Mexico Medical Student |

I said it: I can’t stand group activities. Those people with whom I’ve worked or are working in groups that happen to be reading this, I promise it’s not personal. I just prefer working by myself or with one or two other people of my choosing, but rarely more than that, and even then, selectively. My experience has almost always been that it was not the best use of my time either because of a different academic focus/seriousness or because socially it just didn’t gel.

It’s hard being in medical school. It’s hard being in medical school in another country, away from the support system of friends and family, much less your own country/language/culture/laws etc. etc. To add salt to the wound, it’s even harder to be here in your 30s going to school with classmates in their early-to-mid 20s; the difference in attitude, perspective, maturity, *cough*energy level*cough*–it can be hard sometimes. To add lime to the salt already in the wound, I’m fat and sometimes (unbeknownst to me) hard to get to know, because a) I’m fat, and/or b) I usually get misconstrued for being upset or something like that. Sometimes (b) is naively assumed because of (a), which is a silly oversimplification, apart from not even being true. Besides, aren’t all fat people supposed to be jolly?

I never did have a lot of patience in general, and I think with age, like your telomeres, it just gets shorter and shorter; there’s nothing you can really do about it, except fight the good fight against biology and “eat it” sometimes for the sake of social decorum. I feel frustrated because I always feel I have no time, and since time is so valuable, when my time is wasted (unfortunately, a nearly daily event at school) it’s doubly frustrating, because I’m thinking not only of what isn’t being done but what COULD be done if I weren’t there. I don’t want to be one of those harried med students too busy to do the simplest things in life because they are gunning for the top grades. I do strive for a balance, a harmony, and a sense of satisfaction for a job well done. However, I have this little voice inside me that irrationally says that if I say “Good job!” or something else that is approving, then the slacking will begin, the rationalization of not having to this or that will set in because, well, “I did a good job–surely I deserve a break,” or whatever.

I often want to study with others to help keep me on my toes, to help mix up my study patterns/time somewhat, just to add variety to an otherwise slogging task, if nothing else. This desire, contrasted with the easy frustration, high standards, social awkwardness, etc. provides a constant stressful dichotomy that’s not really resolved. It expresses itself like my intense mental drive to be as good as I can be clashing with my ubiquitously expressed slacker gene over which I seem to have no control, just variable management. I seem to constantly meet/know two kinds of people: 1) people with whom I get along great, could have fun and hang out with but have differing academic standards/levels/seriousness/etc. such that I think group/tandem studying would be ineffective or unbalanced, and 2) people with whom I think group study would be mutually beneficial, academically, but are too engrossed in their own lives to really have anything left to share, time-wise, for studying. These individuals are consumed with self-study or have something else in their lives taking all their out-of-class time–something understandable like their own family or something perhaps more incompatible with my current lifestyle, like excessive partying–that prevents me getting together with them in spite of a potentially productive session. (I am, of course, ignoring the people with whom I wouldn’t get along regardless and I’m definitely not counting the ever-hated, low-yield group “We’re all meeting at so-and-sos to eat/study, come along!”) In all situations, nobody has ever asked me to study with them in a 1:1/2:1 fashion, so it’s not like I’m turning down invitations and being picky. In fact, I have asked others to join in with them but then not get asked when the time came. I’m not hurt by this, but I do wonder–is it me? I refuse to believe that anyone in my class who halfway knows me actually thinks I wouldn’t be a positive academic contribution to a study session, so I’m left to wonder, am I just too “out there” for most people? Am I intimidating, too old, smelly, boring, overly-serious…I have no idea.

All I know is that here in Mexico, you already seem like you are going through too much on your own–life in general, as well as thrown to the wolves in terms of disorganized class materials–to not have the help from friends (as opposed to the “natural” cutthroat medschool environment) sharing and supporting each other, welcoming opportunities to spread the wealth and the work. I’m trying my best to work harder and smarter, but I’m also trying to not live in a box either. It seems simultaneously studying and socializing would fit that bill perfectly; it hasn’t happened yet.