Come and Work

Holy Macaroni. It seems that all that stress and doubts from this post were worth it and I was given a chance to work in the S-land in my first choice clinic. I've known it since weekend and I have again at least forty conspiracy theories about how and why I got the job by some complicated mistake. I didn't hope to happen it anymore and I was about to accept a job in university hospital just about 1 driving hour from my home where I know some people and I was actually relieved and ready and pretty content with it. I was already searching for some accommodation and practical things there when I got the offer from S-land and because I am not a person that can change her plans from minute to minute, it has made me pretty anxious and uncomfortable. (I know it may sound ungratefully, because I have plenty of friends who are journalists or lawyers or media-something-I-don't-understand working really really hard and who still can't choose or find their jobs so easy, because there is kind of crisis in these job areas. But it is how I felt.)

(Btw. I don't know why I am doing this not-telling-the-name-of-the-country-thing, because I will write about it sooner or later anyway, but for now it feels somehow safer to do it so.)

I am happy and scared at the same time. Which is pretty frequent state of mind when something good happens, because anticipation anxiety immediately arrives. It is like: this thing is good, but it is impossible that you can be good to not to screw it. It is probably how my anorexic mindset was "created": You are good at running and everyone is saying you are thin (I was in healthy weight range for my age), so you must inevitably be just worse and fatter in the future. And so I tried to avoid it. 

Anyway. The job means I will live the farthest from home I have lived (except of 3 months in high school) and plenty things to arrange requiring speaking to so much new and probably twice as intelligent people as I am, giving up my pipette and protein isolation and learning some new scary imaging software. Not speaking about the clinic. S-land has 50 hours working week for doctors, so that I am already freaking out about how I will eat and exercise and being able to stay in a state of body and mind that the job requires. I think there is no point in making plans and scenarios right now, because it will be all different then, so I think I will just wait and see (as you know something I am not very good at). But soon I will be officially student at medical faculty again, which feels good, feels like coming home. I like the student identity. Probably it gives me kind of mental permission to not feel so old and so adult, to wear jeans and sweatshirts or cardigans all the time and to not have kids and fancy house. (Am I just fooling myself again?) However it definitely means cheaper trains and books. Yeah.

There is a good thing blog-wise. The research/thesis part of the job is in English (another reason to freaking out and wanting to stampede away until it is not late) which means this time I will really have to try hard and move myself from fourth-class-Come-And-Play*-level somewhere further. 

Ok, I am going to look again at the list of things I should do now and.......big surprise.......freak.

*Come and Play was our incredibly dumb English book in elementary school. One of the main characters was Pixie Dixie, a boy that came from Universe in his red spaceship. Despite the spaceship being in every chapter, it was oh-so-boring. But it wouldn't be fair to blame this book for my bad English.

In which she makes an idiot of herself...

So the plan is:

Tomorrow: 13+ hours travel to "foreign" country S (which is not absolutely true, because I don't feel as complete foreigner there, but still it makes me bit nervous)

Thursday/Friday: some rather short travels in country S because my accomodation is in another city than the inteview (as I am traveling alone I am uber-anxious that I will be so tired that I oversleep/be so anxoius and psychically exhausted that I won't sleep at all/get incorrect train or tram/forget my keys or money or bag somewhere/won't be able to speak in a language I am not 100% confident in etc. And than on Friday morning: Job interview.

I am beginning to think that I must be absolutely crazy, because the hospital/Uni is definitely one or two leagues higher than where I am. And with my ability to present myself + language it will look like four leagues. Sigh. I still think it is some kind of mistake that they have invited me. I am basically going to spend money and nerves on a trip where I will make an idiot of myself. I am trying to look for some positives like: first really serious experience, having nothing to lose, training myself in the language, some kind of exposition therapy for my anxieties (that unfortunately rise and rise after end of school and the Big Uncertainty Ahead)... well nothing of it makes me feel significantly better. Maybe little bit.

I was trying to prepare a bit, so here are some wins and failures:

