ALEXITHYMIA;

october's come and gone, and november is here with a much-too early dose of capitalism-flavored christmas. i'm sad that i didn't savor the halloween season enough -- couldn't, really, thanks to exams -- but i did spend halloween watching carrie with tram (the first four episodes, at least), and then we ventured out with toni in some low-effort costumes to get free cookies. and i did put up skelly in my window, some candy out on the porch for trick-or-treaters, and scored a halloween-themed welcome mat on halloween morning for 50% off. all in all it was nice and lowkey, and now i'm excited for the year to wind down and to ease into holiday season.

i guess i can't really complain about the early christmas season since it reminds me of japan and the abrupt switch from halloween into christmas around november 6th or so. funny enough, the magical mood inspired by japan's christmas-scapes reminiscent of my childhood was soured by that year's election results, whereas this year, my reluctance to lean into the premature celebration is being tested by the incredibly exciting results of the midterms. it certainly feels like a good time to celebrate, or at least find something else to channel this mood into (politics is about work, not brunch, as they say).

midterms of a different sort did crush my spirit, however...! long story short, i played more than i worked in october, and my grades ate the cost. i'm still doing well, but will certainly need to push extra hard going into finals season a month from now. i suffered.a lot of impostor syndrome because of it, constantly wondering WTF i am doing. but after shadowing at a school yesterday and speaking with a student mentor of similar age and story, i did regain some confidence that i can do this. i'm slowly realizing i know a lot more than i thought, and i am still smart, despite feeling the brain-fogginess of my age.

some very good advice i got yesterday (ironically, also the same wednesday last year that i got laid off):
- a second-year who gave me a tour yesterday said she woke up on the morning of her mcat and said "today's gonna be an adventure!" i think she was trying to say she was grateful to be taking it. and i understand that in a lot of ways. as much as i'm dreading taking that thing, it will be a huge privilege to afford it and a favor to myself and my hard work to sit through it. why not savor that kind of moment? i'm required to take it, and i'm starting to feel a little more positive (dare i say excited??) about putting myself up to the task of preparing for it. it's like training for a marathon, really. maybe i'll start telling everyone i'm "training."

as she was trying to find a better way to articulate her rationale, i offered, "so be delusional?" to which she said "YES!" -- literally, being delusional is what has gotten me this far. for the rest of the tour we kept repeating that sound advice: be delusional!

- i signed up for a mentorship program with another local school and specifically mentioned my background as an older applicant with a previous career, and thankfully they paired me with somebody with a similar journey. he was shocked to hear we have the same graduating year so i wonder how rare we must be... anyway, he offered so much great advice that i wish i'd written it all down the moment we ended our call. among what i can remember:
-- coming to this career later in life gives you perspective, and that will make you a better learner and a better provider.
-- don't be afraid to mention your hardships. prove that you've overcome adversity and that will prove that you can overcome the difficulties of medical school.
-- be resilient, don't give up, and use your determination and you can literally do anything.
-- you can indeed prepare for the mcat while working. even full-time.
a lot of what he told me had to do with my mental. and i think that's been the missing piece through all these years of convincing myself not to do this. i have the interest and the aptitude and the people skills, but i just kept psyching myself out of it because it was "too late" or "would take too long" and so on.

on top of that, the school visit i did yesterday also gave me a huge boost of motivation. i sat in on three classes, and everyone was so excited to learn. these people are smart, i thought, but i didn't see myself as too far off, as long as i was willing to put in the work. so put in the damn work, dom.

in other news: i've begun the process of moving. painting a house is hard! but more fun with friends! i'm sad to be leaving a place i've lived for so long, but i'm excited for the change of scenery and to be closer to family. tram, rj, my sister and john came by the other day and we painted a whole room in, like, an hour. amazing what you can do when fueled by heytea + pizza + sushi bake and an inside joke. we're reconvening on saturday with dinner plans, and hopefully we can get through the rest of the house. i am so ready to just move in, but after painting i'll need to clean the carpets and the hardwood and my tub. oh, and change my toilet seat. and the list goes on!

ok. back to studying neuro now...

hello from a new campus. hello from my first day of classes.

it is very bizarre to be back to school. on one hand it feels totally foreign and on the other it's been a natural and familiar rhythm to fall back into. i hope that, at my big old age, i can do things properly this time and not be so worried about small, trivial things like i was on my first go-around. i have a good feeling that i'll be able to stay focused and see this through properly. finally, i have the maturity to commit to a path and stay on it. and as much as i wish i did things right the first time, better now than never, right?

my mom called me last night to check in and she was telling me how much i've changed since i first started college - granted that was nearly half my life ago...but i don't disagree that i've "come into my own" in a strange and inexplicable way. i don't necessarily feel like the same person i was ten years ago, which i don't think is always the case for people. in fact, for a long time, i kind of just felt like the same, unchanging person. but when i really think about it, 22-year old me and i have close to nothing in common. for one, my younger self was so completely preoccupied with how others perceived me and my accomplishments. i was so insecure over spending extra years in college and constantly comparing myself to peers who finished their degrees "in time." and when it came to work or what i was going to do next i was also just thinking about how i looked on paper. i don't think i really made any choices for myself besides what i wore. glad i kicked that habit to the curb, among others - like intense negative self-talk and letting dramatic people stick around. i'm much more at peace now, despite the semi-uprooting of my routine life. but i know what i want to achieve and can clearly see myself at the finish line in my mind. it's a completely new and freeing feeling to experience that, and in my many years of feeling directionless i never thought it was possible for myself. but here we are, in a new program in a new place, working a new job, feeling very far away from the life i had even nine months ago. what will be different about me in ten more years? (not that i want to think about that anytime soon.)

