Not sure I've ever been so terrified

Its been a little over a month since I last posted and to say that things have happened in the meantime is a severe understatement.

To put it short I feel like my family is crumbling down all around me like flies and there is little I can do about it. The only thing that will make a real difference is to try and keep the momentum up, increase it even. I need to help myself before I will be able to help them.

I also need to escape this place before it crumbles around me. I've found out that there is little to do to help from the inside. But if I were outside this mess on my own two feet I would be able to lend more of a helping hand, and it would provide some practical solution to the problems.

I won't say what the problems are but that they are huge and I am worried.

I need to get into medical school for next academic year. I need to save them and I need to save myself.

Progress so far is ok. It could be better, but then it could always be better.

I sat my gamsat. I have not got the results back but am planning on resitting in march. University applications are done. I have also sat my exams for my postgraduate diploma. I really hope I pass.

My solution to these issues is to work harder. My priorities from now till december are improving my memory and working on chemistry - as in getting it completely sorted.

Starting sometime next week I think I'll start laying out the groundwork for memorising my entire chemistry course. The week after is where I really aim to focus on memorising chemistry.

Things are changing

So many things have changed since I last posted. The gamsat is coming up, which I am not too confident about. I also started my application form for universities, and start a college course this week.

I'm not too good with change so its going to be a uncomfortable few weeks getting used to the new schedule and fitting everything in place. Then I have another couple of exams in october. Should be fun, and I need to remember to get my application form sorted by then.

After that I'm hoping things will settle down a little bit.

Last assignment

Time is running out and I have so much to do. Putting my head to the ground and trying to work through it. Its about the only thing I can do right now.

Medical School

I'm suprised sometimes about how much I want to get into medical school. I don't think I realised how much you could want something to happen until I found out that was the direction I wanted to go in.

Sometimes its a deep physical ache. I think about how I might not get in and its akin to pain.

I'm going to need a reference from the tutor I am doing my current course with. Only I can't ask him about it just yet because we are clashing over something. Not really clashing, but our personalities seem to clash. He made an assumption and certain misjudgments over what area I wanted to research.

I corrected the misjudgements in the nicest most polite way I know how. I can not read how well he is recieving them. He also seems the sort to not think before he says something or types. So a lot of the time he has included outright errors in logic. I have not corrected or questioned those yet. Though everytime I read one I get a strong OCD like twitch to do so.

I am hoping that it is just the tension growing in me from repressing the urge to question these errors. Rather than any negative feelings he is actually showing toward me in the replies. Hopefully I have not messed anything up.

My plan that if I recieve a good mark in my assignment (hope so) then I will approach the idea of asking him for a reference in the future. Then I also need to concentrate on the ukcat, my other assignments and the gamsat which means the most to me right now.

Lets talk serious for a minute

Roughly four years ago my dad died of cancer. Now not too long ago my sister aquired a boyfriend who smoked. Which I don't have much of a problem against by the way. He's a stranger and it is addictive. Of course then my sister who I am seriously starting to think has no personality of her own (I've been looking but she's 17 and so far has made no choice of her own that isn't influenced by someone else) she then starts smoking.

Boyfriend is now out of the picture (though as I speak a new friend who is of the male gender is staying over for the night). I'm hoping the smoking is gone as well but walked past her room today and it reeks of smoke. I'm not sure whether I will confront her. My mom won't want me to I think. She's been walking on eggshells around her ever since she got into the 'oh woe is me, I am so hard done by' stage.


I'm disapointed in my sister. She knows better. I know she knows better.

I'm not going to talk to her with her friend here. I don't want to embarress her but it looks like I might have to step up to the plate so if it goes on like this someone has got to discuss it with her. If no one else is going to do it then it might as well be me.

Who knew that at age 23 I'd be helping raise two teenagers?

Really dislike qualitative research methods

I won't say hate because I quite like reading them. They make for good light bedtime story reading.

So I'm doing a course of ethonography - because the start dates for the quantitative methods courses were at inconvient times. The reading is much softer than I am used to so it is very easy to read.

However I am having tremendous trouble figuiring out what exact type of research idea they want me to come up with when the very definition of 'ethonography' is so fuzzy. I have read ahead through the notes, so think I have a fair idea. Just need to write it out and convince my tutor to stay quiet enough to hear it out.

In other news I got a place on a chemistry course for next year. The bad news that comes with it being that it means going there four days a week. Should be fun though provided I can get there.

Tomorrow I have an interview

Its for a course I'm going on next year. I haven't covered that much chemistry formally but am finding learning about it very interesting - though the equations are killing me right now. I thought that some more formal instruction could be very useful, particually if I have to redo the gamsat in march.

To be perfectly honest I'm not sure how well gamsat revision is going. There are times that I am really optimistic about it, and times when I am very pessimistic.

On a brighter note I started volunteering at a hospital a while ago. I have been in oncology, maternity and a more generic patients ward. Its fun but no current luck in getting a doctor to shadow yet. References for the application in september is a bit of a dilemma but hopefully I should find someone before then.

Next step: course interview and lots more gamsat stuff, also got a assignment to write.