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Sanila: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Season 8 of "Bundle of Hers." My name is Sanila, and I am a new voice on the show. So it's nice to get to know everyone a little bit more, and I'm excited to be here.

I'm excited to share that I have three guests joining me today. My first guest is Jaina. She currently lives in New York, working in public health, but I've known her since elementary school. So we went to sixth grade together I think when I was like 10.

And then my second guest is Joy, who is currently in Utah with me. She's known me since middle school.

And then my last guest is Zahra, who is currently also in New York. Zahra met me in college and coincidentally she was a college roommate of mine for one year, so I feel like she has great personal insights into who I am and what it's like to live with me.

So I'm excited to have these three folks on here. They mean a lot to me. And hopefully, the conversation will be good.

Early Years and a Small World Becoming Bigger

I was trying to think of how I wanted to divide up this episode. It feels unique because I have three people who have known me from very different stages of my life. So I'll start from the very beginning, elementary school and sixth grade, which is kind of wild because I haven't really thought of myself as a 10-year-old in a really long time. It's been interesting to kind of reflect on who I was and who I've become.

But in elementary school, I honestly felt like my world was kind of small in that I really only thought about myself and the immediate people next to me. This concept of traveling and studying other things wasn't really in my headspace as a 10-year-old.

I was really big into reading. I loved the Percy Jackson series, which I'm sure Jaina will talk more about because she and I have been through the trenches together for that.

And I also really liked recess. I mean, everyone's going to say recess is probably their favorite subject in elementary school. But my favorite game at recess was playing capture the flag. Unfortunately, it got banned because too many people were getting hurt because, I guess, our elementary school class just took it very seriously.

But as a 10-year-old, I didn't really have too many friends. I feel like I just kind of kept to my people, and Jaina was probably the number one person in my life at that time. I feel like I grew up at her house. Her mom was kind of like second family to me. And Jaina would always come over. Sometimes she would tell my parents she was coming over and not me, and then I'd come home and be like, "Oh, what a fun surprise."

Yeah, I honestly think Percy Jackson was probably the biggest part of my personality. And embarrassingly enough, also the "Warrior Cat" series for any listeners . . .

Jaina: I was going to say. Yeah.

Sanila: . . . that have read that.

Jaina: It's interesting that you say you felt like your worldview was really small, because I feel like ever since I knew you from a really young age, you've always been very inquisitive and very curious about things. So I feel like you always had it in you. It's just that you didn't have the life experience yet. But very interesting that's how you viewed yourself, or reflecting back, that's how you felt.

Sanila: Yeah, I don't know. I guess this concept of society and my role in the community just didn't really exist for me.

Jaina: No, that would make sense for someone who's 10.

Sanila: Yeah. I feel like as a kid . . . I don't know. It's nice to know that you saw me that way, and it is always a little weird to see how other people perceive me. Yeah, I definitely was in my head and it was just me and a 10-foot vicinity all the time.

And I really think maybe elementary school wasn't that particularly transformative. I think I was still figuring out what I liked and what kind of person I wanted to be.

Middle School Bravery

And then when I got to middle school, I went out of district because the middle school I went to had an accelerated learning program. In my household, my parents really stressed education as an important part of life and also the way to kind of learn more about the world, connect with your community, and figure out what kind of role you wanted to have there with the people around you.

So I went to that middle school and I remember having to take the bus every day to get there. And bus life was so interesting. This is where Joy comes in, because Joy and I would sometimes have to ride the bus together. We lived in different cities, but sometimes at the end of the day I still remember the ring of the announcement where they would be like, "This bus number has to now pair with this other bus. Seats are going to fill up, so you guys have to get to the bus quickly," and it would just be a race to get to the bus so that we would have a seat on there. I think Joy and I really bonded over that.

Joy: It's really interesting too because when I reflect back on middle school and specifically middle-school Sanila, just a very different personality from the Sanila we know now and have grown up to know.

And so, like Sanila said, in elementary school and even throughout middle school, a lot more of a reserved person, very connected to the people she was closest with. Whereas now I feel like a lot of times I think of you, Sanila, as someone who is just very outgoing, very much wants to formulate connections with new people and just experience and learn about different backgrounds and experiences from different people.

But I remember in middle school, very much one of the artsy nerds, book nerds in middle school. I have that very distinct image of the smaller Sanila being that way.

And so I think it's just so funny that the thing that we're kind of bonded by in middle school, because we kind of had different friends at that time, is this shared memory of the bus being so traumatizing. You have a bunch of prepubescent teens figuring out hygiene, crammed into a very small, un-air-conditioned bus in the hot, warm months in Utah weather.