i've been complaining to a lot of people that this semester will be hard and i don't know if i can handle it, and everyone keeps saying i can. so i think that says something about myself. everyone is also telling me, yes, it is going to be hard, and i'm going to have to suck it up because i can do it even though it's going to be hard. which i think also says something about myself. i think a part of me still wants it to be easy and doesn't want to struggle. a big reason why i turned away from this path in my younger years is because of how much of an uphill battle it is. bringing up my GPA, studying for extra tests, going through the grueling process of applying and possibly reapplying and interviewing and writing a million essays... now, at this point in time, i'm intimidated by it and i'm ready to take a deep breath and do it. i need to keep reminding myself that i want to be here and i want to do well, and i need to fight against myself when i'm too tired to put in the work. i think i spent a lot of my life so far skirting by on the bare minimum because i'm naturally pretty lazy. so unlearning that is going to have to happen real fast. there's just no shortcut; it's a long and intense process by design.

in some ways i do feel like my younger self, talking big about these plans for myself online. i often re-read those entries and juxtapose them with how i didn't accomplish any of those things at all. i want it to be different this time. in fact, with how much money and time and prayer the people in my life are investing in me this time, it has to be different. i know i only ever need to succeed for me, but i also feel in a way indebted to them, so they know it wasn't in vain or anything. i know i have no obligation to feel that way, but it's almost like i'm choosing to. like i owe it to them for believing in me, you know?

(not to mention i got into this program for a reason, so they must see something in me that tells them i can do this.)

i am so bad at updating this so who knows when i'll pop around again. hopefully, i can pull off this whole back to school thing.

and how life has changed. it's interesting to read my old entries and be able to physically feel how resigned i was to the life i was in. i felt so trapped in a box, always entertaining a life elsewhere, only to return to the same old rigamarole. work, work, work, week in and week out, until you had enough hours to give work the finger and go somewhere else...for ten days. lather, rinse, repeat the cycle once or twice a year. it felt like that would be the rest of my life, and i wasn't fine with it but i decided i had to be. because what other choice did i have?

and yet. here we are.

i finally got laid off at the end of last year. (it was inevitable -- it had been happening since 2022, and it was only a matter of time before the scythe came for me.) to the surprise of no one, i was relieved. it was the only thing that could get me out of there. i'd become so trapped in my thinking that there was nothing else out there for me, and once i'd crested over into my thirties, it felt even more so like my fate there was cemented. obviously, that isn't how a job works lol. and for a while after getting laid off i was looking for jobs like the job i'd had, even though i'd hated it. but it was what i knew how to do, and i'd done it for eight years, and so it felt like what i was supposed to be doing. for some reason, in my mind, it didn't matter that i didn't want to do it. i'd made the choices to get me where i was and i was going to bear the consequences of them.

so stupid. so completely stupid!

i don't quite remember when it dawned on me that none of this irrational thinking was true. i'd never applied it to anyone else, and always got excited for friends and even strangers who would pivot to something else later in life. but for some reason, that wasn't allowed for me. i was so stuck in my learned thinking that once i chose something, i had to commit to it. i know my parents were well-intentioned when they taught me that, but i disagree with it. and i've been working on no longer applying it to myself. i've had to take a long, hard look at what it is that i want to do and the steps i need to take to get there. it definitely doesn't fucking help that everything is fucked right now and it's so hard to get any job, but i'm really holding out hope. i feel like this newfound free time is the space needed for an inflection point in my life. and i was on the downswing for a long time, just from how increasingly miserable i was at my last job. i'd really like to not go any further downward than i feel like i already have...

but it's been really fucking hard. a fresh start excites me, but it's also scary realizing how far i am from my goals. and i don't know who in my life to talk to, because i fear that vocalizing any form of breakthrough i have will somehow jinx it for me. i genuinely distrust the universe and have trouble wrapping my head around the possibility that i'm deserving of the success i dream of for myself. it sounds absolutely ridiculous, but it's true. and trust me, i do not want to be the woe-is-me pick-me girl prattling on about self-inflicted insecurities like this. it's almost certainly the result of lifelong catholic guilt. but it is loud. no matter how many affirmations i repeat to myself, the nagging doubts persist.

what i do know is what happens when i let those doubts win. it happened before, and it landed me where i was for the last eight years. if that's a cautionary tale...

genuinely, other than work, life has been good. i turned thirty and went through a shitty breakup that sort of catalyzed me into doing new things. i did some solo traveling and went to new places with friends and family. i started playing tennis. i saw some cool ass concerts like mcr and nine inch nails, among a lot of others. and i've been exercising pretty consistently since january 2025 when my labs looked a little weird. so all things considered, my life is going well. money is scary, especially these days, and especially without a job. but i'm hoping that turns around soon. i definitely took for granted not having to worry about money for that long. hindsight is making me wish i'd been smarter about it, but here we are.

hopefully next time i update here, things will be looking up a bit more.