Last year, on the day of my dreaded fall final exam in physics (which I will forever think of as the most stressful school event of my life), I was reviewed in the literary blog 3:17 AM. I actually found out about the review the morning of the exam and proceeded to post about it on Twitter and Facebook and was generally over the moon about it for the rest of the week.

For New Year’s Eve this year they’ve given me another mention. It’s a shorter blurb, but also very nice and much appreciated. Above all it’s succeeded in doing what two months of vague guilt and procrastination has failed to do: get me blogging again. (Nothing like a little flattery to fire up the writing muse.)

The trouble with glide year (she whined) is that I am not actively involved in anything that is taking me closer to my goal of entering medical school. I’m playing a waiting game, a large part of which involves going through the motions of being something not-a-future-doctor. I go to work, I pay my bills, I learn how to do new Real Life activities like buying a car (shudder), but all of it feels like treading water until next fall.

It isn’t a great way to live. I have become the sort of person who is all talk and no action. I am constantly explaining my situation (glide year, postbac, applications, acceptances) as a means of excusing my lack of investment in most of my other activities. Yes, working at the massage school is frustrating, but I only have to hang on for another six months. No, I don’t have a particularly large social network in town, but I also don’t know where I’m going to be next year. It’s hard to make commitments when you feel like you’re just treading water.

I am trying to change this attitude. I may not be permanently set up right now, but there is no reason not to try to set down a few roots. Not to mention that this is my last year of “freedom” before medical school, and I should really do something with all that freedom.

So I have a different set of resolutions this year. I am going to try to make some more connections in town. I am going to try to keep up with this blog better so that I have a continual reminder of The Next Step. And I’m going to try to keep working out on a regular basis, because what is a New Year’s Resolution List without some health and weight loss goals.

Huzzah.