So, yeah, I think it's just really funny to hear about and reflect on some of those memories that Sanila and I had through our middle school days.

Sanila: Yeah. But I will say I think middle school is probably the first time I kind of experimented with going out of my comfort zone. And this will be a fun fact for our listeners. I thought I was going to become a theater kid, because middle school was the first time I took a theater class, and I actually really liked it.

I am not one to be on a stage. I do not like being perceived. I quite despise when everyone is looking at me. And I feel like performing is pretty exhausting. But I don't know, the stage was calling to me. I really liked being the main role in the plays we did.

So I took two electives in theater, and then, ultimately, decided that I wanted to pursue something else, so I stopped. My life could have been so different if I kept that up.

High School Transformations

Good segue into . . . Well, actually, we're going to skip high school because, honestly, high school for me was not that relevant. I did not like high school. Long story short, I cared a lot about academics and really tried hard to get a good spot at a good college. High school was pretty much just straight classes and getting good grades. Didn't really experiment much there.

Jaina: Oh, that's interesting.

Sanila: So we'll flash forward . . .

Joy: Right. I feel like there is . . .

Jaina: You have to do high school.

Joy: . . . middle school Sanila, elementary school Sanila. Yes. And Sanila definitely is correct. She was a nerd in high school. Very academically driven, very high achieving. All of that is very accurate.

I would say I do think there was some level of experimentation in terms of just . . . I mean, Sanila got into some relationships, developed some partnerships in high school, which I feel like we all remember fondly now. Obviously, when you're a high schooler experiencing it in real time, it was crazy, as in just a lot of navigating interpersonal relationships and interpersonal conflict.

And I remember, as an outsider, Sanila would come to me and say, "My boyfriend is saying this, blah, blah, blah." Me being like, "Oh my gosh." It was a lot of teenage girl fanfare around high school athletes.

Jaina: Yeah, I can attest to that too. I feel like yes, to everything that you said, Sanila. I got to see you through so many creative spurts throughout life, whether it be through writing, through gaming, through creating videos together, through just so many different things. I feel like that's truly how we bonded.

But I do think the defining thing that I remember from high school for you was navigating a lot of interpersonal relationships. And I feel like you really grew out of your shell then. I know that you said that you grew out of your shell in middle school, but I feel like senior year of high school is also when you really, really branched out a lot more too.

Joy: I agree with what Jaina said. I think that senior year was kind of the early seeds of what would come later on in undergrad, because it was a lot more of . . . My perspective on what was happening with you is that it was building the confidence in approaching new people and showcasing your personality to people outside of your most intimate circle. As much as it was just high school girls being high school girls, it was also just an important growth period for you socially.

Sanila: Y'all, I must have suppressed all of that because high school was a blur.

Joy: Clearly.

Sanila: I mean, truthfully, and maybe some of you listeners can agree, I think for some of us, high school can be pretty transformative and that kind of is when your world gets bigger. You meet a lot of different people. You start thinking about maybe what your future is going to look like, whether you want to go straight into work or pursue another degree.

And for me, pursuing another degree was the route that I had chosen for myself. So that's why I remember it as being really academic, because I feel like I wanted to make sure that I was in a good spot to graduate and so forth. But it is nice to know that y'all see it as pretty transformative in terms of a moment of growth for me.

College as a Turning Point

But we're going to flash forward to college because I feel like college is really when my world kind of exploded. I went to the University of Utah, and I studied anthropology and ethnic studies.

And actually, I kind of had a feeling that I wanted to do something medicine-related. I initially was going to major in a STEM field, probably biology, and Jaina was the one who introduced me to anthropology. She met with an academic advisor at The U, and then came to me one day and was like, "Hey, this major is really great. Have you heard about it? Lots of people who go into medicine major in this."

So in a way, she kind of shaped the beginning of my college career. And I am so grateful for that because I know I'm in medicine, but I don't think I'm a STEM girly at least, not enough to be a biology major and do 72 credits of straight biology.

So anthropology was a good route for me to take, and that was my first intro into learning about other people and traditions in an educational sense, and with a research lens.

And then I eventually picked up ethnic studies as a major as well just because I realized that I really liked learning about different cultures. And also, truthfully, ethnic studies was a pretty short major, so I felt like I could add it and not have to be super overwhelmed each semester.

But this is also where Zahra comes in. My first and second year, I lived with randomly assigned roommates, and that was great. Sometimes not great. And then my third year is when I had an empty room and I was a resident advisor. Zahra was, by happenstance, looking to switch rooms and she ended up in my dorm room. That's how we became friends.

