Hansei

Mistakes are a fact of life, just like death and taxes. No one is perfect all of the time. Unfortunately for doctors, their mistakes matter a whole lot more than an ordinary person's. If I forget to put the ice cream back in the freezer, it melts. If a doctor forgets to check the blood-oxygen concentration of a patient, someone might die. There's a lot more at stake when doctors make mistakes...but doctors do make mistakes frequently. When these mistakes are made, it is imperative that doctors and medical professionals learn from them. Most mistakes are harmless and everything is okay, but in cases where a patient dies from a mistake it becomes even more important that that be a learning experience so hopefully fewer patients will die in the future. The "bad" doctors are ones that don't learn from their mistakes due to overconfidence, defensive behavior, asking no questions and having no fears. These things get in the way of progress because if one cannot admit ...

My ordinary life is nothing like what I experienced in Las Vegas this past weekend: glamour, indulgence, luxury, and affluence. I regularly struggle to let my worries go and have fun, but this weekend was worry-free. Self-indulgence is something I have never been good at. I work hard and I work often, but living only that way isn't fun. It really is okay to indulge from time to time, because, let's face it, I earned it. Moving forward, I hope I won't forget the importance of spoiling myself just a little bit. What's the point of working hard if you never get to play?

My journey began and ended at home as a representation of the present. For the longest time, I have been a worrier--always worrying about what needs to get done next or how many items are left on one of my many to-do lists. Beginning and ending this map with a symbol of where I physically am now served as a reminder to live in the moment and worry a little less. The next stop was the little creek by my apartment building. Last week in class, we discussed meditation and in the exercise that followed class I attempted to suspend my inner speech as Moffett described. As I wrote last week, the only time I recall being successful at this suspension was when I was scuba diving. In last week's activity, I attempted to recreate this in the only way I knew how--by water. It was only natural, then, to let somewhere with water represent meditation. I love this particular location because I walk past it every day on my way to class and it always makes me feel happy and peaceful....

Dear Charlie, As my final month at DU begins, I have been thinking about my past and my future a great deal. Throughout this class, I have been exploring these things during our reflections. There is a lot for me to work through from my time in college and even more to figure out as I move forward. My reflection in this class has almost entirely centered on the things I am dealing with in my final quarter at DU. For example, when we we did the activity that involved talking to ourselves outside, I was feeling a lot of anxiety about graduate school and I was doubting if that's really what I want to do, but that time helped me to work through those feelings and return to the determined and optimistic person I usually am. I tend to get pretty anxious over the unknown but this process has really helped me to take a step back when those feelings set in and I think I am better able to handle them now. I have always considered myself to be an introspective person--even in high school ...

Suspending my inner speech is an incredible difficult task for me. I am constantly thinking or worrying about something--it's a part of who I am. I feel like my mind is always active because at any given time there are 20 different things I could and should be doing. The only time I have ever been able to successfully stop my stream of consciousness was on dives. I spent some time, of course, thinking about how amazing the fish and seaweeds and such are and some time thinking about how much air I had left and if my buoyancy was appropriate for the situation, but there were also many times where I was thinking of nothing--I was simply floating, weightless, in a beautiful and salty paradise with nothing on my mind. In an attempt to capture that feeling again, I went to one of the few places on campus that has water--the ponds by the chapel. When I sat down here, I reached the tips of my fingers into the water. I love the sensory input of feeling water on my skin and it always...

Last week I received some very upsetting news. It turns out that in order to receive distinction in a major, in addition to writing an undergraduate thesis, you must also have a 3.5 GPA in the major for which you are seeking distinction. I knew I needed to maintain a 3.5 GPA overall for the Honors program (which I have done), but I didn't know I needed to have a 3.5 in my Environmental Chemistry major too; currently, I have a 3.39, which I was pretty proud of until now. Anyway, I am in two chemistry classes now and if I get perfect A's in them I will have a 3.54. I have been working on my research for 6 months, including the entire summer, and I have done a lot of work for this thesis. To top it all off, if I do not get distinction in my major then I cannot even graduate with Honors even though I have dedicated a lot of time and energy to the Honors program during my time at DU. In summary, if I don't get A's (not even A-'s will cut it) in my two upper level chemist...

My mantra for this week is "I will do my best!". This song carries the same message. If you do your best, that's all that matters and we really need to give ourselves a break once in awhile.

When this course began, my idea of reflection was introspection and analyzing oneself. My goal was to learn how to do this more productively so I could avoid slipping into the anxiety laden part of myself. I believe I have made a significant amount of progress in the last 5 weeks. My previous method of reflection was basically just continually asking myself "what are you doing? why are you like this?", which was, obviously, unproductive. The purpose of my reflection was and is to make myself the best version of me by learning and growing. Now, I feel as if I am much better at this task. Rather than getting anxious and upset with myself, I am able to stay calm and almost indifferent, like a separate person looking in on my life and thoughts. My anxiety stays out of my reflection much more often now than it did before. The outside activity where we had conversations really helped me because I was able to act like the unbiased person on the outside looking in, which really worke...

Straight from the airport (I'll come runnin') Cut through the customs line (I'll come runnin') Bust down the courthouse doors (I'll come runnin') Sydney, I will testify (I'll come runnin') Sydney, I will testify to ya At this very time last year, I visited Sydney, Australia for the first time. This wasn't an ordinary tourist vacation, though. In April of 2016, I found the greatest love I have ever known. A little more than 2 months later, that love would span hundreds, and later thousands, of miles. From Chicago to DC, and then DC to Hobart, Tasmania, and then Hobart to Akita, Japan, my love was painfully far from my side. It had been exactly 100 days since we had last held each other and 100 days can feel like an eternity when you first fall in love with someone. But during those 100 days there was the hope of Sydney on the horizon. When our relationship began, we already knew we would be going abroad to different places. It was a bit intimidat...

Happiness is a complicated thing and my greatest fear of all is not having any. Since I was a little girl, I loved the ocean and I wanted to be a marine biologist. Now I am closer to that goal than I ever have been before. I'm applying to Ph. D programs around the country with the chance to actually study whales. I'm terrified, though, that I will be accepted and after a few months at that program I will realize I am unhappy, I will realize that the dream I always thought I wanted isn't actually so great. What will I do then? If I get everything I ever hoped for and am still unhappy? That'd be a real tragedy. In the coming week, I challenge myself to read research articles published by the scientists I hope to work for at the programs I am applying to. I will get to see what that future might hold for me. Maybe I'll figure out if that life will make me happy. At least, I'll probably be reassured that this is really is the path for me.

I'm not one who intentionally tries to eavesdrop on other people's conversations, but sometimes it just happens. I was sitting in my afternoon class after a wonderful weekend ended in terrible news. I don't know these girls very well. I couldn't tell you their names. One of them was suite-mates with one of my best friends freshman year I think. I don't know who they are or who they're looking for. Maybe they were just asking about an old friend, wondering if the other had had a chance to catch up with her recently. "Where is she? Have you seen her?" Whenever tragedy strikes in our nation, my imagination tends to run a little wild. I tend to become obsessed with the tragedy and I have a hard time thinking about anything else. I'm sure this happens to many people, although I know there are also those that immediately turn a blind eye to it and try to pretend it never happened. I think of the thousands standing in a crowd in Las Vegas, a pla...