Blog Update: End of 2017; Start of 2018

Hello all! 😀

I’m sure some of you have noticed my sudden emergence again in SFF community this past week, and may be wondering where this suddenly came from? Particularly since the blog had been so slow in November and December.

Well, if you would give me like 5 minutes of your time, I will explain what happed at the end of 2017, how things will be at start the year, and what else will be going for the rest of the year!

For those of you who do not know, I am in my second year of medical school. Because of this, I essentially have zero free time to do any readying, and this why my blog switched to mainly focusing on interviews at the end of 2016. (It is a billion times faster and easier to write up, send out, and post interviews, and thus can be done without affecting my studies.

However, a grave incident happened last September: my laptop died!!! 😦 Why? My school did it Lol Granted it was a 2009 MacBook, so yes, it was old – but what did it in was when we had to download a new test taking program. Day after I downloaded the software, I noticed my laptop stated running slower and slower, until finally, about 2 weeks later, it wouldn’t even turn on anymore.

But why not get a new laptop? Well, I actually go to med school in Grenada… Great for weather; bad for buying affordable electronics.

Needless to say, this meant that I had to all of my blog from the computer lab – and that was affecting my studies. Having to go out of my way to use a computer, always having to retype my password in for everything, and at the time I had all my templates saved as word documents on my laptop (not Dropbox like a do I now), which means getting everything going again would take sometime.

I already had interviews sent out and received for October at that point (which is why the the blog was still 100% that month), but I did not have to time to do my normal routine for November and December – which is why the number of interviews fell.

Happy to say, I purchased a new iPad Air at the end of December, am receiving completed interviews for January and have just sent out requests for February. By next month, everything should be back to normal 🙂

Why am I so active right though? I’m still on break from for another 6 weeks! That’s right! 😀

For these 6 weeks I am doing something called the PASS Program (which is a study course for the USMLE STEP 1 EXAM) on the side on my own (like 6 hours a day). I won’t be taking this exam until around March 2019, but the only classes I haven’t taken yet is Pharmacology and Pathophysiology, so I don’t see the harm in studying now. (Especially when this test literally dictates what I will be doing for the rest of my life.)

Because of this break, blog activity and communication will be at an all-time high this and next month! Woohoo! You have already seen me post one review, and I have two more written, waiting to be posted; I’ll be joining up again with the Friday Face-Offs; maybe a Waiting-on-Wednesday; several book collection updates; and of course, there will still be the interviews.

Oh yeah! Currently reading though The Two of Swords series by K.J. Parker for this break! Definitely going to finish the first (only 150 pages left as of me writing this) and the second volume, and maybe the third – it’ll be close!

TL;DR Laptop crashed in September and was without one until last month which explain why I had fewer posts those months, and I’m still on break until mid February so I will actually be interacting with everyone again! 😀

-DJ