Heh, you asked. So I'll answer.
I didn't answer quickly because I wanted to respond to this seriously (for a change). Warning: Long post. First person used way too much. Viewer discretion advised for verbose ego overload.
Well, Cameron is his middle name if I remember correctly. Maybe he is trying to create a new self image for himself and to do so he needs to be refered to as Cameron. I guess it really helps solidify that you are not yourself but new. My sister Bernie (Bernadette), doesn't refer to her first name anymore. She is now Nicole. Her boyfriend, co-workers, associates, everyone except my family call her Nicole.
Close enough. One is that it's just an internal reminder that I should be studying now instead of goofing off. As I check these forums rather frequently, I see my name and say "oh yeah, I have stuff to do". It's just a check to myself.
That and other things; I've been musing about my future and such, and it sorta kinda reflects my internal state of mind. It's nothing really deep except choosing which path I take in a certain forks that are coming up. The aforementioned decisions/problems:
1.) Will I be able to ace my boards. A yes means that certain doors remain open. I have only one chance to ace the test. ONE time or coyote visits if I still want to be a neurosurgeon.
a.) If I fail, I have to take it again, and that shows up on my records. Telling residency programs I suck horribly. This won't happen to me though... right? Right.
b.) If I pass, but do mediocre, I can't retake it, so that score follows me for ALL ETERNITY. And it closes some doors. This is what I fear... I hate playing catch-up. Bad enough, and I may have to rethink my future. Death sticks, anyone?
c.) I ace the boards and I still have to ace my rotations and get some more published papers.
On a tangent, I always seem behind some of my classmates (read: competition) and it is REALLY starting to piss me off. I have no connections (as in my Dad isn't director of X department, my brother is friends with Dr. such-and-such, I magically get a paper with Dr. X who is a leader in field Y) and at this point already it is starting to sting. I'm like 3 years younger than everyone, but to some I feel a century behind. That irks me to no end. I always feel out of the loop when it comes to these things. Damned loop... I will thwart you! This is the big leagues and I'm armed with a tee-ball bat. This problem must be dealt with soon before it's too late and I'm being compared to people with the same scores as me but with book chapters, poster presentations, and letters of rec coming out of their wing-wang.
2.) "Lifestyle" or going after the big dream. Realistically you can't have your cake and eat it too. Or, you have to carefully, carefully balance things, which I don't know if I can do with the goals I have.
a.) If I were to choose to have a family (the way I would want it), it would take out a significant portion of my time (as it should). You can't have a full time serious
serious research career AND a practice AND a family. You still need to eat and sleep. There are those who can do it, to a certain extent.
b.) I could choose to go after certain other goals I have and devote my life to them. However, I'm afraid of failing horribly and realizing too late that maybe I should have taken a different path.
This all sorta hinges on the former point. To do what I want to do, I *HAVE* to be #1 to be taken seriously. This isn't just do good enough to whiz by like the rest of my life has been; good enough now is that people know me as the best or close to it. For starters, US neurosurgery is
the most competitive residency in the world. There just aren't that many spots and a decent amount of applicants. And to get it at a good center where one can engage in cutting edge research? Comparable things that are as hard is getting tenure at a major university or getting elected as a senator. It's sorta like Mordor. You can't just
walk in.
3.) Monitoring changes in my behavior. Whether I like it or not living on my own and going through this "process" will effect me (and has been). I just want to control how it does. For some reason my classmates seem very homogeneous to me, and I don't want to become part of the mass. No, fuck you The Many, screw your symphony (sorry, System Shock reference...).
4.) Trying to get my sorry ass to work harder. I still find myself browsing the internet and doing random useless crap the grand majority of the time. It would be nice to funnel that time into something useful. Just to manage my time more effectively would be nice... usually I guilt-trip myself out of doing something explicitly fun to work instead. However, sometimes I just daydream accomplishing neither the activity I postponed nor the work I have set before me.
So yeah, Val pretty much hit the nail on the head; except I don't want to be called Cameron... it just reminds me of things. I'll change it back to Kuat soon enough.
