EPTThis blog is, once more, a big thank you to TL.net and its amazing members. My year of social suicide, of being quite literally a working dead, has come to an end, finally, and you've been a key part in making it not too terrible for me, which is why I thank you. However, I figured out that this time I'd explain things more in details. I originally intended to synchronize this with my 10K blog, but since I didn't
(note : my English is not that good already, but additionally, I don't know shit about words concerning education/studies/etc. If there's something you don't understand or think is not well formulated, don't hesitate and commentate !)
Perspectives
If you read my posts with attention since I've been really active on TL (basically since October 2014), you maybe saw me complain about things such as having no time to play SC2, studying a lot, etc. The reason for that is that this year, I chosed as a study path Medicine. Now, I don't know how Medicine studies are organized in other countries, but I think that the French system is pretty unique (Medecine in itself is pretty unique compared to other study paths in France), so I'll try to explain it quickly.
First important thing is that in France, studying Medecine is purely done in a public university. That means that you cannot become a doctor by going to a private school/university/college ; that means that you cannot "pay your diploma" ; that means that someone coming from an überrich family and someone coming from a poor family have theorically equal chances of becoming a doctor.
Second important thing is that, in 1971, the French government, blinded by its desire of reducing medical expenses (keep in mind that in France anyone, independently of his/her income, job, etc, can have the State (partly) pay for his/her own medical expenses, and it is a heavy burden on the French Republic's budget), decided to create a numerus clausus at the end of the First year of Medecine studies (if you don't mind, I'll now refer to the First year of Medicine studies as the "P1"). This numerus clausus is a set amount of first-year students (that amount being set each year by the government) who are accepted in Second year (which will now be refered to as the "P2"). For example, in my city, Angers (~200,000 inhabitants), only 170 people, among the 1,400 that were here at the beginning of the year, are accepted in P2. As you can guess, only ~12% going through mainly means three things : heavy competition, heavy pressure, no time for fun. Oh yeah, it means another thing too : since this year is basically a way to sort out the people that are ready to sacrifice one year of their life from those who are not, what we have to learn, and what we are evaluated on, has very little to do with actual medicine (believe me, an actual doctor has really no idea on the number of subunits contained in a clathrin triskelion) and is mainly a sea of useless, discouraging information.
Third important thing : once you're in P2, you're basically guaranteed to become a doctor. You still have 8+ years of studies to do, these years being of varying difficulty, but you're in for good.
Fourth, less important but to be noted, thing : you cannot try that P1 again and again for your whole life. If you fail your P1 once, you can try a second time. If you fail the second time, you're out. You cannot start Medicine studies in France again. So yeah, even more pressure and competition. For the record, I am myself a bizuth, someone who tried the P1 for the first time.
Fifth, less important but to be noted, thing : the way we are evaluated is by having one big midyear exam in January and one big final exam in May. That means that during the year, you have no idea whether or not you're working efficiently, how you rank compared to others, etc.
Hell And Back Again
So as I said, the P1 revolves around three things : pressure, competition, no fun. Each person who is really motivated - because to be fair, among the 1,400 people who were there at the beginning of the year, 200 had abandoned after one month and ~700 after six months - knows perfectly well that every other person who is motivated too will work his/her ass off. Thus everyone tries to work harder than the others ; a literal arms race begins, including various things such as focus-enhancing drugs, personal intimidation, dickish behavior, etc. In the dark times before the glorious Internet, it also included degrading books (notably at the University Library), but thankfully the Internet brings light and justice to the world.
It is also to be noted that the carrés, the students who try the P1 for the second time already, know each others and thus are organized, while the bizuth don't know themselves very well (and have no time to) ; this leads to the carrés sometimes intimidating, threatening, etc, bizuths who get good results (who look like they'd get good results, more precisely), as well as preventing presential lessons (I dunno if that's the correct word? Basically we're 700 in an amphitheater, listening to a boring as fuck teacher saying verbatim the same thing he said the year before, and the year before that, etc) from being calm and silent. Although in Angers the carrés are quite cool, not threatening people, just doing a lot of noise.
Obviously, part of the arms race is the amount of hours you put in your studies. As far as I'm concerned, I know that my (theorical) typical week was the following : from 7:30 to 12:15 -> presential lessons ; from ~12:30 to ~13:30 -> eat and watch Korean StarCraft if possible ; from ~13:30 to ~21:30 -> study, study, study, repeat ; then try to maintain 8 hours of sleep. Which amounts to ~12/13 hours of work per day, or ~85 hours per week, since I studied 12h/day on weekends. During the lessonless month prior to our exams, I went up to 14h/day of studying, which gives us a wonderful figure of 98h/week (not even touching the 100h/week, what a scrub). I also know that some people worked more than that, mainly by lessening their sleep duration, which imo isn't a very good thing to do, but well.
But sheer numbers alone cannot express the raw violence of the P1. When you try to maximize the time you spend studying, you are forced to minimize the time spent on basic social interactions, parties, etc. In the end, the only persons you end up seeing and discussing with on a regular basis are mainly people you know and who are in Medicine too, because you're in the amphitheater with them. Personally I also had two non-Medicine friends with whom I ran 2h/week, but I know that not everyone did. Most of the students also work alone (for the simple reason that working as a group in that kind of context sucks, really). So, basically, what you do is that you commit a very real social suicide for nine months, you cut off from the world, no FaceBook (seeing pics of friends partying is terrible for your mental state, I tell you that), no video games, no alcohol, no parties, no girls, no shit, you empty your world of (almost, I'll come to that later) everything that isn't Medicine (or, rather, random subjects barely in relation with Medicine).
