In LeBron James' documentary "More Than a Game", it chronicles Lebron's rising hype as he is playing high school basketball. During that time in the movie, they ask NBA personnel what their thoughts are on LeBron, etc etc. There was always a quote that really hit home for me and I thought it was really cool. The quote was from from Shaq (Shaquille O' Neal), and he promptly and poignantly said "I think he's going to do some damage at the next level". This is such an amazing quote for me, it is just sort of no-nonsense honesty when Shaq is talking about the next great NBA player. I think of all the hype LeBron was getting when he was finishing high school, the whole world was watching and talking about him and the NBA world was a buzz. Such huge expectations, but what Shaq was saying was that LeBron is too good to not be noticed and to be a game changer and essentially do some damage. That is what I am currently striving for. I want to be a game-changer. For my immediate goals I want to do well in my summer courses and also join the UBC Track team in September.
I really think I have a shot at joining the UBC Track team this year. I have full active registration at UBC, there is a new UBC Track head coach, which gives me a chance to make a good impression. Likewise, he might be willing to take some risks to improve his team. The old UBC Track coach never responded to my emails so I had to talk to him in person. My current times are not really close to being competitive yet, but I'm still looking to drop about 20 pounds. Once I do drop those 20 pounds (and I know I will), I will have a more competitive time. I'm the lightest weight I've been in about two and a half years. I'm about 6 pounds lighter than my usual weight over the past year. I think I've made it past that hump and I'm hoping to lose all of my next 20 pounds in the next month. Diet will be just as important as exercise for dropping weight. Then once I'm at a good weight, my exercise routine will be paramount. I'm really excited for what could possibly happen. I have set a hard deadline to be as fast as possible as soon as possible, but there is also an outside chance that if I'm a few seconds away from a competitive time come September, I can continue to train, and simply join the team once my times are up to par. I'm not sure if the coach would be okay with that, but I also do not want to rely on that, because he could easily say "sorry, you just have to try again next year". I have such a strong motivation to become a varsity athlete. I would be so unbelievably happy if that happened and I would work so hard to keep my spot on the team. I know I just have to grind away. A few basketball players are big motivators to me, like Kobe Bryant and LeBron James and Michael Jordan, simply because they work so hard. I want to be like them. I want the ball in my hands, and my time is now. But I know I have to work hard to shave those seconds off my time.
Friday 26 June 2015
Sunday 14 June 2015
Why do I feel this way?
Right now, I am contemplating why I feel so strongly about pursuing medicine. Why am I so passionate about medicine anyways? It really is a passion for me. It is so close to me. I've had my own health problems, and I feel that the medical system has helped me. Medicine can drastically change your life. I wish it was always for the better though. But the fact that the right decisions can be the difference between a positive and negative outcome (essentially life or death in some cases) is both a dangerous aspect, but also an alluring challenge. On a sports team, you feel the best after you come close to losing the game but actually end up beating a team that is really good. The challenge of beating a good team always feels better than beating a less superior team. People climb Mount Everest because of the challenge. I guess what I'm getting at is that I'm allured by the challenge of medicine. I'm allured by trying to save every patient's life. I know that almost certainly wont happen, but it is the ideal that I want to strive towards.
It should also be noted that the challenge is not everything to me. I'm not like Gregory House trying to solve a puzzle (although I do have a certain aspect of that). Even if medicine wasn't so challenging, and we lived in a world where it was really easy to cure everyone of everything they had, then medicine would still be amazing because of how a doctor can make such a huge, positive, tangible difference in someone's life - even if it was dead easy to do so. This is probably the case for some types medicine - vaccines come to mind in particular. I just think I would feel so good knowing that I actually made a difference to help someone's life in a positive way. The ideal of a doctor doing this kind of work is also a huge appeal to me.
Wow, I actually think I've narrowed my passion for pursuing medicine down to 2 main aspects:
1) I am allured to the challenges of medicine in pursuit of positive patient/population outcomes
and
2) I am highly motivated to make a very real, tangible difference in someone's life in pursuit of, once again, positive patient/population outcomes.
I may not be covering all my bases here, but these 2 points seem absolutely critical to me for my pursuit of medicine. I'll be sure to try to reflect, and see what else about medicine just seems so amazing to me. Oh yeah I remember another one, the fact that if you get really sick, you can go to a place called a hospital, and highly trained people will help get better. Although this idea kind of falls under point 2 above.
Despite that these aspects are broad, I'm just hesitant to say that these 2 aspects are the only reasons I'm pursuing medicine. There must be more reasons, right? Or does this pretty much cover it?
It should also be noted that the challenge is not everything to me. I'm not like Gregory House trying to solve a puzzle (although I do have a certain aspect of that). Even if medicine wasn't so challenging, and we lived in a world where it was really easy to cure everyone of everything they had, then medicine would still be amazing because of how a doctor can make such a huge, positive, tangible difference in someone's life - even if it was dead easy to do so. This is probably the case for some types medicine - vaccines come to mind in particular. I just think I would feel so good knowing that I actually made a difference to help someone's life in a positive way. The ideal of a doctor doing this kind of work is also a huge appeal to me.