• win: it's unbelievable, but I've spend more than 3 hours in shopping center (and only about 40 minutes in bookstore and no tears!) on Saturday and I have bought a decent clothes. Even more unbelievable is that I actually feel kind of good in them. It is just blouse and skirt, but for me it is a win.
• fail: I've emailed with the assistent of the Prof who is making the interview and I've copied part of another email (pretty insignificant, but still..:(..) into the email for her accidentaly. It wasn't visible before I've send my mail, but I've reread it after and..well it was there:/ Awkward.
• win: I've tried to exercise less and/or more careful (and partly succeeded), becuase hyperthermia, dehydration and fatigue are the last things I need right now. It wasn't some huge success, but given the anxiety, I did decent.
• fail: During these days and my attempts to exercise less, I was often panicking about how it will continue after/if I start work. I don't think I will get the job in S, but I don't think I will be unemployed either and I don't think I should stay at home, so that there is option full PhD (more time for my routines, less responsibility, less anxiety...) or clinical work with a perspective of PhD next year (step into uncertainty, adulthood, but also the thing I wanted to do when I was 8, 11... I kind of owe this kid a lot...).
• win: I've trained a language and a --ology during last 2 weeks. Partial fail: Can't believe how much I have forget! But I enjoyed it and I am definitely decided about one particular area of medicine, doesn't matter if it will be research or clinical work. I am starting to be curious again after couple of months of apathy and it feels good.

So. Now I should prepare myself for a first big professional fiasco in my life and how I will cope afterwards. It would be really The Dream if I got the job, but I need to be realist and figure out how not to feel like complete failure afterwards (idiot is ok), how to be able to go on with job search and how to not base my selfesteem on that interview. I am pretty unexperienced in this area, so both interview and my reaction to (in 99%- I need some residual childish hope, ok?) negative result will be kind of adventure for me.

news from the madhouse

Week after hellweek:

• Brother+mom were 2 days in his school, scheduling his individual study plan he got for next two months. Which means he will either (if he will able to gain some weight during spring break) stay at home and go to local high school + see a therapist 2 times a week or (if he won't do any better) he will go to hospital. That's the plan.


• Which makes me kind of think about how treatment of anorexia (at least the treatment I experienced) is so carrot or stick (in czech it is sugar or horse-whip) based. You can't do that and that until you reach weight xy. For my brother, school means everything. It is boarding school and he practically doesn't have any friends outside of it (he doesn't even have a facebook, so that I wonder how isolated he is now). Instead of being motivated, M. was so mad and frustrated (and I didn't see him at his worst - mum said she never saw him so desperate as during the home ride that she almost gave up and turn the car) and he doesn't eat more (if not even less) than before.


• Anyway two M's school friends are comming during the spring break for couple of days and I think it is really awesome!


• Friend of mine is comming from overseas as well and I think it is awesome as well:)


• I turned down one working opportunity in one german Uni and I even don't know why. It might have been really good place, but 1. I've had just this irrational NO feeling; 2. They want me to decide really quickly which I am not very good at 3. The process of decision was itself so frustrating that started to freak out and being even more irrational and afraid of all of that.


• Now I am freaking out that I haven't decided good.


• What is "good"? And for who, for what?


• God, I am waggling between some hardcore university-research-career and being a baseline doctor in some little hospital in the hills. Probably this indecisiveness is just a symptom of my fear and my general inability and lameness. Or my debilitating everything-or-nothing attitude.


• Speaking of waggling, I have the feeling my whole body is waggling and ugly and that I can't face any job-interview. Never ever. (And I know I have to. Soon.)


• I make my rotation with a doctor who is there for a rotation before his specialisation exam. She is quite uninterested (which is weird, because she IS cardiologist and will make it for the rest of her life, but well, the hospital is generally not very teaching oriented). The thing is, she is almost never there. She goes to the morning meeting and then leaves. She is not from Prague, so that she lives in the doctors and nurses house nearby. I've met her twice while going home and she was returning from the park where she was jogging. Ok it is not a big deal. So she joggs. But in my head it starts to spin: the rotation is not so interesting, so YOU could jog instead of it as well. You could spend your time more effective. You don't do it. So you are lazy and failure and blahblah. You get the idea. I don't even know what bothers me more- 1. The fact that I am not the one who is exercising (more) and "wasting" my time (it is not waste of time, I've actually learned coupe of things I cant' read in my book and I even defibrilated one patient) or 2. The constant spinning of these negative and selfaccusating thoughts (that actually ARE waste of time).


• Ok, something positive: I am pretty good with kids. I don't know why, but I somehow could get in their world. Maybe it is childishness, but this week, couple of people told me how I can handle kids well:)


• My friend from treatment, who is pretty close to me (closest "ED" friend) is moving to a litte house with her boyfriend. It is so great and makes me smile and happy for them and it gives me hope that one day I will be able to live with someone, but I observed (and I hate it) some jealousy in me. I am afraid that we won't be so close anymore (especially bcause her boyfriend doesn't like her meeting people from treatment). She is nice and I am sure she won't dump me because of the boyfriend it is just - she has the real life with real man in real house and where am I? Will we be able to relate in the future? And this small but annoying thought- what did I wrong? Why am I where I am and not being able to move to my own house with a boyfried? I am pathetic now.


• There are more things, but I think this is enough for now.


• Listen to Bright Eyes.