconvenience makes me think the world is gonna
end.
So I decided to do
the rational thing – get my phone out and start finding discounts – when my
friend suggested to just google what might be wrong. I discovered that my
stylus’s head was scratched – and I could replace it with a spare one that was
hidden inside the body. Five minutes of worrying and writing with my finger
solved by five seconds of work. How fun.
After lunch it was back to lectures again, this time
thankfully without incidence. We ended around 4 and decided to head to the
supermarket for groceries, though I didn’t get anything aside from some bread
for the week. Time flew and I nearly was late to join my Sejarah class (yes, I
didn’t take SPM and so I need to do it now, while in med school. Wheee.)
Sejarah is always fun because you don’t need to be too stressed and my teacher
loves to crack jokes as he teaches. It’s too bad it lasts for 2 hours every
week, though. I’m always so tired by the end.
After Sejarah, I had my dinner and did my chores. I called
my mom to ask how she was doing – she recognized how tired I was instantly. It
was nice to hear a familiar voice at the end of an unexpectedly difficult day
to get through. I ended the night by making salad for my lunch tomorrow and
studying whilst crying. Live, laugh, love Shadow the Hedgehog.
15th April 2024
8am lectures today – the number of times I yawned in the
first 30 minutes alone must be a new world record. We’re currently in our 3rd
block of year 2, which covers diseases of the gastrointestinal tract. Doesn’t
exactly do things for your appetite, learning about food poisoning and seeing
rather graphic images on screen of what exactly eating too much spicy food does
to your insides. Still, the urge to snack revealed itself to me exactly at our
10pm break. Briefly, I considered my options – spend money and buy some bread
from the mini mart, or save money and eat during lunch? You can guess which
choice a broke medical student such as myself went with.
After break we had a mandatory course on integrity and
anti-corruption. We have one of these mandatory courses every semester, and
it’s a subject we need to pass in order to receive our degree after five years.
It’s about as boring as it sounds – no great philosophical debate on ethics, no
deep discussion on the current morals of society, just a guy and his powerpoint
slides with “motivational” quotes and definitions we need for the exam.
For lunch I had salad which consisted of: lettuce, carrots,
cherry tomatoes, chicken, mixed nuts, cranberries, and a generous drizzle of
olive oil and zatar to taste. I’ve been eating salads for more than a year now,
but its only recently I’ve managed to stick to one I like. For some reason I
can’t get behind ones that use yogurt as a dressing sauce – way too sour for my
taste. During this time I also posted my first reel to my blog’s Instagram,
giving fellow writers alternative online resources to utilize instead of
ChatGPT – though I don’t completely hate AI, I do firmly believe that creative
writing, especially fiction, should not be written with AI. This is the perfect
opportunity to tell everyone to please follow me on Instagram lol.
After lunch it was not one, not two, but FOUR lectures back
to back. All the way until 6pm. A strange symptom of my frustration and
tiredness that has become apparent as I age is the strong, sudden, and oft
uninvited urge to bite something. I bit my cheeks a lot as a kid to hold back
my tongue from being rude or crying, and unfortunately this has resulted in my
jaw somehow storing this excess energy and handing it back to me ten years
later. A good relief for this issue is screaming into a pillow or punching
something, but neither options are viable when you’re in a silent lecture hall
with over 100 other students.
When I got back, I attended a webinar for students who wanted
to go to the UK after finishing their MBBS degree. Studying overseas always
seems so amazing until you see the price tag attached. In the back of my mind,
Keele University and Galway continuously haunt me. I see girls on Instagram
with their chunky sweaters and hot coffee and university campuses that sprawl
over lawns, leaves that change colour with the season, and wish that I could be
there too. Maybe one day, I suppose. I always assumed I’d become myself there –
I’d have my own coming-of-age story, the first girl in the family to study
overseas. Its more likely I’ll visit a childhood dream in the body of an adult
– who knows who I’ll be then, when I finally step foot on Irish soil, when I
feel the spray of the waves strike the side of my face, as sudden as a slap yet
as soft as a kiss – who knows who that woman will be.
