I was on another level of exhaustion today. Uncle Al had to have known though because he started our day with a very interactive talk. As soon as my table and I read the title: “Follow Your Dreams,” we knew tears were shedding today… spoiler alert! We were right. The following are quotes from the talk that HIT HOME:
You say I dream too big, I say you think too small
If my dreams don’t scare me, they aren’t big enough
We are learning to fail, but not the same way twice
Did you really have a bad day, or did you have a bad moment?
We seek approval from people we don’t even know
Not everybody following is your friend
I know. Let’s unpack those. Number 1 and 2 are directly related. I always ask myself if I am dreaming too big, and through this talk I found that the answer to that question is no. I will admit that it is a good sign that I asked myself that though, because that means I am scared of my dreams.
Quote 3 is one I must be very careful of. I can’t beat myself up for failing. However, I must be careful not to repeat mistakes. In order to do that, I have to critically think of what I’ve done; not just brush off my mistakes. Take the time and think of ways I don’t repeat said mistake.
Number 4, oh boy. If a quote is made for me, it would be that one. When something happens I tend to let it control my day. I tend to want to end that day and hope that tomorrow is better. Why not start it over in the middle? Why do I have to waste the plenty of hours leftover in that day because of the one moment that bothered me? I need to be more careful of that and be able to let things go.
Uncle Al related quotes 5 and 6 to an instagram following. How our generation dwells on the number of likes and follows we get regardless of the importance of the people behind those likes and follows. Do we even know their names? If no, then why does it matter so much?
Yeah… I love Uncle Al. He just slaps your soul sometimes in all the right ways; reminds me of a pastor.
SC Lend was back for the last session. One repeated thing I kept hearing was “I did not follow the traditional route.” different professionals talked to us about their journey to end up where they wanted and they each shared with us that their path was patchy. This reminded me that “it is okay not to follow the traditional path” whatever that may be.” something else that I loved hearing about was when child life specialist Amanda Lockett said “my job is not to make children depend on me, its to help them come up with their own coping skills.” This reminds me of the saying that goes “don’t give me fish, show me how to fish myself.” This is a way that is much more efficient because it deals with the problem long term.
Three hours later, it was time for lunch! Today, Shelby and I had lunch with Caroline. Um… it was kind of life changing. We started off talking about how MedEx has been so far but not even 5 mins later, we were DEEP into life talk and tears were everywhere. Here are some of the things I learned: taking self criticism is hard. Something that helps is making sure you are fully listening, taking a step back, and asking yourself “what am I hearing in this that is true?” The challenging part of this for me is not knowing myself well enough to determine whether something is true or not. I struggle with being confident in myself and I am trying to work on knowing when something is accurate and that I should work on it or if it is misconceived. Because otherwise too much of each thing can end up being very harmful. Something else I learned when talking to Carolina, is the importance of independence. This is especially important to perfect going into a relationship. If I am not independent with the love I give myself, I will go into any relationship or friendship expecting a lot from the other person. I will be too reliant on hearing specific compliments. This could even tie into the first point. If I am dependent on someone, anything they tell me, I will believe… good or bad. Caroline, Shelby, and I ended with a biggo hug noting that we have each others back. Shelby and I even made a pact that we would hold each other accountable and do monthly check ins.
This 30 minute lunch lasted an hour and a half instead, so unfortunately we missed Allen’s Imposter Syndrome talk. Luckily, we talked about similar things with Caroline so I didn’t feel too bad. We were in time for Jenna Intro to Patient Interaction which consisted of a lot of acting which I loved. We were given scenarios that we would be given during a med school interview and were told to pair up and act what we would do. We also got to watch Jenna and Allen show us how they would go about each of the scenarios which was extremely helpful to watch. I am kind of excited for this part of interviews because I feel that it can show the committee more of me. I would prefer this method way more than the typical “tell me about yourself” questions.
The last thing we did today was meet with our Tier IV mentors. We were each assigned two mentors but our second mentor wasn’t here both times we met with Tier IV but we finally got to meet her today! Her name is Nabeeha and we found out we have a lot of mutual friends which was pretty cool. We also got to say our highs/lows with Tier IV. JoeJoe and I were working on a tier rap throughout the duration of the months and finally got to surprise Allen with it today haha. JoeJoe and I stood behind the podium and took turns saying each line which was pretty funny. People got tired of it real quick though haha.
Can’t wait for tomorrow!!
