Refining.

It is a rainy morning in Atlanta, and I find I am struggling between allowing my life to fit into the structure of a new routine, and reveling of the newness of it all. Class runs about 8-4 or 5 most days, with no class on Wednesdays. On the weekends, I work parties, some weekends more than others. I am actually very surprised at how "normal" life seems here. Graduate school is a more academically intense and rigorous place than undergrad ever was, but more than being intimidating (which is still is) 1. Life is, surprisingly, going on normal as usual and 2. it really just makes me feel like I just spent the last 3 years of my undergraduate career in a repeat of high school.

I still have time for activities, phone calls and exercise. If anything, I am living in a more structured way, so while writing is about all I have time for as far as an outlet (and physical exercise), I feel I am living more efficiently. More than anything, Graduate school is a whole-self and whole-life transformation. I am different. I am becoming different. Undergraduate was a rather sloppily, beautifully thrown together mix of things such as "discovering who I am" and "growing confident with myself" and "putting myself out there". It was a honing of who I am as an individual and an opportunity to explore, connect and discover new passions, people, options, adventures and routes.

Graduate school is different in that respect. It is definitely a more "mature" setting. People are here for a much more specific purpose, a subset of life that we have all chosen to devote our lives to. We are passionate about it. We vary in our knowledge of this career. There is a sense of cohesiveness among my classmates that undergrad, where everyone had their own major and did their own thing, never had. And I feel like where undergraduate school and graduate school are both opportunities to refine myself, such as something being welded - that undergraduate was the opportunity to be shaped and have a good outline of what I will become - whereas in graduate school, I have already been shaped into a "draft" - and now it is time to be re-refined, and to remove and smooth out the imperfections.
Graduate school is a place to perfect one's concept of who they are, truly. Graduate school pushes your limits. It makes you realize how little you know, on one hand, and that you know more than you think.

And oh, am I in the process of discovering this.

I am more than ever aware of my age and my young years, but at the same time, we all seem to be on such even playing ground that I forget this. I feel that these first few weeks I have been swimming faster than the current one moment, and the next a wave crashes over me and I am struggling to stay afloat. I know so little! I am shocked at all of the information that there is to learn, and I'll admit that studying doesn't seem to come as easy as it used to. Sometimes I second guess if I selected the right career. Am I smart enough? Everyone else seems to know so much more than I. But I feel that if I continue on and push past this, that the burning in my arms and legs from swimming this heavy current will subside and I will grow stronger in the process. Now is the time to rise to the challenge. And I have my strengths, too. My gymnastics background helps me. I have a good knowledge of drugs and diabetes and skin and body mechanics. I have so much to learn, but now is the time to let my thoughts take the backseat and set my doubts aside and realize what the human mind is capable of. To hone my study techniques and apply myself adequately. To learn to still live and enjoy experiences and go on trips even when I am busy to allow myself a break. Just because I am very busy with school, doesn't mean that I can't enjoy life - this isn't just graduate school and the means to an end, but this is an experience, this is the next beautiful, wonderful and incredible 3 years of my life. I can try new things, I can learn an impossible amount of knowledge, and I can learn, with guidance, to push myself harder, to become a better professional and to fulfill my dreams. Graduate school is not a means to an end at all - it is a gateway to the rest of my life!

And truly, I am learning so much. I am struggling to learn the muscles and their origins, insertions and innervations - but I study every opportunity I can and I am learning the information and I will continue to push myself to be all that I can be and succeed. I will succeed. There is no other option.

I am refining myself. I decided when graduate school started that enough was enough, and it was as simple as that. I was going to get my sugars in order and lower my A1C from the 7.4% that it last was. I am aiming for under 7 next time or in the next 6 months, and I am determined to succeed. I have lowered the number of instances over 200 mg/dL drastically. I still have some bad days, but I am refining my treatment, making notes of my meal and insulin effects on my calendar, eating healthily and though I am low sometimes as a result, I am learning so much and I feel like I am finally taking the reigns over control of my Diabetes again after living in a fog so long of never knowing if my sugar will be high, low or just right when I test. Now I usually know exactly what to expect, I test more often, and I have started exercising more so I have been able to lower my Lantus by 3 units every day - not a huge amount but still a big deal. When you exercise more and keep the amount of sugar down in your blood more regularly, it becomes more easy to manage blood glucose and it requires you typically need less insulin. I have to stress that I have not been entirely perfect, but I am doing better than I have in a very long time.

I am learning about myself. (I am green according to the True Color's Test we took in class). Realizing the things that drive me, that motivate me - my love for and endless pursuit of intellect and knowledge, when I feel deeply, and how to be patient and effectively control my emotions - letting them have their say without setting them aside, but allowing to function in sync with them, effectively no matter what I am feeling, too. Because I feel a lot of things - a lot of sadness, joy, hurt, heartache - but life presses on, and I have to learn to let myself feel these things without bottling them up but not let them interfere with the tasks at hand. This is a difficult thing to do but I guess it is also a sign that I am growing older.

I feel young, but I feel old for my 20 years. I see details that people do not see. I see the man at the rock climb gym scaling the wall impressively, but really what I notice is the man climbing the rock wall as a new tattoo because he keeps scratching the ink. I see the cadaver lying on the table, but really the first thing that my eye is drawn to is the faded tattoo on the underside of his arm. I hear pieces of conversations I was not supposed to hear and I piece together stories and histories very easily. I see someone's drivers license when they pull it out, and my mind files away their birthday because it remembers it without trying to. There is beauty in seeing what more there is aside from the surface, as the world holds so many answers if we only remember that we are meant to ask questions and take the time to look. People have answers - we have answers - without even being aware that we do, we must channel a greater depth of ourselves and allow ourselves a sort of transcendence, a within and without from this world, the ability to see close and step back and let the thoughts settle so that we can analyze what we see and feel. I am not very in sync with my own nonverbal emotions and truly, I struggle with taking the immense things that I feel and think and translating them into something conveyable to the world - I am at a disconnect with my emotions sometimes - but progress is being made and I am learning that through understanding the key things that drive me, that I will better be able to channel my strengths and improve on my weaknesses.

To notice - observe - listen - feel - understand - we have important tasks as individuals, a right we owe both to ourselves and to this world. I am learning to grow in this transcendence of myself and reach new heights of knowledge, emotions, understanding and channel abilities I never realized I had. I am strong, I am able, I am ready.

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” - Eleanor Roosevelt