Update on C.J.

I think I've been talking about myself a lot lately. How about a little update on C.J.?

It's not much different from the last two months. He is studying. Lots and lots of studying. Right now he is sitting at his desk with his headphones on watching an anatomy lecture on the school's online student resource, which is rather cruelly named Angel.

Who thought of that name? Is that a sick joke? I guess it's supposed to be his saving grace. It feels more like the devil with all those lecture notes and PPT presentations and recorded lectures. C.J.'s selling his soul to it every night, except on the weekend when it frequently doesn't work and then he wants to pull his hair out.

Anyway, he's sitting behind me going over his anatomy. He had anatomy lecture this morning and he has a biochemistry group tomorrow morning. Wednesday was histology lab. Every day is four hours of lecture, although he rarely attends class anymore. Especially since he can watch them at his own pace on Angel. O.K. I guess it is kind of a nice tool sometimes.

There are only three weeks of class left after this one. Then a week of finals. So one month and he is done with term 1. If you ask him how it's going he will tell you he hates it. He really hates studying constantly. A non-stop nagging worry follows him everywhere. No matter how much time he puts in he never feels caught up, there's always someone who knows more in lab, there's always more information to memorize.

Even though he says he hates it, it seems to me that he has learned a lot already about how to deal with the workload. He seems to be studying more effectively than he did in the beginning, and he's been attending some study groups that provide good reviews.

He's also figured out that some of the students who seem to know everything have either already had some of these classes or are using this repository of old tests and quizzes that is officially forbidden by the university. He's been surprised at how openly some students use this "illegal" repository. I think it makes him feel better to know that these people aren't necessarily geniuses (although there are definately wicked smart people here).

The other thing about med school is there are a lot of aggresive type A personalities. It's a very competitive environment with lots of people trying to outdo each other. This is not exactly C.J.'s style. As you can imagine, it wears him out.

Despite all that, I'd say he is getting the hang of it even though I'm sure he would not agree. Last weekend we went to dinner for the first time since he started school (not counting the weekend after midterms). It was a good break for him. We didn't even talk about school once.

He's definitely getting burnt out from the constant studying. It will be nice to have a break at Christmas and get some perspective on the first semester. It will be here before we know it.