Preparing for a test requires much more than just studying. A lot of overachievers, myself included, tend to excuse ourselves from self-care when cortisol levels are high and time is in short supply. It’s like I can somehow only manage to prioritize one thing at a time in my mind, and right now the test comes first; all other activities detract from time that could be better spent studying. However, healthy habits such as sleep and diet are important, and especially more so during times of high stress.

In six days, I have to take the (so far) most important exam in my life at 8:00 in the morning. With a total length of over five hours, oft remarked to test endurance more than ability, the MCAT,  needless to say, does not spare lightly those who enter even remotely tired. After two weeks of religious studying, I’ve gotten to the point where I miss questions not due to unfamiliarity with the material, but due to sloppiness. Fixing my sleep schedule will probably gain me more points than any amount of studying can now. Considering people tend to be more alert a few hours after waking, I must wake up at 6am to maximize my 8am focus. Easy, right?

I wish.

I am a recurrent insomniac, especially during times of high stress. I feel most comfortable during the hours between 1 and 3 am. My regular bedtime is 4 am, and I wake up after lunch. Two nights ago I couldn’t sleep until 6am, and woke up at 4pm. I’ve slowly whittled down my bedtime and pushed up my alarm; last night I slept from 2 to 8 am, forcing myself to wake up despite feeling completely useless all day. However, I still have a long way to go until I train my body to function in the morning.

I also barely eat. Well, to begin with, I never really had good eating habits. I definitely did not consume a balanced, nutritious diet. I can be health-food conscious, in fact, was so for a few months when I tried vegetarianism, but to do so requires, well, a level of consciousness that does not come naturally. Every morning I drive to Starbucks and order a cup of coffee, which keeps me going until I almost pass out around dinner time, which is when I’ve realized that all I’ve had all day is a coffee.  I also snack. A lot. Combine all my eating faults, and the result is that I end up relying on late night snacking as a means of sustenance.

This isn’t the first time I’ve done this. We have all seen those students who are so stressed that they forgo meals to make time for school. I used to skip lunch all the time in high school so that I could finish the homework due in my afternoon classes, and simply buy a bag of chips from the vending machine. But now, I end up studying less than if I had been eating because I just don’t have the energy to continue, almost passing out by the end of the day. I guess I’m not so young anymore, huh.

I also used to exercise regularly. Every day while studying in Oxford I would start off by running to give me energy for the rest of the day. Now I’ve replaced my morning jog with expresso. I don’t have time to run – I rationalize. Instead, I have time to waste four hours lying in bed every night wishing that I could fall asleep. Exercise would have helped me gain energy, eat right, sleep better, and just improve mood in general, all not only conducive but downright necessary for effective studying.

So if I could go back in time and talk to myself before any moment of high stress, I would advice myself to:

• Establish a regular and sufficient sleep schedule. Wake up before lunch one day and you’ll realize that the amount of time in your day to study has vastly expanded. If you are getting ready for a specific test, practice waking up every day in time to get your body used to functioning at peak efficiency during test hours. Start early, as in, not one week before your test like I did.
• Eat right! Get enough nutrients, you don’t want to look like a walking ghost. Take vitamins if you have to. Remember to eat regularly.
• Exercise, at least a little bit in the morning every day to pump yourself up.
• Surround yourself by people who care about you. It makes things much easier, because they will remind you when you forget to take care of yourself. I’ve told my friends about my sleep problem and they will call me in the morning to make sure I’m up. My mom will force me to eat, even when I protest that I’m not hungry.
• Read the news. It’s easy to become self-absorbed when we have a big thing coming up. I mean, how can anyone think about anything else other than your test? Take a reality pill, and realize that there are more important things in the world than you and your test. Keeping up with what’s going on with the rest of the world will help to keep things in perspective and at least make you feel a bit less anti-social as you hole yourself up in your room/library cell.

The next few seem.. well… obvious, but I’ve forgone them before in extreme stress situations, so I might as well mention them.

