#mrzastudies

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“It’s a marathon not a sprint.”

IG: mrzastudies

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✨My Desk essentials✨

1. A Calendar because sometimes I forget the day (and sometimes the year, normalize not knowing what century it is)

2. A Clock that is 15 minutes ahead (don’t ask)

3. An iPad. I really recommend students get one if they can, you don’t really need a super fancy one (depends on your field of study of course). This is the iPad Pro from 2016 and it still works pretty well! Having an iPad in Uni made it so easy to annotate lectures (and ebooks I stole huhu) with an Apple Pencil + I could stop printing lectures.

I did the math and you will actually save a lot of money getting an iPad (and stealing textbooks from libgen/Zlib) + not printing your lectures. (Okay I didn’t really do the math, sorry I lied ☹️)

4. My Legami Bullet Journal (their paper quality is 👩🏽‍🍳💋) to keep track of all my assignments my workouts. Honestly, dated planners never worked for me. Why you don’t ask? Because I will go days without writing anything in them and then out of nowhere a whole week will be so meticulously planned out as if to fool myself into thinking I am a productive person.

5. MacBook Pro 2020 with the M1 chip that I bought because Ali Abdaal’s YouTube video was so convincing (pictured in photo) (Aside from the placement of the headphone jack I am so happy with it! But tbh the bar is very low with me because my previous SONY laptop almost set my desk on fire).

6. A book (or 2) I’ve ignored for years that I swear I will get to one day. I keep it here to remind me of all the books I’ve wasted money on and will probably never read. Or maybe I will read it next week? Stay tuned.

7. Hand cream + Vaseline + a box of tissues for my scheduled breakdowns. ☺️

✨Disclaimer: I’m not saying you MUST HAVE ALL THESE things to do well university because you really don’t (although I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t help, especially the iPad) + You don’t really need overpriced stationery to do well at school (at this point this comment is just for me).

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The truth about (the lack of) my productivity today

I couldn’t do shit today, I was exhausted, I was moody and cranky af and I felt guilty and shitty all day. I wanted to get work done but I couldn’t physically do any. I sat at my desk and instantly got a headache, and a backache and I'm sooo tired! I didn’t sleep enough and it’s shark week, see even I find it awks to talk about menstruation. Fffs girl, you’re a physician, get your shit together. Okay, my uterine wall is shedding and I have once again disappointed my uterus by not giving it a baby. Hmm, maybe shark week was a better term? What about my red aunt is visiting? Aunt Flo? Red tide? Crimson wave? Having the painters in? and my personal favorite: communists in the funhouse?

Whatever you call it, my period is the reason for my being ‘unproductive’ today. I just couldn’t handle any work. I’m not in the headspace and it’s just not happening. So why is it that after years of going through this have I still not accepted to chill out on these days? Why am I still not listening to my body?

There are companies that give people who menstruate days off, why can't I give myself the day off?This is why recently (especially today) when I see the word ‘productivity or ‘discipline’ on social media, I tend to cringe. There are times some or most people who menstruate cannot be productive, there are days within their cycle where they feel more energized or feel like they need a nap. There are cramps and pain and everything that entails. So whenever I see a productivity bro preach waking up at some ungodly hour every day for the rest of their lives so they can work and be disciplined and produce and make and create forever, I cringe.

One of the reasons I started this 'blog' was the lack of perspectives from women like me. 5 years ago all I saw online were white men. But I cannot relate to that if you can, yay you, you've got your representation 🥰 (if you're a dude and you made it this far, umm thanks?) So this blog not only gave me some kind of outlet (that wasn't my journal) but was made with the intention of showing the medical school version of me that it will all turn out okay. You'll make it through life, you'll learn as you go and you will need to take breaks as you go. Your life won't just be medicine (which is why I don't call this a study gram, even thought I have exams coming up, this is just my blog, my niche is me 5 years ago 🤷🏻‍♀️) If you like watching the productivity bros then to each their own for sure, I just hope to see more women out on Youtube or Instagram talk about why they couldn’t do anything because shark week can be fking brutal, why it’s okay and why the guilt associated with not being productive is a red flag because we aren’t machines, we are people. Sometimes we need a break or like machines, we can break.

Until my next rant!

xx mrzastudies