My daughter-in-law and I worked our sixth day straight today, a new record. We worked six and one-half hours. That's exclusive of breaks. Six and a half work only. I'm beat.
Ana is an elite, high-performance racing sail boat with an enormous sail. I learned studying with her months ago that the slightest breath from me sends her racing off at high speed. I don't know anything about medicine, but I know the first rule of medicine: Do no harm. I study Ana in addition to the subject and watch what I say.
I do know American test-taking. Ana had been studying by herself for months before I got involved. When I first sat down with her I studied whatever she studied. The Sketchys, the video lectures, I thought they were great and really enjoyed them.
Over the months though, I didn't think the videos were causing us to get the answers right to the actual USMLE questions, which seemed the whole point! I mentioned this to her. "No, the videos really help me." Okay, what the fuck do I know.
Over the holidays Ana got a long-distance tutor. "You learn from the questions", Dani told her. That same day I noted in my notebook, "Two videos??? When are we doing questions???" I didn't tell Ana what I had written when we got done. She called me that night and told me what Dani had said and then I told her, read her my notes verbatim.
But the videos have a hold on Ana that has persisted and they blow her off course. We watched two one day this week, and were going to watch a third when I said no. Today, after four hours, we took a Starbucks break and before we left my place Ana said she wanted to watch a video on the subject of the week, the gastrointestinal system. I was already tired. "We're not watching a video," I said. So we didn't. We did more questions and she did really well. As we got up to leave, Ana said, "Thank you for saying no to a video."
I haven't leared much medicine in these months, but I have learned when and where to increase my wind speed.
