On two consecutive days, in two consecutive areas, I've been reminded that I'm not at 'the next level'

Yesterday, I had a bicycle race, and the organisers put the top two grades together. I'm a pretty solid B-Grade rider, and rated my chances at finishing with the (relatively small) peleton. I lasted barely two of the five laps before getting dropped like a lead balloon, before riding alone to the finish. Don't get me wrong, I'm fit, riding pretty well and can flog almost anyone else I ride with for a good forty kilometres. But I'm not at A-Grade level, and I won't be for a while

Recently at the Hospital, it's been a similar thing, sort of. I can hold my own in discussions with medical students and interns. I have a pretty good 'clinical approach' to most things, I'm more systematic and I'm better at presenting. Today, though, I got schooled on rounds. It got me thinking about progression;

The phrase 'taking it to the next level' is well overused by hip-hop artists, film-makers and sportspeople alike. And usually, it's nonsense, garbled trash talk. Until, of course, you're the one who can see both sides of the level - what you can do comfortably, consistently and repeatedly, and what you cannot.

Since mid-year, this is what Med School's been like - both sides of the junction. Some days above, holding on to the peleton, making good plans and diagnoses. Other days, dropped, agog, out of my depth. The next few months I'm going to use to get comfortable. To consolidate knowledge and skills. To prepare for the Next Level.

Last night, I lost it. A meagre 48 hours earlier, my Mum asked if I ever felt like crying. I've just finished a month of oncology. Throughout the rotation, I felt like I had my emotions under control.

Last night, I watched a movie. Inside the first ten minutes, I was sobbing, fetal on. In a moment, all the pain, the hurt and overwhelming sadness I'd seen in the last month was draped over me a veil. Too heavy to cast off, to black to see through.

Last night, I remembered. Faces of terminal septuagenarians, stoic and brave. The disfigured faces of a few with head and neck tumours. Grieving families of comatose patients, one foot at the threshold.

Young mothers. Mothers searching for a way to explain death to their toddlers.

Sadness, incomprehension. Death.

And when I stopped crying, Batman and I watched the rest of the movie together. And the patients, those who are still alive, continued to live the rest of their lives.

Last night, the movie I watched was about Love.

My boss asked if I'm counting down. A few months ago, we had a chat and I said that I'm not yet at the stage of counting my remaining shifts in Pharmacy. I'm not.

As I walked into the Hospital around 7:30 this morning, the laboureres at the adjacent building site were singing, whooping and laughing as they worked. They'd started dismanting the four stories of scaffold concealing the hospital's new building several hours earlier. They shouted to eachother and guffawing at their humour. Smiling at life.

Below, a trio of tired nurses and an Admin officer trudged through the main entrance in silence. Their heads slightly bowed and gaze fixed on an indeterminate point some hunderd metres through the wall. Their day was just beginning.

In first year, my drive to uni went through downtown, usually at peak hour. In the snailled traffic, dark suits and skirts would weave their way through, en route to white, starched-collar monoliths. I didn't see laughter, and rarely smiles. Mondays were the worst, for them.

I love Mondays. Shiny, new, rested. On Mondays, I'm reminded about direction change. That I made a conscious choice to go back to Uni. That I love learning about medicine, life and people. That feeling of 'something new' that you get on the first day of school, or a new job, that 'fresh start' feeling, is always there on Mondays.

After arriving back into Queensland at 0740 with a meagre 5 hours of sleep in 50, I busied myself, intent on not succumbing to tiredness until nightfall. Especially as I was to be in Oncology clinic the following day at 8am, bright and shiny.

Sensibly, I unpacked. I did some washing. I put by bicycle together. I did some more washing. I called my family. And did some more washing. I ate. A lot. My eyes began to blur as I stared at the TV... Oh oh. This was going to end in sleep.

My phone rang - it was my cricket coach. He asked if I felt like coming down for a net session. I was mildly surprised, being the middle of the off-season. I'm not near the level of player who starts pre-season three months early. Either way, if fit the criteria for my main aim of the day - not falling asleep - so I headed down to the pitch.

As I wander across the field, slightly confused by this net session, I see a 'familiar' figure. Familiar, in the sense that it's recognisable from the television. The first-grade spinner says G'day and chucks me a ball. Next thing I know, I'm bowling at a New Zealand Test Cricketer, and a few First Class players, too.

I got home buzzing, despite being smashed all around the ground, including a cracking cover drive into through the hole in the nets into my (now dead) mobile phone. Oops. Getting a second (fifteenth?) wind, I went for a ride.