• Shower. You’ll feel better, trust me. At least do it for consideration of your family/dorm mates.
• Get dressed, nicely if possible. No, don’t bring out that ball gown, but don’t spend all day in your pajamas. I used to think that I could shave off precious time if I never had to change clothes. However, I find that I have more confidence when I feel like I look better. In fact, I usually go to all my exams at least a little more neat looking than my usual self. Why not study this way too?
• Get out of the room! Are you really going to get that much done in the time it takes you to drive/bike/walk to the library/coffee shop?
• Be nice to others. Sometimes people will ask me for a favor and I will immediately reply, sorry I don’t have time, I’m studying. Taking a little bit out of your day to help someone else can actually do you a lot of good. You deserve the occasional break, and the fuzzy feeling you get can get you to focus better.

I generally hate when people say, “Take care”, especially in emails, because it is tossed around as a polite way-out by those who don’t actually care. But I don’t mind telling myself and others who need to hear it every once in a while.

Take care,

Crystal

Dub. Dub. 

I’ve heard theories about mortality that limit the number of beats our hearts can handle in a lifetime.

Before I committed to taking this exam, my mother would nag me daily about wasting my day lounging in front of the TV, precious time that could be better spent studying. These days, the nagging is gone; in fact, she has even been acting unusually nice to me lately. Yet, my life swapped one nagger for another, and this one a hundred times more pernicious:

My self.

My body tells me to take it slow. My head grows dizzy after studying for hours straight on little sleep. Meanwhile, every beat of my heart throws on a new bout of guilt. While driving my brother to his doctor appointment I am calculating how many hours I’ve studied today and how many more hours are left in the day. My stomach suppresses my appetite such that I realize it’s 9PM and I’ve survived the whole day on coffee. 

But it’s affecting my performance. The more practice I do, the more questions I miss. The more questions I miss, the more frustrated I become, and the more questions I miss. 

So what if the test is in a week? I am officially declaring a break for the day. No more thinking about the MCAT. (OK, declaring a break as soon as I finish the practice book tomorrow morning, but then I promise I will really take a break).

It’s one thing to sweat: sweating is quite natural, and certain people tend to sweat more than others. I sweat like a candle melts – so I’m extremely sympathetic to anyone who is a sweater. I don’t really sweat in the usual places, like under the armpits. In fact, I never use deodorant – not there anyway. However, just a tiny bit a physical activity will cause me to sweat profusely on my face – extremely embarrassing (especially when wearing makeup) for dancing {and sex}.

It’s another thing to subject others to your sweat problem.  I once entered a ballroom dance competition. My dance partner was great, sweet, smart, nice, but there was just one problem: He  sweat a lot. Not only was this an ordeal for my nose, but he would use his hands to wipe the sweat off while we were dancing, then offer me his hand. I never wanted to say anything, so I bit the bullet and continued dancing with him, counting the seconds until practice was over. When I got back to my dorm, I washed my hands until I sang happy birthday fully at least five times.

Everyone was confused as to why I didn’t like my dance partner – and with good reason. Like I said, he was great in every aspect. But I couldn’t tell them the real reason.

Not controlling your sweating is extremely inconsiderate. Here are some ways to do so:

• Deodorant is not just for your underarms. I’ve found that applying deodorant around my hairline helps immensely with my problem. You can apply it to your thighs, face, shoulders, anywhere that sweats.
• If it’s your hands, wear gloves when dancing – or any other activity that requires you to hold others’ hands.
• Don’t feel ashamed to admit to others that you sweat a lot. Doing so will only show how considerate you are for taking measures (such as gloves), and at the very worst won’t make people think you are gross (hey, you warned them).

After a year. A whole year of caring for you, of feeling hurt when you didn’t care. A year of calling my friends when you rejected me, of forcibly casting you out of my memory, of failing to do so, of painful nostaglia when I uncovered a forgotten artifact of us.

I don’t love you anymore.