Wow, I actually think I've narrowed my passion for pursuing medicine down to 2 main aspects:
1) I am allured to the challenges of medicine in pursuit of positive patient/population outcomes
and
2) I am highly motivated to make a very real, tangible difference in someone's life in pursuit of, once again, positive patient/population outcomes.
I may not be covering all my bases here, but these 2 points seem absolutely critical to me for my pursuit of medicine. I'll be sure to try to reflect, and see what else about medicine just seems so amazing to me. Oh yeah I remember another one, the fact that if you get really sick, you can go to a place called a hospital, and highly trained people will help get better. Although this idea kind of falls under point 2 above.
Despite that these aspects are broad, I'm just hesitant to say that these 2 aspects are the only reasons I'm pursuing medicine. There must be more reasons, right? Or does this pretty much cover it?
Tuesday 2 June 2015
Studying Summer Nights
Edit: This picture wasn't taken today or last night, it was taken late last week - as this week, there is currently a TV series being produced by Ridley
Scott that is being filmed at this location along Main Mall.
With the days getting considerably longer and the sun going down as late as about 9:10 PM right now, (I believe the latest the sunset will be is 9:22PM in late June) there is so much to enjoy about this time of year. I love it when the sun goes down very late in the summer, it just elicits such a good feeling inside of me. The UBC campus is absolutely gorgeous all of the time, but one of my favorite times is during the late evenings in the summers. I love the UBC campus so much. It is so idyllic and inspiring to me. I will post more pictures of photos of UBC (and maybe Vancouver in general) in future blog posts, but here is one for today.
For those of you not at UBC, this picture is taken from a very central part of the campus - inside Koerner Library. From this vantage point, you can see the big grey rectangular building to the left is Buchanan Tower, the Ladner Clock Tower in the middle, and the original frame and exterior of the 'main' UBC Library to the right, which was originally opened in 1925. The main UBC library is now called the "Irving K Barber Learning Center" or 'Irving" for short, and it is much larger than just the classically styled facade that you see in the picture. The library is connected to a huge area spread over 5 levels, some of which you can see as what looks like the black glass building next to the Ladner Clock Tower. The main walkway you see below the buildings in this picture is a pedestrian street aptly called "Main Mall", and this path, along with other pedestrian streets at UBC get very very busy during the day from September - April. As you can see, in the summer, there are much less people (although this picture was taken around 7:30pm, a time when there wouldn't be as many people in the fall/winter either, but you get the idea), and the campus overall tends to have a more relaxed and calm feeling, to go along with the spectacular weather we get. I actually sort of enjoy studying with nice weather outside, and more generally a nice setting - something about it makes me feel like everything is going to be okay.
With the days getting considerably longer and the sun going down as late as about 9:10 PM right now, (I believe the latest the sunset will be is 9:22PM in late June) there is so much to enjoy about this time of year. I love it when the sun goes down very late in the summer, it just elicits such a good feeling inside of me. The UBC campus is absolutely gorgeous all of the time, but one of my favorite times is during the late evenings in the summers. I love the UBC campus so much. It is so idyllic and inspiring to me. I will post more pictures of photos of UBC (and maybe Vancouver in general) in future blog posts, but here is one for today.
For those of you not at UBC, this picture is taken from a very central part of the campus - inside Koerner Library. From this vantage point, you can see the big grey rectangular building to the left is Buchanan Tower, the Ladner Clock Tower in the middle, and the original frame and exterior of the 'main' UBC Library to the right, which was originally opened in 1925. The main UBC library is now called the "Irving K Barber Learning Center" or 'Irving" for short, and it is much larger than just the classically styled facade that you see in the picture. The library is connected to a huge area spread over 5 levels, some of which you can see as what looks like the black glass building next to the Ladner Clock Tower. The main walkway you see below the buildings in this picture is a pedestrian street aptly called "Main Mall", and this path, along with other pedestrian streets at UBC get very very busy during the day from September - April. As you can see, in the summer, there are much less people (although this picture was taken around 7:30pm, a time when there wouldn't be as many people in the fall/winter either, but you get the idea), and the campus overall tends to have a more relaxed and calm feeling, to go along with the spectacular weather we get. I actually sort of enjoy studying with nice weather outside, and more generally a nice setting - something about it makes me feel like everything is going to be okay.
 |
| The view from my study spot, at Koerner Library on the UBC Point Grey campus. |
Monday 1 June 2015
Age Old Question of...
Do you drop a class you are doing bad in? Or do you stay in it tough it out and get a subpar mark? This comes up on the premed101 forums quite a bit. And for my situation, I decided to drop it. If it was during Sept-April, I would be less inclined to drop it. But because the summer semesters at UBC are only 5 weeks long, it is a very fast pace to do a 3 credit course in 5 weeks, much less to do 2 of them, and also to finish my two online courses and study for the final exams for those at the same time.
