Relax

Days off come so rare nowadays it seems and despite Australia's reputation for being a rather relaxed country - our public holidays always have to take up the weekday after if they fall on a weekend, and with 4 weeks leave every year, we definitely have it lucky here. At the same time though, the first world problem of not having enough time to chill seems so prevalent in university. It's scary to even consider how I will feel during full-time work considering the pain of even making 11am PBL class at the moment.


University is definitely not as many hours as high school, with less than 10 hours a week actually compulsory for medicine at the moment but yet it feels so much more intense. Is this a phenomenon caused by the natural loss of energy as we grow older, or is there actually more to do despite having less hours? It is true though that those 9-3pm school days 5 days a week technically mean about 30 hours compulsory worth of high school in comparison but classes did seem much more social than zoning out in a lecture with dirty looks given if you do talk excessively to friends around you. Another factor is probably the content - it is probably true to suggest that university courses have a lot more information than a high school course so there is probably more to learn. Why then do I find myself barely studying - possibly even less than high school (with the exception of the last minute 2 weeks until the final cram)? Perhaps then it is because there are a lot more commitments such as sport and work. At high school though, I spent 10 hours a week working at KFC and countless hours on weights work, trainings and Saturday afternoon matches.

I cannot find a logical explanation for why it feels like nowadays it feels like days off come very rarely and that such a day off comes at the expense of simply ditching other commitments normally. Another thing I've realised is rather than explode and rebel against the institutions and schedules then feel guilty about ditching, it is far more productive to simply plan a day off - to purposely plan missing scheduled commitments and that in these two years of medicine - the pre-clinical years are the only real time we have to do this. As soon as the clinical years begin, the reprimand for missing class with be far higher and possibly impact university performance. But for now, while attendance is required at 80% (but in reality, no one even goes to practical classes or those who do go don't sign in), it is the best time to plan ahead and skip classes subsequently living life while we still can. It is in these actions, the decision to skip next week of university without any regrets and guilt, that I can hopefully find some relaxation. Honestly though, having time off everything has never felt so necessary and while it does worry me about the future prospects of having an intense occupation of being on-call and way more than 40 hours a week working, rather than spend my day off thinking about that - instead doing even less and just laze around, an activity that is so rare, so preciously useless.

Enjoying the first day of my unofficial holiday so bye.