And that was a time where I was studying for the MCAT because I had decided that medicine was the path I wanted to pursue. I think this is probably my . . . Ugh, was it spring semester of senior year?

Zahra: Wait. Are you talking about when you were studying for the MCAT or . . .

Sanila: Mm-hmm.

Zahra: Yeah. I'll cut in because I have a very vivid memory of this time in our friendship and our time in our life. Sanila once saw me at the TRAX station. I was leaving campus to go help a friend move, actually, and Sanila had seen me standing at the station from our dorm. Our dorm had a view of where the train station was.

And so she had texted me and was like, "Hey, where are you going? You're at the TRAX station. I can see you." And I was like, "Oh. I'm going to a friend's to help her move." Sanila was like, "Oh. Well, I can drive you there if you want. I have my car." And I was like, "Okay, sounds good."

And so Sanila has always been the type of person to do a small favor for anyone. Her form of love and care is picking people up from the airport or doing little errands with them. That has been a through-line in our entire friendship, and it was the reason why I think we became friends.

She dropped me off to my other friend's, who I was helping move, and we talked a little bit. After that, I had made brownies, I think, at some point and I had asked Sanila if I could bring some over. And then I had been talking about how I really didn't like where I was living and wanted to change dorms. And Sanila was like, "Oh, I'm the RA and I have a free room in my dorm. You should see if you can transfer." After she said that, I was like, "I need to find a way to transfer into Sanila's dorm."

And yeah, Sanila was studying for the MCAT all spring semester. I could have barely guessed that. We were having so much fun. I know she was putting in hours every single day, but Sanila always made time for our relationship and so many others.

We were in COVID, so campus was still kind of shut down. But I know you were putting in the hours every day and I couldn't tell the difference in our friendship at all.

I've learned a lot from our friendship, of there's not really a limit on how much you can show up and love people. It just seems to be a limitless quality that she has. She's like, "Yeah," and keeps showing up time and time again for a million different people.

Sanila: Thanks, Zahra. That was so sweet.

Jaina: I think, Zahra, when you were talking about . . . Yes to everything. Sanila really used her car to really do things for people, and that's really her act of service. I mean, one really good example of that was when, during COVID, she ended up dropping off food for someone.

Zahra: Don't do this. Are you doing this?

Jaina: But it was such a kind act. And the only reason why I think I remember it now is because of . . .

Zahra: This poor girl.

Jaina: . . . Sanila getting hit by a TRAX.

Sanila: This haunts me. And no one will ever let me live it down. I remember this vividly, A, because it happened to me, but also B, because everyone keeps bringing it up. And we celebrate my TRAXiversary each year.

Jaina: April 15th.

Sanila: April 15th for our listeners. You can celebrate with us if you'd like. Well, my car got hit by the TRAX. It was my fault kind of, but I was the one that got hit, so let's make that clear.

Joy: I feel like there's just . . . The way this is being narrated . . .

Zahra: Can someone else tell the story?

Joy: . . . there's a very strong slant on what happened.

Jaina: Go ahead, Joy.

Joy: And I just feel like a misjustice is being . . .

Jaina: Go ahead.

Joy: Thank you. Let me take this over. Like Jaina introduced the story, it is true that Sanila was doing what she does best, which is acts of service. She shows up for people, always is willing to go the extra mile, obviously, sometimes to a fault.

This was one of the times because it was COVID. She was trying to organize something for ASUU. There was a member of the board who lived in Daybreak and was unable to have something delivered to their place. So Sanila kindly went to go deliver it.

Upon her return to the dorms . . . If any of you are familiar with the landscape of the University of Utah's campus, near the Marriott Honors Community dorms, there is the TRAX station that crosses the road that you would turn in to get into the parking lot. And so Sanila ended up turning as the train was approaching and got t-boned by the train.

Zahra: It was torn up.

Sanila: I'm going to interject here and add an important piece of information. I was distracted because I was worried about making this meeting for student government on time, and it happened to be rush hour at 5:00 p.m.

In the opposite direction, there was a lot of traffic and one car stopped to make room for me to take my left turn and she waved me to go through. And so then I, unknowing that TRAX was coming right up the hill, took my left turn and then I got t-boned. So can we really place all the blame on me?

Zahra: Yes.

Sanila: I don't think so.

Joy: Well, the state court system did. The state court . . .

Sanila: They did, and it haunts me to this day.

Joy: . . . system did place all the blame on you.

Jaina: Right. I think the lesson here is that Sanila would be willing to take a hit to the TRAX for you, really, to do anything.

Zahra: Big hit on the car just for you.

Sanila: It was a pivotal moment in my life, I will say.

