Thank you to the beautiful Amy for nominating me – I’m currently giving you a virtual bearhug. She writes about empowerment, inspiration and change; blooming with resilience, check out her blog here for some real talk. God bless you, Amy!

The Origin Story of “That Med Kid”

I like writing. In fact, I like writing so much, I wrote a 80,000 word novel in middle school. It begins with an obscure legend that has it said a girl touched a stone that was the colour of a million dimensions, causing the destruction of Atlantis in one day and one night. In present day, the story follows the protagonist who possesses a beautiful jade necklace, and secrets begin to unravel when she moves to Canary Islands. Needless to say, it was *this* close to potential publication, but crippling self-doubt, irritating perfectionism and losing updated drafts, hindered that from ever happening.

It was in middle school where I discovered my best writing pieces came out of being in an extraordinarily dark headspace. Thus, I always went hardcore on creative writing assignments in school – murder, self-harm, teen pregnancy, depression, and so on. Fun fact: my submission for the school writing magazine got rejected because it was “too dark and intense”. 

So, I began a blog back in middle school (which is now very hidden) – it was a bit of a diary where I could lay down unedited, imperfect thoughts without having to double-space or set to font type Arial size 12. No obligations, no outside standards; great. But like any other New Year hype, I eventually let academics override and blogging dormancy settled in. This isn’t to say I stopped writing, because I didn’t.

And guess what? In the summer of 2016, I tutored Mathematics and Chemistry like crazy, scraped every last bit of money I could, and used it to self-publish my very own book, titled “The Danger Of Not Trying”. The little blurb is below:

In the past few years, I realized: we are all actors. We rehearse who we want to be, we perform who we want to be, and hope it is convincing enough for everybody else to believe. We cannot stop being actors, and that’s fine. What isn’t, is if you try not to be – the danger lies here, because genuine happiness doesn’t come from a scripted truth. 

The book explores this thinking throughout a compilation of quotes; each one holds a backstory, whether it be fictitious, anecdotal, or both. The lessons underlying them are all very real and I hope they can help you get through life like it did for me. 

No, I didn’t have an editor; no, I didn’t have a cover designer; no, the only application I used was Microsoft Word. It was a creatively exhausting process, both very primitive and very organic, that I can wholeheartedly say is one of my proudest achievements in life. I donated all the profits to Rejoice Foundation, a HIV Foundation in Northern Thailand, where I did work experience for one summer – they continuously stun me with how dedicated they are to the duty of care they voluntary committed their life to, and are one of the reasons why I want to become a doctor. And thus, I am so incredibly humbled by everybody who supported the book, because all I did was put the inspirational words of people on page. It’s a book I wrote as a homage to everybody in my life. 

Book

Sample!

Yes, it is a real recording of me saying something…

Anyway, let’s fast-forward a few months to the first frigid night of December when I was listening to the “Life of Pi” soundtrack. It was a Thursday, and mindlessly scrolling through my iPhone Notes app, I found random ‘poems’ I wrote. On a whim, I created this blog, and that was the day of my first post. And why “That Med Kid”? Because it embodies exactly how I perceive myself. Just another no-name, anonymous “Ah, she’s just this random med kid” person. Just like my first ever blog in middle school, this is a bit of a diary for me – thus, I was very hesitant to share this blog until, gosh, five months in?

Goodness me, I apologise for the long-winded writing biography. Hardly Marvel Hero origin story standard, but there you go. I’ve never written this much information about myself before, so this is probably the most personal post I’ve written by far. Don’t worry, this doesn’t happen often.

To sum up, I like writing, but I’m not a writer. I hardly have any knowledge about anything, but if there’s one thing I can do, it is being honest. So if you’ve read my blog, be it one post or one word, thank you so much – the gratitude I have is indescribable.

Advice For New Bloggers

1. Write, not “create content”. By “content”, I mean the one that gets Reddit users all irked, and what ex-Viners do in desperate need for a career on YouTube (there are exceptions, of course). Don’t try creating this commodity of value as a superficial distraction from reality, but simply write about reality. Did that make any sense to you? Yeah, me neither.
2. You probably expect me to say consistency, but I’m a big fan of spontaneity. Blogging is time-consuming, difficult and can drain into this sewage of obligation. And if it ever gets that far, perhaps rethink your priorities with a blog. Am I just saying that because of my inconsistency and recent hiatus of three odd weeks? Maybe. But would I ever want you to stick two fingers in and painfully force content out just for the quota of “New post every Thursday!”? Absolutely not. The Quality > Quantity phrase is very applicable.

Blogger Recognition Award: Rules of Acceptance

• Take the time to thank the blogger who nominated you and provide a link to their blog
• Write a post to show your award
• Give a brief story how your blog started
• Give pieces of advice to new bloggers
• Select 15 other bloggers you want to give this award to
• Comment on each blog and let them know you have nominated them, provide the link to the post you created

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I still yet have to finalise Part 2: Science of Superfoods of “The Dirt On Clean Eating” series I began (Part 1 here!) – apologies for the incredibly long delay. Med school life has begun, and there is much I have to update you all on, but let’s save that for another post. Hope you are all doing incredible. Stay motivated, pals. 

©TMK