moodyblue2014

[moodyblue2014]

October 30, 2023

I am sitting at the wake of yet another car crash of a situationship.

October disintegrated into a black hole in its very last week. It all began with my glowing graduation ceremony, it was looking to be a month of firsts...but as I was to learn - not all were supposed to be happy.

I met a boy named Jasper...ugh, am I even ready to talk about this? Well, perhaps another day. I'm yet to exit the stage of where I sullenly walk around the house, looking for something to do. While he attending his friend's birthday dinners.

All I will say is, put yourself first. Look at the road ahead. No day or event is ever too rosy to let your guard down.

[moodyblue2014]

A Note on Cognition

It's 4 pm and I'm back home. It's been two days since I returned. I generally feel uplifted at the thought of travelling back after spending time away, and especially so after ending this horrid internship. To be perfectly honest, however, I didn't end it - I didn't have the willpower or assertiveness to do anything of the sort. But I did wish to, and both my own views and those of my supervisor's soon aligned after my performance review.

The circumstances of my internship only got worse - I was performing poorly compared to the other interns as I had zero practical experience in the clinical setting of an equine hospital. I was expected to handle foals on my own. I had never laid eyes on a foal in my life. My fellow interns talked behind my back - along with the nurses that supervised me. I was expected to do what a nurse would do. My university rotations didn't equip me well enough to perform in this way. I should have went to TAFE.

But did I have to feel bad about my evaluation and fundamental inaptness as an equine intern? After learning that I was basically cheap labour - no, I did not. In most cases, people can alter the way they feel about a situation. That is the gift of cognition.

I had learned to justify and accept my poor performance based on my lack of experience. Plus - I found a mentor in some of the senior vets who advised me to ease up on myself. The only way I could change my situation was to be as involved in the workings of the hospital as I could possibly be. But would weathering the difficulties of such a learning curve prove helpful in this context? After all, this hospital was a business - and according to several rumours, the clinic was bleeding money. A major part of our cognition is adaptive functioning - problem-solving in order to devise alternatives, to make a choice and evaluate an outcome.

So, despite gradually building the resilience to be able to cope with the hospital's caseload (I found myself immersing seamlessly into the busy rhythm of administering treatments and presenting each case after waking at 6 am) I found myself left with 4-6 weeks to improve my performance or risk termination of my internship. I sought guidance and support from the intern coordinator but how much could they do realistically? Besides, the fundamental yet unspoken quality of an intern is their resilience, their stiff-lipped acceptance of mountains of work, of seemingly insurmountable tasks and their lighting-quick ability to prioritise goals and manage their time. All skills which I was particularly weak at.

In the span of the forthcoming month or so I had to improve significantly. And, although I did - by the time I was called abruptly for a meeting with the coordinator and practice manager, I had already accepted my fate. Through a logical analysis of the situation I knew I wouldn't be able to meet the benchmark. I knew I had bitten off more than I could chew. But I had a million other doors to open. I left my two and a half month internship behind in Newcastle, but found myself exercising my cognitive abilities in the most resilient of ways. Something so natural as an adult, yet so difficult and painstaking to develop when you aren't quite fully one.

I missed a lot of marks during my tenure as an intern and made countless oversights and mistakes - but I landed every stepping stone in reappraising my surroundings, my limits and the immediate possibilities that can spring forth from them. And most importantly - I learned what my next step was.

And I knew, for once, it was acceptable to not know what to do in four or five years, but to know intimately what to do tomorrow.

[moodyblue2014]

Hey.

My name is Ash. I'm 24 years old and writing this from the harbour city of Newcastle, Australia. It's my second-last fully uninterrupted day here. I've lived in this country for 17 years and immigrated with my family from India to Perth, WA.

I've begun this blog to put into practice my love and affinity for writing, even if it is in a bite-sized form. I've wanted to chronicle my life experiences for a while, no matter how fractured or tinged by the habitual chaos of your 20s they may be.

The glaring truth is that this period in life is taking its natural toll on me as an individual. The starkest experience has been that of failure - to feel the bruise of imperfection in early adulthood, in lieu of the rosy days of high-school. It's been nearly 7 years since then.

If I could condense my feelings towards beginning a blog, I would say I wish I had started earlier. The 20s are a formative phase in life from any angle. I feel that growth and betterment are inevitable - but the uncertainty of that when you are wedged in such chaos makes verbal snapshots all the more necessary.

So here goes!