Hi all!
Gosh, it really has been a while since I
sat down and really tried to write something down. Use of ‘tried’ simply shows
that the words don’t flow as effortlessly as they used do. And this really
fracking breaks my heart. But hey, maybe it’ll just come back some day? So I
apologise in advance for the horrific syntax that follows…
I haven’t written or ranted in so long that
I have so much I want to say! I’m kind of excited about it!
_________________________________________________
Okay. So I just wrote about a page and hated
it so much that I deleted it all.
And now this sudden fear is rushing through
me. Why can’t I do this anymore…? Why is it so hard? How can something I love so much be slipping
away from me?
I had a chat with my brother not too long
ago about how he will soon finally step into his dream career. He told me that since he was very young, he
was always fascinated by doctors and how they could use their knowledge of
medicine to help those around them. I
told him that I never felt that way about doctors or any health
professional. He has always had a
natural interest in people and science that I lacked, even though I’m currently
in my 6th year of science-based university education. So he asked me if I ever felt in awe of a
profession. I initially said no, but a
few minutes later I reflected on how much I love the effect of words on
paper. That someone far, far away that
I’ve never met can make me feel emotions of great depth just by stringing the
right words together for me to read.
Without any sound or image but some ink on a page, it can make me feel
something. Isn’t that amazing? I told my brother this, and he looked at me
sadly, saying that my dream career would probably be as a writer. I couldn't disagree. If I could choose any career, I’d choose to
be a writer. There’s just something
magical in the idea that maybe the words I string together can affect people
out there too.
So, it’s not like I haven’t always known
this. It’s all I wanted to do during high school. I could read and write all day and not feel
tired, not even for a minute. I remember
the look of despair on my year 12 literature teacher’s face when I said I was
aiming to get into a science degree.
Wide eyed with shock, she asked: ‘But why?’ I tried to casually shrug it off, said
something about it leading to a more stable career, but I was crumbling
inside. Maybe I should’ve known then
that it would never really feel right.
So I got into my science degree at the same
university as my brothers before me.
Second year blues came right on cue.
I hated every second of every science class. Anatomy, physiology and biochemistry. The thought of them actually makes me feel
sick inside. In the latter half of the
year, I decided to do only half a load of science as I needed to fulfill my
breadth subject requirements anyway. It
was the best semester I ever had. It
wasn’t the grades that made it great (I have always been a very average student
at university), but I actually enjoyed all my subjects. I stepped away a bit from all the
medicine-related science subjects and chose two that actually sounded
interesting: biotechnology and pharmacology.
I surprisingly enjoyed them both, the former more so than the latter. But what made the biggest difference were my
breadth choices. I chose ‘Media,
Politics and Society’ and ‘Human Rights and Global Justice’. I knew I wanted to explore political theory,
as I had completed a political science subject during first year and really
couldn’t get enough of it. It was just a
matter of which subject to choose. MPS
was really fascinating and we had a fabulous tutor who made everything even
better. Human Rights was amazing too, as
I had a long standing interest in the topic from its heavy emphasis in my high
school education. Maybe it was here that
I should’ve realized my long term ‘career’ goals may need some adjusting…
I trudged through undergrad (I’m sure you
can scroll through my older posts about it) and now here I am. A year and a bit short of becoming a health
professional, and I am well and truly spent.
I have no motivation left. It
took me long enough, but I had an epiphany quite recently: I really don’t like
what I’m doing. There’s no
interest. I hate that I have to force
myself to learn the content, and even then I’m only just passing my
subjects. I hate not doing well and not
getting good results, but I just can’t bring myself to work for it. And I can’t suddenly quit either.
I spoke to my brother about this the other
day. He just looked at me and said that
he always wondered why I decided to jump into health science when it was so
obviously not the right fit for me. Why
did you never say anything?
Maybe I should’ve realized when writing
practice exam essays for literature for hours at a time was fun. Or when a teacher decided last minute that I
wasn’t allowed to use half the references I had prepared, but I ended up with a
mark of 38/40 anyway. Or when the grades
of my arts subjects eclipsed those of my science ones, even though I hardly
studied for them. Or when I read the
Dorian Grey for the first time and almost started crying on the first page
because Oscar Wilde’s writing is just perfection.
Or maybe it’s when I have those days where
I just miss writing so much that I wonder how I ever managed to walk away from
it to begin with.
