Insecurities

Well first off, let me just update you with my application. I got the "thanks, see you next year" letter from ACER. I'm disappointed, but not surprised. So that's the end of the application road for me for the year. Now I have to decide whether I want to go through it all again next year. But I'm still doing some soul-searching, and I'll provide an update on this another day.

Now on to my current "real" life. I'm starting to have doubts as to whether I can do this job, this new job that seemed oh-so-wonderful just a few short weeks ago. All these terms crop up at work that I don't remember back from my uni days (mainly because I hardly studied during those formative years... LOL), so now I'm going to have to whip out textbooks and what not to figure out what my manager is actually talking about during our team meetings! ** sigh **

I shouldn't be so hard on myself. I've really only just started, and everyone says (including me, but not when I'm talking about myself of course) that it'll take months just to start getting in to the swing of things at a new job. And the work is completely new to me, so I have that to take in to account as well, and not just the new surroundings. I'm pretty much starting from a zero knowledge base. I feel like a graduate, almost, which is why I'm starting to doubt whether I can do this job....

I'm sure that I've already started to draw on my past experiences and applied those skills in my current role, but they're probably so ingrained in my thought process that I don't even realise that I'm using them. Well, that's what I'm hoping, anyway.... :) And surely I can add much more value now than a graduate can in the same amount of time. Surely! LOL (And by graduate I mean a 'normal', run-of-the-mill graduate - not one of those freaks who scored 100 in their UAI and breezed through uni with a High Distinction average, all the while being involved in multiple extra-curricular activities on the side.)

So I just have to be more confident in my abilities, and give myself the time to absorb all the new information in my new role, and not beat myself up over not perfectly understanding everything right from the get go.

Easier said than done, of course.... But I'll try....

Grumble Grumble

I don't get how messy this house can get. There's just B and me, no kids, no parents, no flatmates around, and yet our house is always in this constant state of clutter. We somehow seem to fill the laundry basket up to the brim over the space of a few days. And the ironing basket is NEVER empty. Heck, it's hardly ever 'just' full, it's constantly overflowing with clothes. We accumulate junk, and the junk just seems to pile up until either B or I reaching our breaking point and we actually throw most of it out.

I don't understand how other people can keep their house sparkling clean. I'm envious.

Going fine, but at a personal crossroads

My new job is excellent. The work is much more interesting compared to my old job, and the people (in general) are much much nicer! The hours are fantastic, generally 9 to 5, and the others in my team have told me that the stress levels are really low. No regular deadlines, however there may be the odd day each week where a few things need to get done, but in general, work is pretty laidback.

My dilemma now is - do I really want to leave this to pursue an entirely new career?? A career that is much more stressful, with much longer hours, and one that will take many more years to specialise??

I know people go in to medicine for a myriad of different reasons, one of which is being unhappy and unfulfilled in their current career. But for the most part, this doesn't apply for me. Most of the time I enjoy what I do, and it's only when I start getting down, when I start looking for 'meaning' in my work, is when I start to think about going down a different career path like medicine, where I am almost positive that I will find this.

I think I'm going to continue reading as much as I can about medicine as a career, reading med students' and doctors' blogs, as well as blogs like Hoover's medschoolhell :) and do as much soul-searching as I can over the next few months.

If I do land an interview this year (which I'm highly doubting at the moment, but who knows with this whole process), I'm going to continue with it. I have nothing to lose. :)

Excuses, Excuses

I was particularly slack last month, I know. Not that it's been a busier month, more that I've been sick for about half of it, and the internet has been down at home during the other half. And internet problems are still persisting, unfortunately.

But I promise to try harder this month. I have a new job (yay!), so hopefully I can post some interesting anecdotes on my new work environment real soon.

Oh, and I've also found another good blog read: Panda Bear MD. He's an ER resident somewhere in the USA, and is very opinionated on a number of things relating to medicine (training, cost and residency are the three main themes that quickly come to mind). It's a good eye-opener, although I wonder how close the American system is to the Australian one. I might have to find some good Australian doctors' blogs for a better comparison.

And speaking of the Australian system, interview letters are supposed to be coming out sometime this month. I'm assuming this means sometime towards the second half of the month. Maybe I'm just too cynical nowadays, but I've pretty much given up on the entire process and the chance of anything actually happening in a timely manner. Or perhaps just too much Panda Bear…?? :-)