It's really hard to express, but it's quite literally going to Hell. You lose something in yourself as a person when doing that, although you could also say that you gain something, that it makes you stronger. It is, really, becoming a working dead, becoming someone who is absent from society and who is not defined anymore by the common traits we use to define human beings, but by the work you do. You live and breathe by your work, you really do. That's an experience sometimes (or often, even?) bordering insanity, because while being forced to commit social suicide must be terrible, forcing yourself, with your own will, to commit said social suicide, while you could go out and party and abandon this shitty life, is even harder to live.
I'm not complaining, though, as I am not one to renounce when facing difficulties ; and thankfully TL has made my year better.
Liquid Horses and the Anchor to Life
So yeah, I said that I was going to come back to the "empty your world of almost everything that isn't Medicine" part. So here. This year has led me to believe fully that the human being is by nature a social animal. A Human, to be human, has to live in society, has to communicate with persons of his kind. You just cannot retain a healthy mental state while never having the feeling of being part of a society. And the very basis of a society, the "primal" form of society, is the community. That's why TL has been so important to me this year. Even though an online forum obviously cannot replace real-world social interaction, TL gave me the feeling of being part of a community, and thus part of a small kind of society, which was essential to keep me sane. TL, and on a greater scale the SC2 scene, has been my anchor to reality, as funny as that may sound.
It is also possible that when you saw the numbers of work hours per day in the previous paragraph, you went like "wtf it's not true, he has almost 10K posts in ~8 months and I saw him post at various times of the day". Yeah, the cycle I described previously, "study, study, study, repeat" was in reality closer to "study, check TL, study, check TL, repeat". One of the wonderful thing about TL is that it takes very little time to F5 a thread and talk about ZvZ and Roaches, and it does not require a lot of focus. It's very easy to learn something, F5 two or three threads, learn something else, F5 again, etc. And while I sometimes legit lost time by reading long articles (damn you Razzia Of The Blizzsters^^) or arguing too much (damn you matchfixing), I feel like TL has been way more beneficial to me than it has been detrimental.
So a big big thank you to the whole of TL and the SC2 scene, you're awesome.
What now?
Sadly I don't know yet if I succeeded my year or not D: But after the midyear exams of January, I was ranked 73rd on ~1400, which leaves me some margin to fail at the endyear exams, which were this week and ended today. I don't feel like I did extremely well nor extremely badly, so I'll just wait & see.
I'm now free, I'm back to society. Parties and alcohol await ; fun times are ahead ; at least until the results are published. If I get in P2, then it'll be a wonderful year of living the sex, drugs & rock'n'roll dream all the people in P2 live for a year (I'm serious, they party so much it's actually disgusting). If I don't... well, that'd be bad.
As far as SC2 and TL are concerned I'd like to be useful too. I feel like TL has been way more beneficial to me that I've been beneficial to TL/the SC2 scene. I have some ideas for the future. I'll see if I can make them happen. Oh yeah, and I'll be back to Roaching people of every race on ladder and to making maps too :D
SHOUTOUTS (note : if you're not included, don't feel not included, as my memory just failed to remember you quickly ; if you, whoever you are, lurker or active forum member, ever took the time to read one of my posts, thank you - except you, SackOfDirtyThings)
BLinD-RawR, master of self-restraint
Aeromi
GumBa
Zealously
The_Red_Viper
Silvana
DarkLordOlli
Downfall
Ej_
Alchemik
boxerfred
lichter
stuchiu
swag_bro
Plexa
Nazgul
Die4Ever
KingofdaHipHop
FrostedMiniWheats
ThomasjServo
SetGuitarsToKill
Imre
sharkie
TheBloodyDwarf
Luolis
DJ_Helium
KadaverBB
BisuDagger
ninazerg
SC2Toastie
SC2John
Teoita
Jer99
ZeromuS
Lorning
CosmicSpiral
The_Templar
Penev
Boucot
Makro
Big J
Barrin
LaLuSh
Gwavajuice
Elentos
Uvantak
IeZael
NewSunshine
Superouman
ScorpSCII
LComteVarauG
SeinGalton
-NegativeZero-
Timetwister
EatThePath
Meavis
And G
AWalker9
Musicus
IntoTheheart
Rude
Pandemona
Nebuchad
Seeker
Darkhorse
Serimek
DarkPlasmaBall
Wintex
Shellshock
Deathstar
maartendq
ZenithM
SuperHofmann
Cyro
Kuro
HonorZ
Bagration
Circumstance
Cricketer
Showstealer
BronzeKnee
Ragnarork
Heartland
SKT.soO
KT.Zest
EffOrt
CJ.sKyHigh
KT.FlaSh
JaeDong
Liquid.Snute
Meltdown.Stephano
JinAir.sOs
CJ.herO
Grubby
Acer.MMA
CJ.Bbyong
KT.Life
JinAir.Maru
duckdeok
Samsung.Solar
SKT.Dream
JinAir.Rogue
mYi.Serral
nB.PtitDrogo
JinAir.Trap
CJ.ByuL
)) keep it up, bro! 
Gratz on being so strong to endure that, and gl in your studies! ^.^