Zahra: I'm sorry that it made the podcast.

Jaina: I'm sorry.

Zahra: It can be cut.

Learning, Culture, and Community as Foundations for Identity

Sanila: Yeah. And throughout this time, too, this is when Jaina, Joy, Zahra, and I kind of became a friend group as well. And something that kind of underscored my college career was how academic the three of them were. They were all very good at their studies. They poured time into being good students. They were taking pretty heavy course loads. And I think I wanted to emulate that because that was my community.

And so I drew a lot of inspiration. I was like, "Oh my gosh, they're going to go study at the library. I need to go study." Although I will say in my senior year, that motivation seriously dipped because I would just leave the library and be like, "All right. I have nothing left to study, nor do I want to, so I'm going to go on a walk instead." And so that's kind of what my senior year became.

But they were always really academic and I always really admired that. And I think learning has become really important to me as well when I figure out what my identity is and the role I want to have and things like that.

Another point I wanted to bring up is living with Zahra has also kind of reinforced the importance of culture to me. Zahra and I bonded over our backgrounds and our home life, and it just made me realize how important having that sense of family is as well.

And I think that has been something that has also underscored my journey into medical school, which we can now segue into.

COVID happened, college graduation happened, it was a great time, and then I went right into medical school at the University of Utah after I graduated, which I guess was kind of a blessing and a curse. It was nice because I didn't have to relearn how to study. I was kind of used to going to school and learning. But then also it would have been nice to have a little bit more of a break.

But that summer in between graduation and medical school, Zahra and I both went to New York for the summer and lived there in a little apartment. And that was also pretty transformative for me because that was my first time being in a really big city. I lived in Philadelphia for a summer prior to that, but I think New York was very daunting and overwhelming and new. So that was exciting.

Oh, and fun fact, I lived in Philadelphia with Joy, actually. So we all have lots of things we have done together and memories we have made.

But New York was important because I remember Zahra was gone quite a few weekends to visit family, because she has some family on the East Coast. And so some weekends I would be alone in the city and I was like, "Oh my gosh, let me romanticize this. I'm going to go get a nice latte and go on a hot girl walk and explore the city."

That was really good for my sense of independence. It was important for me to learn how to be okay being alone and kind of figure out what to do with my boredom if I was bored, have a really strong sense of self. So I do feel like that was a pretty important moment for me in terms of living somewhere new with roommates, but also sometimes having to be on my own.

Growing Through Challenge in Medical School and Beyond

And then in the fall, medical school started. I remember being kind of scared that I wasn't going to make any friends, because a lot of my classmates at the time were partnered or had kids or had other family or had worked in other careers before switching to medicine, and I was like this little kid coming straight from college. I was like, "Oh my gosh, what am I going to talk to people about? The latest TikTok trends? That is not going to be interesting at all."

And so it was kind of nerve-wracking to know if I was going to find my community and how I was going to do that.

I remember that first week of medical school when I was interacting with all of my classmates, it was so cool to see all the different walks of life people came from. Everyone brought a different perspective to our cohorts. They added something meaningful. And honestly, I learned a lot from just talking with people.

And so being curious and asking people questions and wanting to understand where other people are coming from became really important to me, especially because a lot of these people are going to be my future colleagues as well.

Needless to say, medical school has been, obviously, a big part of my life. It's been the last four years and it has consumed me in a lot of ways, but also it has kind of opened my world up to be a lot bigger.

I feel like I've made a lot of meaningful relationships and just learned a lot about life and what it means to show up for people and love them and care about them and support them through some pretty hard times.

And a sense of community became especially more important for me in medical school, both within the hospital when I'm working with my colleagues and then also outside of the hospital.

I really do think that's kind of . . . community wellness is an important facet of individual wellness. And I think that outlines a lot of my interactions with the people around me today.

But Joy has known me through medical school because she's been in Utah, and then Jaina and Zahra have been in New York for their job. So our friendship recently has been a long-distance friendship, but they've heard me vent for countless hours over the phone about my medical school journey. But Joy has kind of been here in the trenches with me through it all.

Joy: Very true. I have been around. And I think that a lot of it has been just building on what Sanila had been so intentional about creating in undergraduate. Like she said earlier, it was a lot of community building, being really intentional about connecting with others, and establishing relationships, which I think, very true to what Zahra said, has been a through-line for so much of Sanila's adult life, I would say, for sure.

And I think also kind of being on the outside of med school as someone who . . . I work in the health sciences academics of the university as well. And so I think having that additional level of adjacency helps me kind of see, too, a little bit more of not only what's happening for students academically, but also being Sanila's really close friend, comparing that to what maybe is happening more personally.

