Dear Right Side of Brain, Please Wake Up

   One of the unfortunate consequences of going into a super left-sided-brain profession, is that if you don't make an effort to nurture the right side of your brain, it atrophies*.  I can make a ton of excuses about lack of time, lack of energy, blah blah blah.  But the truth of the matter is that I have done a piss-poor job of paying attention to my right brain.

   I wasn't always this asymmetric.  Back in high school I was extremely creative and working on projects ALL THE TIME.  I used to sew, paint, collage, draw, dance, you-name-it!  College rolled around, and I sorta lost my creative juices in the midst of studying and doin' what college kids do.  Flash forward to med school where I briefly went through a photography phase, taking a ton of pictures of everything and everyone.  But once I started studying for boards, I turned off the right side of my brain in order to buckle down, and I recently realized that I may have forgotten to turn it back on...

   There have been times in med school when that poor half-a-brain tries to take a breath of air to come back to life. For example:

• my various attempts at pretty nails
• our genital bake-off
• when I tried to pretend I was an interior designer
• when I made these cute uteri magnets

   I have no excuses to continue neglecting my creative side now, and anyway, my head feels lop-sided.  So I am gonna turn on my creative juice faucet, just let it go and see what happens.  First on the agenda: I really wanna start journaling again.  I've done this from time to time in the past, and I'll keep up with it for months, but then I'll just get bored of it.  Also, I love blogging and all, but there are a lot of things that I don't feel comfortable writing on here for anyone in the public to see.  I like to use my blog more as a memoir of this crazy journey called med school - something that people can read, and either learn from or something they can relate to.  My goal is not to air all my dirty laundry.  

   Another reason I'd like to make artsy projects is because it really makes me happy.  I'm feeling so tired and burned out, and I just wanna feel like a fun, happy-go-lucky person again.  The happier you are, the more confident you are.  Besides, I could really use a confidence boost before I try to sell myself to residency programs during interviews.  

 *This is most likely not true; I'm just exaggerating. Though if anyone knows of any studies exploring this topic, I'd love to hear about it...        Oh great, now I'm using the left side of my brain AGAIN