Institutionalised Communities

During the last few days I was confronted by two different people who questioned my commitment towards the project that are running at almost the same time. The demands of my daily class schedule, could not be compromised to fulfill my duties during the midweek, and when each of the commitments clash, I had to choose one at the risk of forsaking the other. I tried to please all three sides, but I couldn't.

"Kerepok, if you can't come for the practice tomorrow, then I am sorry you can't be part of this,"

"Kerepok, I noticed that you did not do really well in this. I would like to see you sometime during the weekday to buck that up. If you can't come, then I am sorry you cannot be in it,"

"Kerepok, if you don't attend your anatomy, physiology, histology and clinical skills lab, I am sorry you will fail your assessments and cannot be part of the medical programme,"

"Kerepok, if I were you, I would make it a priority to attend this every weekend. It is a must as a believer and there is no other excuse on earth you can give not to go for this"

These three groups assume that:

a) I do not attend the required meetings because of my laziness
b) I am using the lame reason of being a med student to skip these meetings
c) I have as much spare time and commitment as some of them do

But one thing that I do not understand is that,

a) None of the groups actually sit down and ask me the reason of not attending meetings, the complications that surround my reasons for skipping meetings, the guilt that I feel, the effort I made to attend the meetings, the problems that I faced that lead to me skipping meetings.

b) They seem to be more interested in the end product, rather than the people involved. I am probably treated more as volunteer to achieve certain organisational goals, rather than celebrating my individuality and my community. At the most, relationships within the organisational seem to be superficial and conditional (eg: only if you attend our meetings, we will hang out with you).

I sometimes wonder why do I end up in institutionalised communities, hahaha.