I think that something that is true for Sanila and has been true for so long, like Zahra said, is just a really great all-around balance, as hard as that is to come by.

For so many people, no matter what challenges they're tackling, I think that Sanila has always maintained a priority on being present for people, which she just said is a really grounding force in her life.

And I think that by prioritizing that, I personally, as an outsider, have seen with her just someone who's been able to really balance the challenges of academically-rigorous programs alongside all the other things that go into preparing for residency applications, while also showing up for the people that she loves and cares about. Not only the ones that she's met through medical school, but also the folks that she's had relationships with from undergraduate and, for my case, before then.

I think medical school has been transformative. Obviously, you've learned so much, Sanila, and I've been marveled at how much you've been able to learn and what you can do now, and what I already know you're going to be able to do as you take this next step into residency.

But I think that, to me, the greatest thing about med school is that I feel like it had you dig in really deep and formulate some really strong connections and, in a way, prioritize. There are so many things that are happening in life. Where are those priorities with the people that you love and care about? And that's just a really admirable quality, I think.

Looking Back to Look Forward

Sanila: Thanks, Joy. To your point about balance, I mean, it's been really hard, I think, when you're trying to figure out how you can be intentional about relationships and then also stay on top of studies. It takes a lot of adapting and change.

Sometimes inevitably, unfortunately to say, you can't always show up for people in the way you want to. And sometimes, at least for me, I've relied a lot on my friends to help me be a better person and be honest about when I haven't been able to be there for them in the way that they would have hoped, or if I didn't meet certain expectations, or if I maybe disappointed someone.

And I think that growth is also really important for me just in terms of how I can be a better person, but also how I can be a better friend to the people that I really care about.

I do think that when people have hard conversations with you, it's because they really care about you and they're willing to put in that work to create something that's sustainable and long-lasting, and build a friendship that goes a little bit deeper than the surface.

So I think my friends have shaped who I am today, and that's been a really important part of me. And as I go into residency, it's also kind of shaped what I want in a residency program.

This has been a theme throughout this podcast episode, but community is really important to me and I really want to be able to join a program that has a strong sense of community or a place where I can kind of contribute and help build that.

For those of our listeners who don't know, I just applied OB-GYN, which is pretty exciting. But I think OB-GYN does have a lot of moments of vulnerability and difficult experiences, and being able to work with the team and have a safety net and support system I think will be really important for my future growth and residency as well.

All this to say, it's kind of crazy to think about me as a 10-year-old reading Percy Jackson with Jaina at home, and then gaming online, to middle school when I thought I was going to be a theater kid and then eventually didn't, and then met Joy and we bonded over bus trauma, and then to college where I feel like my world exploded and community became really important to me. I met Zahra and that reinforced the importance of family and culture.

And then now to medical school where I feel like I am just still continuing to grow into the person I want to be, and then the future physician I hope to be.

When I was kind of thinking about what I wanted to talk about in this episode, I feel like the idea that I want to share with all of our listeners is . . . At least for me, I feel like growth is always happening. And sometimes it's easier to see it when you're reflecting compared to when you're just thinking about it or going from day to day.

I feel like the older I get, the shorter a year feels. I look back on the four years of medical school, and in the moment it felt like forever. I was like, "Oh my gosh, when is this going to end?" And now I'm like, "Oh my gosh, that went by so quickly." And now a year is a really short proportion to my entire lifespan. So I feel like the time is flying.

I heard someone once say that medical school is long days and short weeks. And I feel like that is especially true when I've been reflecting on my time so far.

Most importantly, I feel like my community has shaped me throughout the years, and my friends are the reason I am who I am today. And I draw a lot of inspiration from the people around me.

It's interesting to think about what moments you've shared with your community that have maybe changed the way you behave or the way you interact or are curious about the world around you. There are things that I've learned from Jaina, Joy, and Zahra throughout our lives that I still carry with me today. And that's been really important.

And also, they're shaping my future as well. Joy asked me last week if I wanted to be in a puzzling competition. And I've never done that before, but I'm going to do it. It's going to be the first time and it's going to be fun.

But I just continue to be able to engage in new experiences with people that I probably never would have otherwise. And I feel like my community has opened my world a lot.

In particular, I think there's a gift in having friends who have known me from different eras of my life and have seen me grow throughout the years. I think together they helped create an indestructible support system for me, and that has been really rewarding.

For our listeners, for me, it has been fun to think of how I've grown and changed over the years. So if y'all are just driving and need something to think about, think about your 10-year-old self and how you've changed since then, and maybe the type of person that you want to be for your communities as well.