Press On. Finish Strong.

Hullo, there!

I haven't been around lately, but there's a good reason for that! I'm nearly through with my first year of medical education. *Cheers!*

I have tried and failed to find a decent photo of myself over the year, so this is the closest I could get.

It’s been a surreal year. Medical school has always been one of my castles in the clouds, so to say I’m on the last leg of my first year after countless years of pre-empting excited relatives by saying “I might not even go to medical school” is amazing. It does feel a bit like an out of body experience. I’m still trying to comprehend what I’ve gotten myself into. 

To be honest, I felt like throwing in the towel about two months into it. (My uncle talked me out of it after a phone call, fortunately, so I'm still in the rat race!) I have never studied this much in my entire life—and I wasn’t even studying as much as my classmates. I wasn’t used to putting so much effort into something and simultaneously failing to get the results I so wanted. I’m not being modest. My grades are quite unspectacular, and no matter what anyone says to cheer me up I can’t bring myself to believe them otherwise. 

But somehow, I’ve gotten through to the last two sets of exams relatively unscathed. In fact, if we don’t count the damage medical school has done to my intellectual pride, I’d say I’m in a pretty good place. 

I can already feel the lure of the summer—the guilt-free pleasure of sleeping eight hours a night, the liberty to wear anything but that restricting white blouse and pencil skirt, the privilege of reading at my own leisure. It’s very tempting to watch movies and read novels instead of putting in the effort for the last leg of the school year. 

But as a future physician, that’s just not the way to do it. To become the woman I’ve been reading about and praying about, I know I have to do two things: press on & finish strong. 

Recently, I’ve been actively following Megan Rapinoe, and devouring her presence on social media. For those who are unaware, she’s a professional football player—the soccer kind. She plays as midfielder of the US Women’s National Team, and she’s a bit of a maverick in the best way. She’s amazing on the field. Her cleverness manifests itself in the way she plays. She plays her opponents, and I think she’s wonderful if you haven’t already guessed from me writing this mini-fanatic paragraph.

She’s had two separate ACL injuries that have caused her to miss the 2007 Women’s World Cup as well as the 2008 Beijing Olympics—both extremely important football tournaments. I imagine it’s a difficult thing to work so hard for the great big fight only to find yourself incapable of participating. You’ve worked so hard for it! 

It’s odd that she motivates me so much at the moment, but she does. So much. It takes discipline to get back up your feet. It takes discipline to approach an injury without whining and to say from the start “what do I need to do to get to where I want to be?” Here I am feeling incapacitated, and there she was recovering from her ACL injury to go on to play in the 2011 World Cup and the 2012 Olympics. It’s a mindset, and you have to want to get to where you want to be. 

To me, she’s the perfect example of pressing on. She’s the example of Philippians 3:14 that I’ve been striving to embody—you fix your eyes on the prize, and you fix your eyes on what you were called to do. In my case, it’s becoming an A plus physician. That’s the goal. I’ve prayed about this. I’ve journeyed through so many road blocks to get here, and now that I’m here, am I still pressing on? Am I still putting in the effort? I should be. I want to be. 


I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 
Philippians 3:14


At the same time, I realise more and more the reason to be resilience—to never waving the white flag—to finishing strong. In my case, I want to do my best out of love for my God, and love for the kind of being He is. He values my hard work, and If I really valued Him and His opinion, would I be putting in any less than all my effort? If I love this profession, would I really be looking for ways to simply get by instead of persevering until the very end? 

This is what it means to run the race—it means you’ve found something worth enduring for. It means you ought to endure. It means it’s going to be a long five years. It means there will be struggle. It means you will falter. It means you will fall sometimes, but you can choose to get back up.  It means there’s light at the end of the tunnel. It means lean on Christ, and lean on your friends. It means through hard work, prayer, and nothing short of a miracle, you’ll get there someday—just as others have done before you. 

It means press on. Finish what you started. Finish strong.