I simply took on too much to chew this summer. I only want marks in the 90s, and if I'm in jeopardy of falling below 85, then I will drop it. I've done some number crunching, and I basically have to have a near perfect GPA for the next year if I want to have a shot at medicine at UBC (haven't calculated for other schools). It's a tough decision to make because I already started the course and spent a considerable amount of time on it. But if I do end up re-registering in the course, then it will be time well spent.
There is something I'm doing wrong though. I really think I need to work on my problem solving skills. Because in my class, I had a tough time with in-class activities and also doing the quizzes. I found it really tough because the text only has a fraction of the information we need to do the questions. The rest comes from lecture, and I don't really excel in taking lecture notes. My strong suit is spending countless hours on course materials/online resources to know the course material off by heart. Basically, I study so much that I make the whole thing easy. But I need to work on problem solving, thinking critically, and attacking situations logically, because when things get tough I need to be able to get through it. I have a feeling a lot of my courses at UBC are going to emphasize these skills. It is not enough to regurgitate, not with an active prof at least, the active prof will challenge you to really hit the points home.
Usually, from something like this you can infer a take-home message, like "I should've have studied more for that test" or "I should've been more prepared for class". Great things to learn from, but the usual suspects of some form of preparation for activities were not applicable in my case. My preparation was great. What I learned from this is that I need to expose myself to new situations where I can apply the course work - basically I need to do more practice questions, and be creative about it. For example, if I'm not given many practice questions, and can only find a hanful online, then make some up! Or schedule an appointment with someone who knows the course so that you two can make up practice questions together. I heard from a professor that studies learning that self generating practice questions and then testing yourself on the questions is a great way to learn, much better than highlighting and/or re-reading.
As for my remaining marks for my 4 summer courses, I am still optimistic on all of my marks being in the 90s, and 3/4 could be above 95. Mind you I don't have any marks back yet so that could change quickly. But overall, I am feeling VERY good about my summer. It's going to be tough, but it will be rewarding as well. And I'm finally going to break the threshold of a 90% average for a semester. I know if I am optimistic, then I will be better suited to being open to learning and enriching myself and therefore getting a higher mark. That is just the kind of person I am.
Anyways I should go to sleep, I have to get up early to study for my biopsych exam. It is worth a lot too, so the pressure is on. My first big test of the summer and I have that small glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, I can get 100%. Wouldn't that be special. I do love the class so I hope my mark reflects my enjoyment level.
I simply took on too much to chew this summer. I only want marks in the 90s, and if I'm in jeopardy of falling below 85, then I will drop it. I've done some number crunching, and I basically have to have a near perfect GPA for the next year if I want to have a shot at medicine at UBC (haven't calculated for other schools). It's a tough decision to make because I already started the course and spent a considerable amount of time on it. But if I do end up re-registering in the course, then it will be time well spent.
There is something I'm doing wrong though. I really think I need to work on my problem solving skills. Because in my class, I had a tough time with in-class activities and also doing the quizzes. I found it really tough because the text only has a fraction of the information we need to do the questions. The rest comes from lecture, and I don't really excel in taking lecture notes. My strong suit is spending countless hours on course materials/online resources to know the course material off by heart. Basically, I study so much that I make the whole thing easy. But I need to work on problem solving, thinking critically, and attacking situations logically, because when things get tough I need to be able to get through it. I have a feeling a lot of my courses at UBC are going to emphasize these skills. It is not enough to regurgitate, not with an active prof at least, the active prof will challenge you to really hit the points home.
Usually, from something like this you can infer a take-home message, like "I should've have studied more for that test" or "I should've been more prepared for class". Great things to learn from, but the usual suspects of some form of preparation for activities were not applicable in my case. My preparation was great. What I learned from this is that I need to expose myself to new situations where I can apply the course work - basically I need to do more practice questions, and be creative about it. For example, if I'm not given many practice questions, and can only find a hanful online, then make some up! Or schedule an appointment with someone who knows the course so that you two can make up practice questions together. I heard from a professor that studies learning that self generating practice questions and then testing yourself on the questions is a great way to learn, much better than highlighting and/or re-reading.
As for my remaining marks for my 4 summer courses, I am still optimistic on all of my marks being in the 90s, and 3/4 could be above 95. Mind you I don't have any marks back yet so that could change quickly. But overall, I am feeling VERY good about my summer. It's going to be tough, but it will be rewarding as well. And I'm finally going to break the threshold of a 90% average for a semester. I know if I am optimistic, then I will be better suited to being open to learning and enriching myself and therefore getting a higher mark. That is just the kind of person I am.
Anyways I should go to sleep, I have to get up early to study for my biopsych exam. It is worth a lot too, so the pressure is on. My first big test of the summer and I have that small glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, I can get 100%. Wouldn't that be special. I do love the class so I hope my mark reflects my enjoyment level.
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