Tales of a Brown-Haired Freak

I suppose it's about time I mentioned exam week - I know you've all been breathlessly waiting to see how it went. Or something. How about I just tell you anyway?

( Lots of details are just one click away! )

38 days to go!

So I did great on the micro exam, but I attribute that mostly to luck (on an exam where a fifth of the class failed, statistics say at least a few people are going to get A's, even if only by guessing). The exam was horrible and at least moderately unfair, but now it's over and that's all there is to say about that. I'd like to say I did well on the path exam, but the truth is that I'm still not sure. Here's the deal:

We wrote the exam. Then we all celebrated. During celebrations, someone said something along the lines of "sure am glad I had that recording of last term's post-exam review! Those 5-10 questions really saved my butt." People nearby said various things to the effect of "There was a recording? Why didn't you share it with me? I wish I'd had it. Oh well - maybe next time."

But one person heard, and said, "OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD!!!! THERE WAS A FILE? AND I DIDN'T GET IT? THOSE PEOPLE WERE CHEATING!!!!!11!ELEVEN!!! I'M TELLING!!!!" and went to the course director about it. The director said "Yeah, and?" and ignored her, as the recoding was common knowledge amongst the Powers That Be and no more cheating than using copies of old tests as practice questions. So she went to the dean. (keep in mind that she wasn't upset about people cheating - her outrage came solely from the fact that she didn't get the chance to do so herself. When similar items have been available in the past, she's quite happily used them without any complaints).

Of course, the dean has to do somehting - that's why he's the dean. So a few days later we get an email tellng us to sit tight, we'll get our grades this week after they "clear up some confusion."

Fast forward to today - no grades. Little Miss Tantrum's outburst is now common knowledge (with some alterations and exaggerations, in typical rumor-mill style) with all the expected disgust and resentment. A mass email gets sent out, that essentially says "Test has been compromised! Turn yourselves in and we'll be lenient! Failure to do so will result in expulsion! Free ice cream for anyone who rats out their friends! Fail to do so and you'll all have to retake the exam! This message will self-destruct in 24 hours!"

And that's that. I'm really hoping that the retaking the test idea is an empty threat and they'll just drop the contested questions, since there really isn't much time to study for it on top of everything else right now. And no, I didn't have the file - I tried to get my hands on it after I heard about the whole scandal, but oddly enough, I can't find anyone willing to admit to any knowledge of its existence prior to a few days ago. Go figure.

You know, fourth term is a strange one. Strangest of all is that for once, everyone you talk to gives you the same advice. Everyone! The people who got A's last term say exactly the same thing as the people who decelled - they say "Path is really interesting, be nice to your group, study hard, and never ever forget about micro." And then they say "No, really. Micro is the course everyone puts off till the last minute, but don't do it! Stay up to date on your micro!"

Of course, this is pretty obvious advice. Who in their right mind would put off a 5 credit course? 5 credits is a lot - that's the same as physio or neuro. And remembering how much work physio was, its only obvious that one would want to devote a pretty healthy amount of time to mastering the art of telling microbes apart - or whatever it is we're supposed to be learning in that class.

( I'm supposed to be doing my slides for next week right now. Instead, I'm writing this. Kind of ironic, when you think about it. )

We celebrated post-midterms in traditional fashion (Rick's, beach, hash, and House), and I'm correspondingly burned, sandy, sore, and entertained. Unfortunately, this term is planned so that we don't actually get the entire weekend off. Consequently, it's back to studying for a big upcoming week (pulmonary path AND GI micro?! Are they trying to punish us for something?). Well, that and watching tv. Because it's still the weekend, and I intend to get my money's worth, dammit.

Well, they're done, and the view from this side of things is a lot greener. Immuno was a gift (100 first order questions of the "which antibody crosses the placenta" variety) and neuro would have been easy if it hadn't been so poorly-written. If ever I've suspected a question-writer of being ESL, now is it. But anyway, I rocked physio (entirely unexpectedly, I assure you. I keep checking to see if they put up someone else's mark by mistake but no, I did well), kicked immuno's ass (the last time I did this well on a midterm was grade ten foods course, where the test involved making vegetable soup!), and did well enough on neuro that I can probably drag it up to an A on the final. Needless to say, I'm very pleased.

Friday after the exam J and I went out for lunch and re-stocked our cupboards buy way of IGA. Spent the afternoon eating brownies and ice cream and watching House and then I headed out to help set up for Sandblast. Ended up at the Talent show (much better than the last one I saw!), where I ate a fantastic burger and drank terrible beer.