It was a quiet night tonight. Mee Hun soup for dinner and
prepped for lunch tomorrow again. Did too much homework and listened to Billie
Eilish’s Hit Me Hard And Soft on repeat. Tomorrow’s going to be another long
day, so I best get some sleep while I still can.
16th May 2025
There is no better way to start your day than being excited
to eat what’s in your lunchbox. Today I woke up early to make kimchi fried rice
and if I say so myself it looks BANGING.
Anyway, 8am class
again today. We started out with our first project-based learning session,
where we dissect a case and distribute learning objectives so we can present on
it. Today’s case was of a 56 year old man with subacute infectious endocarditis
– a topic we haven’t covered in our lectures yet, so it was basically a room
full of students who are very quickly googling answers as questions are being
asked. These PBLS help test our critical thinking skills, as well as expose us
early on to the thought process behind examining and diagnosing patients in a
clinical setting.
The rest of the day went on as usual – lectures, lunch, then
more lectures. Blah blah blah, diarrhoea, pathogenesis, clinical features… Finally, at 5pm, I was more than ready to
collapse on my bed; yet, I sensed I was forgetting something… Right. Me and my
friends were supposed to be attending my university’s Hari Raya celebration
night. I put on makeup for the occasion, even mascara, which I don’t
particularly like putting on nor taking off. It was fun getting dressed up and
taking photos together as the sun set and the night continued.
I had been praying all week for there to be chicken rendang
at for dinner, and they did not disappoint! Although, it was a little too oily
for my taste. Speaking of dinner, it turns out back at home, my brother cooked
dinner for mom and himself tonight. Mom said it was “very delicious”. She has
not said this about my cooking before. I am concerned maybe my brother
is going to be better than me in almost every possible category at this rate –
ah, but that’s younger siblings for you.
The final event of the night was the fireworks. Though not as grandiose as we expected, it still was a surge of adrenaline to be out in the open field and see the expanse of the dark skies above light up in hues of green, red and gold. I took so many photos my phone storage might run out - and that was the reality of a few of my friends lol. Everyone said I looked cute, which is a compliment I still haven't gotten used to yet.
Song of the day: Balik Kampung - Sudirman
17th April 2024
I did not sleep early enough last night. I came back and
suddenly my room was a mess, so of course I had to sweep and mop, and then my
clothes had to be washed and dried, and I had to still sit down and finish my
notes, and then I had to take a long shower and spend ten minutes trying to
fully remove my mascara.
Anyways, today was microbiology practical, where we learnt
the lab diagnosis methods for Shigellosis, Salmonellosis, and Enteric
Fever. Filling out our logbooks was easy enough, but it’s always an issue
when our lecturer asks us to paste a picture that’s not given, so we have to
google it, print it out (and printing it NOT CHEAP. RM1 per paper is insane),
cut and paste it. What’s worse is that we have to submit it by tomorrow. I
don’t get why these photos weren’t included WITH the logbook in the first place?
If it was a one time thing I would understand, but nearly every practical
requires us to fork out our own cash and print these things out.
Lunch was cafeteria food. Which was too salty and also too
bland simultaneously. Like I said, not enough sleep last night meant I had no energy to get up early and cook
pasta like I planned. After lunch I headed to the library to sit down and stare
at my ever-growing to-do list and dissociate until 2pm, where we were having
Clinical Skills. This is a class
where we learn skills that will be useful during our clinical years, for
example, how to take a patient’s history, or today’s lesson: suturing. We learnt
the most basic suture, but it was still hard to grasp. Honestly, I’m glad I
picked up cross-stich as a kid because at least I know my way around a needle
and thread! It was fun enough that now I’m considering getting one of those
RM10 suturing kits on Shoppe… Will let you know if they work lol.
