"You have to want things so bad"
Its mid-July 2026 and we're in the throes of summer with the first disgnated "Heat Wave" hitting San Diego. It's getting into the 80's which to me feels pretty normal temperatures for Summer. My mom back in the valley was updating me about their heat wave saying it wasnt so bad either, only a few days in the hundreds.
The world cup just ended, and though I've never been a fan of sports, it was impossible not to get caught up in the excitment all around. Randomly hearing shouting throughout the day and crowds of friends walking around with jerseys in color combos I'd never seen before. This years Love Island USA wrapped up last week too. There's a lot of discoure about Incel and red-pilled men on the show, but I find those observations too reductive and offensive. Can't 20 year old men just still be immature? It does a disservice to all the women kicked of for using racial slurs, and I really dislike this idea of the post-milenial generation being more conservative. It's not true, and I wonder if it's just a lie millenials like to tell themselves to feel like the world still revolves around our specific suffering.
It's warm, but not too warm, and it's been nice to see reality tv and sports trending as opposed to a certain aging man and Supreme Court decisions. Problems haven't gone away and they never will. But it's a nice reminder that there will also always be sports and reality TV to equally be obbsessed covering. Less the banality of evil, and more like the theater of evil + breaks of regular scheduled programing.
I'm a doctor this summer. Nothing has changed about my life and the end of school happened so fast that it almost feels like it was all a dream. What's that line in that movie? Something about falling in love, slowly then all at once. I wanted it to be over so badly, but the accomplishment hasnt dont much for me ego nor has it secured me even an interview for any of the 50ish jobs I've applied to in the past 2 months. I guess this will all make for a good postcript or extra chapter for the dissertation. Applying for a postdoc postion is seeming more and more inevitable, despite how hard I worked to get out of there.
I came home from pilates today exhausted. I feel like I wasnt able to keep up, I felt weak. I know that some days things are just harder, but I wish I was consistently just really good at it. I've been at it for 3 years and I still feel like my arms give out nearing the end of each upper body routine. I laid in bed and felt like I could pass out. There's a cross breeze in the bedroom that can be inconsistent, but so amazing when it meets you. It's when I'm feeling bad about one thing that I can start to feel bad about everything. I typed in my notes app "You have to want things so bad." I was feeling dissapointed in myself. So many job applications ask about your career aspirations or what kind of positions you want to have someday, and I don't have an answer. I just want to pay my bills and maybe have a two bedroom. I can't fathom what they would want to hear in these boxes that are sometimes one line big and sometimes one paragraph big. So far, I've been trying humility, settling on something about what mattering is the work and who I am working with. I havent gotten an interview so maybe that's not what they want to hear. Should I be saying C.E.O? Dean of a College? Is that they want to hear for this entry level administrative assistant postion that pays $21 an hour?
I bailed on my friends bachelorette party. I couldn't justify either driving for 11 hours straight or buying plane tickets and renting a car. I also forgot her birthday. That one is just on me. It's been a weird Summer. But this crossbreeze is nice, and things immediately around me are not as bad as they could be. I call my mom. She tells me about how amazing the Odyseey is, and how cute and sweet my cousin's kids are these days. It energized me, enough to get up and start making dinner.