Saturday involved getting up early (groan) to cook breakfast for the sandblast crew. Finished up with a swim and got home with just enough time to shower and change for the hash run. Wow! It was in St David, near la Sagesse, and was absolutely beautiful. And steep - I swear we made it to the highest point on the island at some point, but it was well-worth the view.

Today I finally managed to sleep in before we headed to Groom's beach for some snorkeling at the mostly-deserted beach. Besides the group of locals that kept staring at us, it as fu. there's a little reef there that's home to about a million sea urchins of various types and a whole lot of pretty fish - definitely worth it for a free, relaxing afternoon. And now I'm home and tired and about to open up neuro for round two. No rest for the wicked, as ever.

That was a long and difficult test. Disgustingly difficult, you might even say. Really, every last drop of knowledge has been pulled out of my brain, ran through the strainer, and wrung out. I'm mentally tired and physically jittery (though that may be from the extra-strong coffee I had for breakfast because we are out of cereal).

Of course, I'm talking about physio. 2nd, 3rd, and 50th order questions designed to make you remember every last thing you ever learned or suspected about cardiovascular biology in hopes of finding the right answer. Bizarrely tricky ones where the answers were all correct...except for a single word (and, no, it wasn't "alwasys." Those ones are easy). And then there were some where I wasn't sure what he was asking, even after I looked at the answers. There weren't any that I outright guessed on, but there were a few where I couldn't narrow it down below 3 possibilities, and one where I'm still certain the correct answer was supposed to be "all of the above" (it was missing E, but the proctor said it was okay. Who knows?).

Long story short, the test was everything I'd been warned it would be. Dammit. At least it's over now.

Not mine, but nearby. Without a doubt, my least favourite day of any given term is the day before exams begin. If you already know what you're about, the hours drag by as you hunt through your notes for some fact that you haven't already studied, reading and rereading until it's all just a meaningless jumble too time-consuming to sort out. It's too late to learn anything new, so you focus on memorizing last-minute picky little details and reading the answers to practice questions in the hopes of squeezing one last point out of the test.

If you are behind, the day is the opposite, hours flying by as you struggle to learn a concept that's been eluding you for weeks. As you run out of time, you sacrifice thoroughness for speed, panic building as you leave each section behind only half-learned. Studying becomes a gamble of "what will be on the test" instead of actually learning your stuff, and practice questions are wishful thinking, at best.

My on-campus studying today saw a mixture of the two. For every person idly watching sonic foundry lectures and cleaning their nails, the was someone taking up half the row of desks with studying debris, frantically eying the clock and leaving only to shout tearfully at their boyfriend/roommate/mechanic on their cellphones and buy another energy drink before retiring to cry in the bathroom.

Last term at this time I suspect I was more of the latter. Today, I think I'm the former. I'm not sure which is better.

I've been a terrible LJ-updater this term. But i have good reasons, I swear! I've been doing important medical-studenty things. Like the surgery selective. That's been fun so far, despite the fact that poor-planning has intersected with weight loss and leaves me looking rumpled at best in my too-big, heat-wrinkled "professional" clothes. One day I'll learn to bring more than one set of dress clothes when I come here! Basically, I'm in the hospital twice a week for a few hours each, learning basic procedures and scrubbing in when there's surgeries going on. Since it just started a couple of weeks ago and half of that has been spent in lectures, I haven't done much - mostly patient interviews and learning suturing techniques (not on real people yet, through that'll come in time). I got to scrub in yesterday on a surgery for a Brodie's Abcess. Lots of chiseling and boring involved, and far more blood than expected, even with the limb tourniqueted. And I even remembered enough of my lower-limb anatomy to not make a complete fool of myself! (By the way, if you ever spend 20 minutes cleaning and wrestling with a leg before wrapping it to drain the blood away from the foot, only to realize that you've put the tourniquet 6 inches too low, don't worry! Just grab a spare latex glove and tie it on real tight - it's just as good as doing it the so-called "right" way.)

Midterms are a week away and neuro has wrapped up (next week is scheduled for clinical case discussions, ie review) so I'm free to turn my attention to physio, where the GI tract is heating up (as much as a topic that is 60% vomit and diarrhea can, at least) and immuno, where my sanity (and likely my GPA) has been saved by a hero in the unlikely form of a 4th term DES tutor. Bret, you're the best - 2nd term collectively thanks you!

Lastly, I'm fighting off a weird cold that's combining a sore throat and what feels like perpetual eyestrain. I'm hoping it comes and goes quickly, so that I can stop spending my loan money on lozenges and painkillers and put it to better use, like ice cream. Sadly, I suspect it'll hit it's peak on friday, because that just how the universe seems to roll these days.