Temporary Shower

Death has been haunting me lately. The fragility of life sits close to my heart and breath words like sudden, near, and tragic. We work hard in medical school to preserve life but few mention how science fails, how doctors (oh that holy station) are merely human beings endowed with the knowledge to heal. Yet nothing healed my grandmother. Did the doctors that looked at her CT scan shed a tear for the quarter film of dark contrast? Did the nurse that pulled the plug pray for her safe passing? Will I when I finally become a doctor? These are questions that bother me. It generates moments during the day: I mourn newly made memories as if they are the last, I linger over bodies of lab mice, and I dream of 1st year cadavers. How is it that most of us enter this world in the same way...so predicatable, reproducible, and wonderful yet, we exit woefully to different schedules and in different ways? Is the metronome slowing for my parents? for my teachers? for me? Is learning to stop it, slo

YAY! I passed my prelims which means I am officially a PhD candidate. I thought I would be ecstatic but to be honest, I was kind of blah about the whole thing. I think a part of me really liked being in prelims because I got to set my own schedule and I didn't have anyone breathing down my neck during that time. After prelims, Alex and I had three whole days before he left for China/Taiwan. We ran errands, have a blast at lagoon, and just enjoyed each other's company. Now he is aboard for a conference and to visit his relatives. I miss him. Getting back into lab has been hard. The person I thought I would be working with for the next few years has been moved onto another project. I understand but I feel really alone. I'm trying to juggle two projects and one I have no clue where it is headed. My boss wants a millions things done and I just worry I won't have enough time to do all that AND make a paper so that I can get out in 3 more years. There is no way I want to