“I have never been so depressed and frustrate in my life!” I shouted to my husband one day. Simultaneously being a graduate student as well as work as a medical doctor at the same time is tough. Graduate school is a lot of work and requires strong motivation and focus. I really wanted to hang in there to make it through. Although, I though that I was prepared that I will be doing a lot of reading and having a lot of writing once I start graduate school, I am still not getting used to it. My first month experience tells me the two main things that make graduate school hard are the unstructured nature of the process, and the lack of information about what I should spend my time on. Especially I still have to prepare for the family physician specialty certificate examination in November. I fine that time allocation is really a big problem for me. I fine myself unable to set my priority. I only known that I have a lot of work to do, but I do not have a good plan on how thing should be done. Studying take a lot of time and need great patience, and time is something not everyone has a lot. It is difficult for someone to change his or her schedule around, but it is very important to do so, especially in my situation. I fine myself spent less time in watching television; reading books other than related to study; doing exercise and less recreation time is available for me. I talk less to my husband and the most talks are about complaining the large workload. Moreover, my sleeping time is also decreased. Previously I need to sleep for 8 hours a day to keep up with good work quality.

Many a times I ask myself if graduate school is for me. Is it that important? Do I really need to be a graduate student? When will I have time to do the things I want under this circumstance? I asked myself these same questions. Some times I didn’t think it was that important, I didn’t think I needed to do it, and I didn’t think I would have time for the things I wanted. However, all these thinking about learning, homework, working, and examination made me feel stronger. It made me think about the future and the goal that I need to meet so I could be successful in my life.

I am not the undergraduate student that frequently found myself board and easily distracted from my required classes any more. Because the lessons was not that interesting or I could not see how the information correlated with actual real life examples, I often feel lost at that time. But why should I go to graduate school at all? Is other ways that I can be successful in my life? I ponder over and over again about the reason and is justified that there are several reasons for doing so. First, In order to keep a position in a medical center, Master degree is required or preferred. Especially I wish to do research and get academic positions. Second, it gives me a chance to learn a great deal about aboriginal health; which I feel is an important issue. Third, it provides me the opportunity to develop ideas and perform original research. By doing so, I may fine out ways to improve the health of the minority group and it makes me feel self-existence in this world. I did not do this because I want to delay entering a job as some of the graduate students do, because I already have a decent job.

Actually, nothing can be done easily. People live in this world for different purposes and aims. Some live for fortunes, some live for reputations, only little amount of people live for their own interests. I have always been dreaming about going abroad and receiving further education, but currently it is not possible but I can still learn a lot in Taiwan University. I use to think and tempt to live an ease life; my past wish was to own a family, having a steady job and several friends. However, it seems not the typical life for me now. New concepts are coming to the world very day that I would love to know and I must catch up. This keep I feel tense and useful in this world. I believe if my time is used more wisely then good and positive things will happen. From my experience in the past one month, I found that when I did not waste my time and got the right things done, I felt good about myself. Instead of being stressed out and depressed, I had this warm fuzzy-feeling inside as if I were doing something good. It is not an easy thing to do, but who said life was easy? I know it will pay off in the end though.