You can always tell how depressed I am by the music I'm playing. When things are normal, I'll all about the Jonas Brothers and Demi Lovato. You know I'm happy when I'm playing my wholesome teenybopper chart-toppers. When things start going a little south for me and I'm starting to feel a little doom and gloom, I start playing my favorite female singer-songwriters. Sara Bareilles, Marie Digby, Lenka. They just get me and my mood. Sing it out, ladies.
When things are really bad, I revert back to country.
Now, in undergrad, I was big on country. After all, I did go to a Brad Paisley concert, knew about Taylor Swift long before she blew up the Billboard charts, rooted for Josh Gracin on American Idol, and watched the CMA awards religiously. But even though I have 250+ country songs on my hard drive alone, I've rarely listened to my country songs since June 2006.
Until now.
You see, studying for boards is demoralizing, to say the least.
This whole year, I've been studying for my classes. Drugs. Nerves. Kidney function. Heart murmurs. So on and so forth. And while others started studying for boards over winter break, I didn't have that luxury - because I'm not smart enough to not devote all of my time to my classes, if I want to have an ice cube's chance in hell to pass.
So now I'm playing the whole catch-up game. Finally signed up for a question bank. Cracked open that FirstAid that's been sitting uselessly on my desk for a while now. Wrote up a schedule.
But holy cow, it's depressing.
Going through these test questions sure is great for my self-esteem, as I realize that I'm getting more questions wrong than right...even though I'm doing topics that I was tested on less than a month ago. But the real kick-you-while-you're-down thing are the stats for each question. I mean, how am I supposed to feel about my intelligence level, when I find out that the question I just got wrong was answered correctly by 92% of the other people using the same testing service? And that the answer I chose was only picked 2% of the time? They might as well write in big bold letters: Congratulations Michelle! You're stupider than dirt! By the way, that's really dumb, in case you were wondering.
Yeah, my self-esteem is getting a thorough beating.
So now I've got country music blaring from my dinky laptop speakers, because hey, misery loves company. And country stars sing about their deadbeat dads and alcoholic girlfriends and lost dogs. If that's not misery, I don't know what is.
And somewhere, somehow - in my dumber than dirt, stupider than mud, unintelligent brain - that makes me feel a little better.
3 years ago