Maybe this is premature. But right now, I could care less what happened to you. I could throw away the CD you burned me for Christmas, and wrote “Merry X-mas =)” on,  without regret. I could pick up your call and tell you I’m too busy to talk to you because I have better things to do.

Remember I was trying to chronicle all my memories of you on my blog, so that I could finally forget about you without losing you forever?  Now, I don’t have any inclination to finish that project. You are a memory not even worth preserving, not even subconsciously.

I thought I loved you, or maybe it was a ghost of you. In all my brooding over my loss of you, I didn’t realize how much you had changed from the person I fell in love with at 16. When did you become so self-centered, incapable of caring about another person’s feelings? When did you lose perspective about the important things in the world? Why do you demand the world to change around you, when you are too stubborn to change for others? How could I ever have thought that the you I was in love with would return to me?

I am emotionally numb. I do not feel angry at you for hurting me to this point. I do not feel hurt because of what you did. I do not feel happy because I am finally liberated from this debilitating relationship. If anything, I feel sad, for you. Sad that that you who I loved is gone. I would say I hope you realize and change, but that would be a lie because (and I realize how incredibly selfish this is, but) I honestly don’t care if you live the rest of your life this way, and because I’m not hopeful; in fact, I’m rather dubious.

“because I don’t think that you are a good person.”

“But why?”

“You’re too petty.”

A little over a year later, I don’t know why, but we start talking again. a lot. For the past week, we’ve been talking on the phone for over three hours a night. You know that I still like you, that I still haven’t gotten over the idea of us. And you say that you care for me, but you still don’t like me because I’m ‘petty’. I know I’m petty, I tell you. I’m working on it, trying not to get pissed off over little things, trying to not hold grudges and stay mad for a long time. I really am getting better.

Last night you called me in the middle of a party. When I told you that I would call you later you replied, visibly (or audibly, in this case) frustrated, that you were going to sleep. I felt pretty bad after that and I wasn’t able to enjoy the party or go to sleep for hours.

Today when you called, I told you that the way you said those things hurt my feelings. You told me to stop being so sensitive. Am I just being petty again?

“So what does petty mean to you?” I ask.

“Making something that’s not a big deal a big deal.”

It wasn’t even that big a deal, but the fact that you just completely dismissed how I felt makes me wonder whether you really care about me, whether you really care about anyone’s feelings. You are not even listening to me.

Or maybe I should just let this slide. I am clearly getting more upset over this, while he is sleeping peacefully, ignorant of how he has made me feel. What is the use of getting mad?

Caught in between my desire to assert myself and the desire to prove to you that I’m not petty, I am paralyzed and hurt.

I try really hard to not be neurotic, but everything tends towards the state of lowest energy.

I pretend to not care about my grades. I pretend that I know there are more important things in life than the three digits of my GPA. But that’s only because I know I will be fine. It’s like the rich man claiming to not care about money.

I’m freaking out about taking the MCATs. I have to test in less than a month, and I really don’t know anything about chemistry. I also can’t motivate myself to study – after only studying for a few hours a day I stop and make excuses for myself about how I can’t possibly absorb anything more. And then I start to think about how if I don’t do well on this test, I will not get into a good school – scratch that – I will not getting into my top choice school. How if I don’t get a high score on the science section, the admissions panel will take one look at my Bachelor of Arts degree and recommend that I try across the street at their law school.

When was the last time I took a standardized test anyway – four years ago with the SAT? And remember how silly you thought it all was after the fact? Stop worrying…

And it is 4:35 am and I can’t sleep, which means that my stress-induced insomnia has returned yet again.

My grandmother died last night at 6:20 pm at 69 years old. She had finally lost the six month battle against gall bladder cancer. I’m relieved and happy for her death. In life, she was in constant pain, hanging on by IVs and medication. Still, she was strong. She rejected pain medication until the end, and held on for longer than anyone had expected. My grandfather and the rest of my family was in limbo, staying with her while she skimmed the surface between life and death, waiting for the inevitable. Death was a release for her and for everyone in my family.

