December post

It is nice to say that things have been improving since the last post. My confidence as a clinician has been growing daily in making decisions, our working relationship has been improving with a fellow student where I feel we are acting more as a team, and I am getting more respect from students as an adult-figure. Of course there are the bad days where I am second-guessing myself, but I am taking those experiences and learning on how to be a better clinician. With the winter season upon us, I look forward to getting more responsibilities and challenging myself even more. Also, its a plus when the basketball team is good and entertaining to watch. I have also done well in concentrating on bettering myself every day and avoid complaining about other people. I can only truly control myself and I know what I need to do.

I do want to comment on the sense of negativity going around in the program lately. It is easy to sense that everyone is stressed out due to classes, the increased clinical responsibilities, and the never-ending thesis assignments. Some people do a good job in realizing that people are stressed out and do not need to complain about it to everyone, while others feel they need to express their stresses to everyone they talk to.  I realize that not everyone has the same workload right now with the different clinical assignments or handle their stress the same way, but I get the impression some are looking for sympathy or something of that nature from everyone. Everyone is busy and stressed out! This is what we signed up for, but I tell everyone this who look like they need it: there is a reason we are in this program and we will all find a way to succeed. There will be some bumps in the road, but we will all do well. Everyone reacts to stressful situations differently from what I learned, but the increased negativity is somehow fueling my stress levels. But some good is coming out of this stress, for it is getting me back into working out to relieve stress and get rid of the extra pounds I put on during thanksgiving haha (actually lost weight but thats probably because I didn't work out for the whole month of November and lost any muscle I had, so more pounds of fat)....  All I am saying from this somewhat organized rant is R-E-L-A-X, RELAX. (Aaron Rodgers reference) Find time to wind down, watch a penguins game, read, watch a movie. I guess this is my inner RA speaking. I had to give this speech last year around finals and made a bulletin board on ways to de-stress and study tips for finals. 

One thing I did notice I need to improve on is being more proactive with everything and getting stuff done ahead of time. I keep letting my list of responsibilities grow and noticed some of my responsibilities could be finished quickly. I get the thought in my head "oh, I could do this tonight" but then it turns into "I will just do that tomorrow." And then it turns into the next day, the next day, the next day, and so forth. December is focused to finishing strong in classes, working hard on my thesis, doing extra work at STAB, continuing my workouts, and doing more work regarding post-Virginia. Like Andrea mentioned in her post, I feel I have high standards for myself and I want to reach those standards. These high standards will help me reach my personal and professional goals.

Until next time everyone!

MARKY-MARK, GO PENGUINS!

So how can I sum up life at UVA so far? I believe finding that one word to perfectly describe everything we/I have been through so far would be impossible. I won't lie, on the first day I was nervous as heck being in a new environment, meeting new people (minus my roommate), and trying to maintain balance with everything in my life. Thankfully, the arts and science conference was a great warm-up to graduate school. I came in underestimating my knowledge on most topics, but understanding the majority of presentations by distinguished colleagues helped boost my confidence. As for the rest of summer, I felt both anatomy and Jay's evidence/statistics class were great classes to start us off. Although we were up late doing work, I felt I grew as a student in improving my clinical skills by improving my understanding of the human body and anatomy of the body. There was a time to relax thankfully, although I wish I would have had a real bed for most of it instead of having an air mattress... But that's life. I can not be more thankful for my parents helping me pay rent and get some furniture while waiting for the stipend money, and my sister for letting me use her car this year. It can be hard to remember how thankful you should be for your family, and I have been trying to remind myself daily on thanks to them, I am where I am.

Now that we are a month into the fall semester, I can now say I have never been so stressed in my life. With the coursework in class, clinical, thesis, and general life responsibilities, the amount of weight on my shoulders feels too much at times. Back in undergrad, I would felt I had more time to take away the stress by talking to friends, hanging out with my sister's dog, playing videogames, or working out. Now that I am in grad school, I feel as though the time I am taking the stress away I should be doing work. I know the importance of relaxing to get your mind right, but a part of me is always saying that work needs to get done. I know it feels I am complaining a lot, but the struggle is real. The biggest problem I have is that I lack the drive at times. For awhile, I have wanted to get back into working out because I have noticed my cardio-respiratory endurance declining and my overall strength (whatever I had) go down. I tell myself on days that I am going to go workout after clinical, but the fatigue after a long day just kills my motivation. Feels like I need a push or some type of motivation. Anyone have any ideas?

Now to get to my clinical site..
Roulette. That's how I describe life at STAB. Some days you feel like you are making the right decisions and no one is questioning you, then you have those other days where you feel every decision you make is being questioned and you feel incompetent as an AT. It may be due to my lack of clinical experience or just mood for the day, but it is very frustrating and puts you in a rut when you have one of those bad days. Thankfully, I have a great supervisor who is willing to teach you and let you have control in certain situations and creating a team environment. The problem is that our team has more potential. I am not going to bad mouth anyone in our team, for I have learned that I should be looking to better myself instead of pointing out the negatives in other people. I'll just leave it at that. I will say, I hope there are some improvements in my partner by my next post, or things will get more frustrating.

I don't want to make this long winded, so I am going to end my post here. With the amount of work that needs to be done, I do want to set aside time to help take away the stress and write in this blog. This has helped clear my mind and let out any frustrations/seeing problems I may be dealing with. Thankfully, I will have time to take away stress next weekend when I get to hang out with friends and family at PSU homecoming! Woot! Thanks for reading and let me know what you think or have any suggestions.

MAC