Fun Day

Earlier this week my wife had to go to a "mandatory multidisciplinary neuroscience conference” at school. The power’s that be informed her class that they had to come to this important conference. So as the class sat down and waited for the day to begin, the professor hemmed and hawed and finally confessed that this day was actually going to be a fun day. A fun day? Yes, the med school actually played a joke on the students to get them to come to school so that they could reward them with a day off; complete with a BBQ and games in the park.

Now Fun Day is not to be confused with Snow Day. (See Kristina’s post on 3/1/07). No, a fun day is slightly different. The way I see a fun day is - a different way to find yourself. Finding yourself can mean a lot of things. It can mean monumental things like finding your calling or somewhat smaller scale stuff like finding the motivation to get out and exercise. Sometimes in our daily routine, we get into the habit of just getting through the day: wake up, work, dinner, bed, repeat. Yes, we can find ourselves when we are at work, when we are eating, even when we dream at night. But sometimes it takes something out of the ordinary like my wife’s class Fun Day to get us to think about where we are and what we are doing. In that specific case, the students are constantly doing the same thing: class, studying, coming home to eat dinner, study again, quick break, study some more, bed, study in your sleep, repeat. The Fun Day was an excellent way for the students to relax, celebrate how far they’ve come this year, and remember why they are in school to begin with. They so often are focused on the academic aspect of their daily routine, that it is ok every once in a while to bring back some humanity to their lives. Hence, the Fun Day.

I was lucky enough to spend that afternoon with my wife and we definitely took advantage of that time to try to find ourselves. We did this by trying new things (my wife tried golf), we did this by using the day as starting point for some long overdue exercise, we did this by putting aside the immense amount of information they make you learn in med school, and saying, “you know, maybe we just need a day to enjoy the sun and who knows what will happen.” For me, what happened was a renewed drive to stay in shape. I can’t speak for my wife, but I’m sure that for her and many of the other students, what happened was a realization that even though they have grueling schedules, they can still find time to enjoy the outside world and remember that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe also, that finding yourself can happen along the road when you stop to smell the roses and not just when you get to the end of that tunnel.