Hi. Howdy. Hello.*
(*read: I have no idea how to start this post)
Somehow, much to my surprise, it has yet to have been a full year since my last blogging excursion. However, as another round of finals draws ever nearer and my desire to procrastinate studying grows ever stronger, I find myself again at my standing desk and keyboard, attempting to chronicle the life happenings of an optometry student at The Ohio State University College of Optometry.
As similar as this situation sounds though, this time it’s different.
Tomorrow is my last day of classes at OSUCO.
This week is my last set of finals.
The following week will mark my last days as a third year, and will be the last time that I see many of my classmates until graduation.
And while I won’t pretend to be particularly nostalgic regarding the times spent with the Class of 2019 or interested in reminiscing especially fond memories that we have shared, knowledge of these upcoming changes fosters a perfect opportunity to commence my biannual half-day of public life reflections. So, without further ado, let’s see where this journey of words may lead today.
*insert awkwardly long pause here*
Some days, it’s truly amazing how much (and how quickly) things can change. Coming in as a first year, I’ll admit that I really had no understanding of the eye. At all. You could’ve asked me what the cornea was, and I’m not even sure I would’ve been able to tell you that it was the front part of the eye.. Let alone that it has 5 layers. From there, I definitely couldn’t have told you anything about the retina, or vision, or…well, much of anything really. As a first year, life could be summed up by words and pictures – abstract representations of a 3D world. I guess in that light, it only makes sense that I blogged frequently, working to replicate my life to the world in the same way that the eye was replicated to me.
With the dawn of second year and the introduction of clinical techniques, everything began to change. What was once a mental construct suddenly began to take on a concrete form. Seemingly overnight, the words and pictures that I had come to rely on were no longer enough to create success in and out of the classroom. Rather, they were to be an augmentation of the practical skills that we as a class were fostering daily. Admittedly, this incomplete paradigm shift proved difficult for me, as I struggled to find a balance between abstractions and reality. Controlling this seesaw of expression became a constant task of minimalization, as I sought to decrease both weights in my life. In doing so, it is no wonder that for the past two years both socialization and communication have been kept to a minimum.
As fourth year rotations begin in a matter of weeks, however, the balance of life is again shifting. This coming year I have the opportunity to travel around not only the state, but also the country as I complete my final year of education before becoming an optometrist. At long last, clinical work will surpass didactic tasks, and the career that I have been working towards for the past 4 years will lie on the brink of reality.
If you can’t tell, I’m (just a lottle) excited.
And so, here’s to one more trip around the sun before this crazy journey’s done
-Hannah