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The long catchup weekend

Four weeks of school have gone by faster than should be allowed, and I'm already looking downhill towards my first test week of the second year. I'm thankful that Labor Day weekend falls right at this point; the three day long weekend will give me some chance to catch up. I have unfortunately been spending too much time in the evenings to socialize with those who come to visit (which, in the last two nights, has been a lot of people over). But I also think, maybe that's fortunate, because I know how easy it can be for me to fall into a sense of loneliness if I don't get enough contact with people, especially the kind that leaves me feeling as though I've been able to connect with others.

I was asked today by my friend Davey if school has started to be stressful yet. I find it unfortunate that I usually feel stressed in general about school. Having a perfectionist attitude combined with school not being exactly the easiest thing in the world causes me to stress. What if I fail the test? What if my classmates think I'm stupid? What if, some day down the road, a patient finds me ignorant, and I'm unable to help them because I forgot a step in the coagulation cascade? My friend Andrew, a first year surgery resident, talked as the guest speaker at our second Christian Medical-Dental Assoc. meeting about how he felt he could easily have studied 1/4 as hard as he did and still do just as wel as he did otherwise. Sometimes I feel like I'm barely studying a 1/4th of what I should be. If I get in a good four hours of studying, I'll feel guilty for not getting in six, and so on.

Another thing that starts to bother me when school gets busy is the unfortunate need to be far more mindful of my time. While most of my friends are still up and enjoying company, I have the incredibly difficult task of pulling myself away from that setting and going to bed. While others are going out to a movie, I have to stay in and study. With four weeks left in the block, I've told a couple of friends that I'll slowly become more and more scarce, until tests are completed. It's difficult sometimes trying to convey to people who don't share the same time responsibility what my life is like in that sense; many people I know are of a college age or of a far less strenuous time schedule, and simply can't aways relate to having to schedule in advance time to hang out. Ah well.

My pastor's surprise birthday was today, and was a total surprise. His actual birthday is in nine days, and so it was an awesome thing to have a huge crowd of people together to bless him. There's also several people I'm getting to know as friends here at the start of this new school year who seem like really awesome people, from a second North Dakotan to a world traveler to someone who may have finally found acceptance in a community of friends, and I'm really excited about seeing them around and continuing to enjoy getting to know them.

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