Putting Mistakes in Perspective

This week I made a mistake. And I've been continuously thinking about it and worry and being frustrated and angry at myself. It's been taking major study time away from me and a whole lot of energy. But I'm hoping that putting this down in writing will help remind me to put things in perspective. Is it a mistake that is correctable? Yes, after 1 year. Is it costly? Unfortunately yes, but in the long run, an extra $1200 spent is not going to be much. So ultimately no, it is not. It's just to a stingy medical student already staring at $100,000+ debt already, it is a little bit painful. But you know what? That is life. It's about making mistakes, learning, and accepting it. It's about knowing (and acknowledging) that people aren't perfect.

One of the big stresses that comes near the end of the school year is the question "where am I going to live next year?". Moving into the city for rotations is exciting, but also frustrating at best, since you basically have to look for a place while studying for boards, studying for class, and studying for shelf exams. 

My roommate and I found a place after a lot of searching, but the problem was, it wasn't perfect. And it was very expensive. But since we had a hard time finding something, we plopped down the money and the process to sign our lives away for a year. It wasn't until I thought a little more about what we did that I realized that we jumped the gun a bit. We could have looked at another place that had a lease that started two weeks earlier, take the extra hit of an additional $1000 rent, but in the long run would've saved us about $1500 and would've been a slightly nicer place. We could've waited a little longer, cut into study time and found something. 

But that's a lot of could've and should've. And as I was sitting here this morning, hemming and hawing and stressing away as to whether or not to break our unsigned lease and try for the other apartment, it made me realize that I still haven't learned my lesson. Did I probably make a mistake this week? Yes. I should've listened to my gut, should've been more patient in looking for a place, and not have worried about it for so long prior to when we started looking. But I haven't been looking at this as a learning experience. My roommate and I were both rookies in the apartment looking world. We didn't know what we were doing. And I spent this week looking for ways to correct a temporary problem that is hard to fix when we have major exams to study for, when realistically instead I should just chalk this up to a life lesson.

I've learned to be more flexible not just in terms of what amenities and locations I want in a place, but also to stop and think about lease start dates and those hidden extra rental fees etc that some places use instead of security deposits. And I've been trying my hardest to put things in perspective. This wasn't a life decision, it's a decision for a year. Will moving after a year be difficult? Absolutely. But that's ok.

I think that making this mistake now is a good thing. Next year I will know what to look for, and how to be more efficient. Sometimes you need to make the mistake, because you remember it more than when you lucked out and did things better the first time around. 

Making mistakes is something I know is good to do. I know in my head that I will be making a lot of them next year and forever in the future. I've just been so afraid to make them that it's almost crippling. I know that's not the right way to go about life, and I'm hoping that documenting this apartment hunting experience will help me remember that making a mistake is ok, as long as you remember and learn from it. And I think that I have. And I'm grateful that I can afford to make this mistake. I can afford the cost. Not easily, but it's possible. And there are infinitely worse problems and issues that I could be dealing with than where I'm living next year.

I read an article on the Boston marathon bombings and what many of the victims have to deal with. One young lady was dealing with having her leg amputated. Now that put things in perspective right away for me. Here I am, like a selfish pre-occupied student whining about paying an extra thousand bucks for a place that isn't as nice as I wanted- which is actually such a minor problem, while people are fighting to learn to walk again. Fighting to deal with lives lost. Learning to cope with tragedy. And thousands of other, worse issues. When you look at it that way, I'm lucky. And I'm blessed. 

This is probably one of the first few semi-serious mistakes that I have made, and I think it scared me. But now that I have put things in perspective, hopefully I won't be as afraid anymore. And I will embrace my new life in the city, instead of counting down the days until I can remedy my issue. And so, in writing this down, I am hoping I am more accepting of my non-perfect self and the fact that I maybe made a mistake here, and that is a-ok :)

And now maybe I can focus a little more on studying!

The Unearthing

Wow. It's been almost 2 whole years since I've touched this thing, and even though life is more hectic than ever, I feel like it's time to resurrect the good ole blog for some venting/ramblings. After all, mounting stress and panic and negative thoughts that bubble inside never end up good, so this is my way of letting out the steam a bit in my personal pressure cooker of life so that I don't blow off my hand or something if/when it goes off.

Which, in my rambly way, reminds me of when I was a research tech before I started school again. I loved my job- it was always interesting, and although there were some tasks that were more mundane than others, there were so many different experiments and duties that kept me on my toes. However, one job I definitely dreaded the most: staining paraffin slides of tissue--and the subsequent counting cells/vessels under the scope. Sure, the stained slides are so pretty to look at- once, or maybe even twice. But sliding the slide around looking through the microscope for hours was a sure way to give me a lovely headache of dizziness. 
But even worse than that was the staining process. When I first started, I had to gather all my slides and go to a collaborating lab in the next tower to stain them. You had to take off the paraffin wax off the tissue by dunking the slides in different concentrations of solutions. Boring, but not bad. The scary part was you had to "cook" the slides in a solution to prep the slides for staining, and the lab's method was boiling them in an ancient pressure cooker in the microwave. It had this heavy clunky rubber top on the top that could release the steam, and sometimes it was hard to get the top of the lid on properly. You knew you got the lid on right if it hissed continuously in the microwave like an angry cat or something.

see? scarrryyy. that red cap was evil

To get the lid off the pot after it was finished was the truly scary part. You had to fill the entire sink with cold water, and try to relieve as much steam/pressure as possible or else that rubber top could fly off and pop out your eyeball. When my co-worker showed me how to do thsi procedure, he was laughingly telling me how the PI almost lost his eye doing this b/c he didn't let out all the steam and the rubber top flew off and almost hit him! Yeah...that made me just looove staining slides.

So yes. pressure cookers. They can explode in scary ways. Hopefully board studying won't make me explode in a similar way. I might lose something worse than my eye. Like my sanity :( Hence...blog revival, yay!