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
