In Which Postgraduate Education Comes increasingly to Resemble Primary School

The amazing thing about doing Graduate Medicine is how much it's like Primary School. We all seem to be regressing to a strangely childlike state. Maybe it's because of the fact that we're largely in the same groups for most of our classes, just like in primary (or, ok high-) school. Instead of seeing that girl in your Social Psychology class but rarely other than then, you see the same people all the time. It's like you're back in class 6C, strangely close. Plus, our anatomy homework is colouring-in, which is kind of neat.

Also, it seems to be causing people to act as if we were small again. In lunch time breaks, people play frisbee on the oval, or sit in little circles, eating their lunches out of lunch boxes. Nerds go to the library and study (or, as it might be, write blog posts) in just the same way as we used to go and do tests on TheSpark.com. "How gay are you?" "What will you die of?" "What are the major risk factors in osteoporotic hip fractures?"

At first, shyness abounded, like that first day in a new school, or the first day of year 7, before we rapidly coagulated into little clumps and lumps: the people who went to the same junior school/ undergrad degree over *here*, the people who are delighted to note that they both totally love Hello Kitty over *there*, and those not so quickly absorbed wandering around with their mounting anxiety thinly veiled.

After a couple of months, there are friendly cliques. These lack the impermeability of those of early high school, reminding us of year 12, when we had the shared experience of a common room and a little notional maturity to allow communication between groups. But people sit in roughly the same place in classes, and organise themselves excursions and activities, like hiking or study days or drinking until they fall over, as their various skills dictate.

Perhaps the most obvious sign of all this strange regression, nicknames abound. I think it must be a decade since I last heard someone called something like "Smell-eanor" (all in friendliness, of course). Moreover, the nature of the course means that I've seen (and, indeed, touched) considerably more of my classmates shirtless in the last 2 months than in my entire undergrad degree.

The weird thing about this is that it's not just our interactions regressing, but our behaviour too: everyone seems to act like an exaggeration of their own type. The fidgety one. The quiet one. The loud one. The guy who insists on asking a question in every lecture. The class clown. The slightly odd girl who knits in class (not previously something I'd've listed as a major type). It's a strange thing to feel yourself doing this.

I keep catching myself doing things I've been glad to've stopped in the past. I catch myself showing off, or talking too loudly, or deliberately trying to look interesting. “What is that? Who does that? This is 15 year old behaviour," I tell myself. "Ok, maybe just the one crazy homemade garment."

Maybe I'm kidding myself: now I come to think about it, maybe I'm always like this, but I worked most of the time for so long that I've forgotten what I'll get up to when left unsupervised. I wonder if it's pathological that I always seem a little bit odd, slightly off-kilter. (I wonder how it's taken me this long into this oddly-toned blog post to notice that I'm sort of mimicing the style of the book I'm reading: that explains a lot). Does a normal person feel the need to keep asserting themself (as a "Self") like this? Now I come to ask this, the answer is obviously yes.

If we weren't all self obsessed, and determined to be seen as the unique and beautiful snowflake each and every one of us, to the same extent, is, you wouldn't get fashions. Or 80 slightly different shades of nail polish to ensure that we can express ourselves. Or "skins" for phones and iPods. Or "How well do you know Rachel Jones?" facebook quizzes (who cares? I do not feel the need to define myself by the quality of knowledge I have about 230 of my acquaintances, and even if I did, I do not feel that knowing what your "favourite childhood colour", "most-luvved drink" or "**current** pet" is indicative of the quality of our friendship. (Also, what's with this trick question thing? "Current" pet? Don't let's even begin to dissect the layers of demandingness there)).

Maybe this whole regression thing is just a sort of last hurrah. We all know, we keep being reminded, that soon we will be incredibly responsible grownups, needing to look professional every day, having to take responsibility, working odd hours with no breaks. Perhaps the natural reaction to that is to want to dye your hair purple for the sheer joy of it, or go to Cargo Bar, or play at lunchtime. Still, it's strange to me that so many people are married, and have grown-up jobs, and it's strange and lovely that there are cakes on birthdays, and frisbee at lunchtime. Even if the guy who brought the frisbee is actually someone's Dad.

PS: I accidentally managed to delete the comments on this blog. Sorry mysterious commenters, I do value you, honest!