Work Balance, as our first semester in med draws to a close...

I tutor 3 (temporarily 4) students on the weekend, one-on-one, for a cumulative total of 7 (temporarily 9) hours per week. So far it's been working out perfectly, but as exams draw closer, I'm wondering whether I should cut down on my sessions, even if just for a week. Then I think, if I had more time-management skills, I shouldn't need to at all. Which gives me a challenge; to continue tutoring during the exam period.

Since it is Semester 1, Year 1, and my formative exam result was a pass (even if barely), I'm going to take up this challenge and see whether it would have any negative contributions to my exam performance and studying for it. I've already noticed that I finish Friday pretty drained, but I seem to rebound back on Saturday, in time for tutoring, in essence, from 10am - 6pm. Then I have a temporary student on Sunday afternoon, and I also have church, which means that both Saturday and Sunday's mornings and afternoons are occupied.

At the moment (Friday night), I'm very drained, and kind of fell asleep in the last lecture (Pathology of Diabetes), which means I'm feeling pessimistic about this challenge and whether I'll pull through. Even though I have a big aim (First in my course, I know, laughable) and bigger competitors (great thing about med: everyone's a nerd, so everytime you go anywhere in the med building, there's a big group studying), I have a feeling it won't be enough to pull me through this stuvac block. But who knows...

Not to mention, I haven't even met everyone in my course yet, and its nearly the end of Semester 1. Haha... the groups I haven't met yet are the ones I have not had much to deal with yet; Indian girls, and caucasian guys and girls. It's an improvement from high school though - I think I could name a few people who I had never spoken to, in all of the 6 years we had; mainly because I would not be in their classes and my group would be very, very far away from theirs (both geographically across the school, and in terms of common interests). So yes, indeed.

I also found it ironic that we're so nostalgic, at the median ages of 18. Many of our conversations drift to high school, although I know that's all we've really experienced. But yes, interesting. Currently I'm in a nostalgic mood myself - listening to 1 Litre of Tears' Main Theme song (which by the way, is a very moving Japanese drama series. Very, moving. I was bawling by 5th episode, 11 episodes in all.) which summons back all the memories of Year 12 - the series, in fact, has a very strong nostalgia element, and all this classical music really accompanies this mood well. So I'll leave on this note - our first ever semester in med is drawing to a close, and I will miss it :)