Welcome: The swimmer who's always drowning

Hey y'all, Welcome to my blog!

Well, in reality, I should be thanking your for coming by; giving me someway of grounding myself becuase the good Lord knows with all of the craziness going on in the world right now, we all could use some grounding.

To tick off the basics real fast,

Hi, my name is Faith and I am going into my junior year of University as an aspiring medical student, collegiate swimmer, an absolute shambly mess with too many personalities to count.

Now there's definitely more to me than just those three things, however, maybe we'll get into that another time. I've studied and competed at the same University in Baltimore, MD for the past two years now and am eagerly ready to return (hopefully) this fall. Clearly, my spring sophomore semester was affected, as many other students were, and I returned back home to Virginia for an extended summer. While laying in my driveway today, (praying that the UV of 6 would really change my tan) La La Land by Bryce Vine came on my Spotify playlist and I couldn't help myself from smiling; how fitting, I thought, while I daydreamed of how much simpler life would be if I did slip away & waste my time in California.

However, as quickly as the thought came to me like a wave to the shore, it rescinded like a wave back into the depths of the sea, as my phone's ringtone forcefully grasped my attention (seriously, is anything louder than the alarms on our phones?!). After a short conversation with my ED boss, I agreed to come in tonight for an impromptu Scribe shift from 10pm-8am. Closing my eyes, I drifted back to dreamland, desperate for a peaceful night in Califonia rather than a hectic, sleep-deprived ED shift.

Which brings me to here and now; reality, which can be a big old thorn in the side sometimes and I know I'm over it!! Once again, bringing me to the point of this blog. Life is crazy enough, reality can be cruel, and worst of all, in the pre-med world, a stigma has materialized defined by imposter syndrome, emphasized individualism and general anxiety.

Even though I've competed as a swimmer for some 10 years, I feel like the majority of the time I expend energy fighting from drowning (not just at 5 am practices but also) in the toxic, challenging, and demanding wave of premed. And thus, I would like to use this platform as a source to help one another, share tips throughout the application process, and just generally document the rest of my journey.

So who knows, stick around and maybe you'll find the sweetest little relief knowing that you're not alone. We all have to begin somewhere, so why not here ;)