At first, I felt guilty that I didn’t feel more sad. In fact, it was almost as if nothing had really happened. But that is because in my mind, I had been preparing for this moment for the past few months. I had already said goodbye to her months before she actually died.

I never got to go back to China after spring break. I didn’t want to. I wanted to remember my grandmother as she was when she was still able to talk to me, still able to tell me to take care of myself.   When I last saw her, she was waving and smiling to me as the hospital elevator doors closed. Three months later, in the pictures that my mom brought home, she had shriveled into what I imagine one of those polyps from Ursala’s lair must look like in human form.

I was similar to her in a lot of ways; she always said that I was her favorite because we were both dragons and my middle name is her maiden name, Yuan. Her home is full of her random collections: a vase from Beijing, a painting of mine, a backpack from ten years ago. She must have been the inspiration for my love of stuff, and everytime my mom came back from China she would have a suitcase full of surprises my grandma bought for me. I found this old website I had made when I was first learning html — but it shows a lot of pictures of my room and my stuff.

I regret not asking her to teach me to knit. I always wanted to learn how to knit – I had heard as a child that it helped with surgical dexterity. When I found out I had gotten into college, I called my parents in China. My mom told my grandmother, who was living with them at the time in Beijing, that I was accepted into Stanford. My grandma asked what school that was, and my mom replied that it was the best school in the US. Then my grandma was so happy she didn’t stop knitting scarves. I still have all 11 of those scarves, each one a different color, shape, and size, and each one beautiful.

15 year old me wearing all the knitted goodies my grandma made me: scarf, socks, sweater

Before I left the hospital, she slipped the gold ring off her finger and slid it onto mine. It was too big for me, so I had to wrap red thread around it until it fit snugly. It is not in a perfect circle, so I  keep bending and contorting it in all directions – but I only make it worse. I think this was her way of passing the torch, asking me to take care of those who she was going to be leaving behind; my grandfather, my parents, my brothers. I will, don’t worry.

I will miss her. She was the most happy, genuinely kind person I had ever known. She filled her life with what she loved. She is a model of who I aspire to be.

On the day of China's Olympic Opening Ceremony, she brought us these to celebrate

A family portrait three months before she died

Here is a video of my grandmother that I had made as a present for Mother’s Day

a black hole is a region of space in which the gravitational field is so powerful that nothing, including light, can escape its pull.

-wikipedia

I love the night.  I just want to hide in it forever. I feel so safe, so peaceful. The darkness wraps around me like a blanket, protecting me from reality.  If only darkness were my lover then I wouldn’t need anyone else.

The first signs of dawn shine through the window, but I don’t want to face the day. Let me pull the covers over my head to extend my pretend world just a bit longer.

What is the reason to wake up? So I can go through this cycle again? I’ve already lost track of days. How many days have gone by? When was the last time I was awake when the sun was up?

I feel like I’m sinking and it’s getting harder and harder to break out.

—————-

I haven’t written a new post in about two weeks, since I left Oxford and arrived home. I once wrote that if I ever stopped blogging, then it meant that things in my life were going so well that I didn’t need to blog to vent my feelings. I realize now that the opposite is also true, that a long hiatus could indicate a relapse of depression. It’s amazing how strong a force your mood can play, how it can spill over into all areas of your life. How you start to make excuses for yourself, let things slide, until eventually, you lose all inertia to start anything anymore.

It started with needing a break from school, and then being so busy from my camp counselor job, then needing a break after than, until before I know it, it’s already the middle of summer and I still haven’t studied for the MCATS which are at the beginning of August. Today I woke up only because my brother needed a ride to the mall. That must’ve been a blessing in disguise, because I decided to pack my backpack and camp out at the mall bookstore to study.

Thank you to all my readers who have kept up with my blog, and especially to those who posted comments. I opened my inbox today to find occasional comments posted here and there. I could see the comments coming to life and asking me when was the next time I was going to post? It’s nice to know that there are people who care – even strangers.