Finally, after clinical skills ended at 6 I headed to a
nearby café for dinner with my Christian fellowship group. This is our first
physical gathering in a while since many of us had been on semester break or
having exams for the past two months. Catching up with everyone was so nice, as
it’s always so good to see how they’re doing. For dinner I ordered Japanese
Curry Katsu Udon – which is fried chicken on top of udon noodles in Japanese
curry. Surprisingly it was quite filling despite the small plate size and I
couldn’t finish it all.
I got back home tired out from my long day, despite it
barely being 9:30pm. I headed to bed early – no point in trying to study when I
can’t even keep my eyes open.
Song of the Day: Busy Woman - Sabrina Carpenter
18th May 2025
Woke up nice and late today, because we don’t have any
classes! By a stroke of luck, my Friday lectures had been rescheduled, and so I
had an entirely free day to myself. I will admit, I had fully planned to use
today to study as much as possible before heading to church for Good Friday,
but I got my period and immediately the symptoms were slapping me left and
right. I was in bed the whole day, sleeping or watching Markiplier FNAF
playthroughs as you do. I did, however, manage to get out of bed long enough to
cook myself Shredded Bulgogi tofu with carrots for lunch, because I really
really wanted to try it. I was pleased to find that it was an extremely quick
recipe to complete and absolutely DELICIOUS to eat.
The only notable event of the day was going out with my friends
at night so we could eat roadside burgers for supper. Yum. If only I wasn’t in
excruciating pain the whole time.
Song of the day: Headlock - Imogen Heap
19th May 2025.
Symptoms were worse today. I spent an hour in the morning
crying for no reason (girl when I said the tears WOULD NOT STOP) which is an
unfortunate bug of having a female endocrine system. I wrote my first draft of
an essay today for an essay competition who’s deadline is quickly approaching –
it is definitely not my best work but at least ive gotten it out of the way and
hey, things can only improve from here. Attempted to study but I don’t think
anything entered my brain simply because I was in too much discomfort to do
anything except lie down and try not to think about sad things.
I had to bail on worship practise for Easter Sunday, because
even walking from my bed to the kitchen was proving to be a Sisyphean task. I
did try playing my guitar but quickly got frustrated because I kept missing the
notes. I folded my two-day-old pile of clothes today. Hooray! At least I did
something with my life. Oh, and I completed my pharmacology practical logbook
for the week. It seems like quite little but believe me when I say I genuinely
am surprised I got this much done while also experiencing level 7 pain and
level 10 emotional sensitivity.
Song of the day: Greenlight - Tate McRae
20th May 2025
Today I was more productive. Me and my roomies went out to
buy lunch and on the way back stopped by the minimart to get some last-minute
groceries. I swept my room, washed the bathroom and changed the bedsheets. Then
I slept for another five hours, marking the longest afternoon nap of my life.
I did my weekly Sunday reset in the evening, which consist
of making my plans for the week, including meals, and seeing if there’s any
important events coming up. I like to be organized with my time, simply because
I’m balancing a lot on my plate usually. No idea if I’m still going to be in
this much pain tomorrow, and plus there’s a Patho class test first thing in the
morning – but I just have to pull through. That’s the unfortunate reality of
life, that when you’re at your most motivated and productive things you can’t
control will become obstacles, and you’ll have no choice but to rest. I started
off this week with full intention of going to the gym every day, studying for 3
hours every night and much more on the weekends, and writing this piece fully intending
to show the best parts of my life as a medical student.
But this is the reality – the truth is that I can be
anxious, and doubt myself. That sometimes, my body needs time to rest simply
because I am a human being. That some days I can accomplish thousands of tasks,
and others I can barely finish three. I’m learning to accept that, at the end
of the day, even doing a single, small thing to work towards my goals is better
than doing nothing at all. In fact, I’m proud of myself for not letting my busy
schedule and health become an excuse for me to be lazy – I was disciplined,
even though that may not show in the number of things I accomplished every day,
I know for myself that every single day of this week I put in effort to better
myself.
Song of the day: Easier - 5SOS ft Charlie Puth
Right. Off to bed now. Thanks for reading, world! Talk to
you next month.
Joy (￣o￣) .
z Z
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