Flattery

I’ve been told by quite a few people recently how much they enjoy reading this blog when I actually get around to updating it. Gosh, it feels weird even typing that. I’m not one to do self-congratulatory writing. ANYway, flattery will get you everywhere right? So here’s me updating. Although I cant promise any kind of wit or sarcasm due to the paucity of sleep and the immensity of stress in my life right now. So that means this post will be full of frustration, whines, rants, anxiety, and nerves. You’ve been warned.

Oh but first off, a big shout-out to the future Dr. Tonetti for his acceptance to UMD School of Med! Congrats smarty-pants, I knew you had it all along :)

Midterms begin next week. But before that we have a four day Thanksgiving weekend beginning tomorrow. Well today rather. I still haven’t figured out what we’re giving thanks for- I think it has something to do with American ‘liberation’ but I’ve no time to delve into the possibilities. So while all the 1st and 2nd termers are doing things like going to the beach or island hopping [or frantically apartment searching as the case may be- housing lottery failed a lotta people this time around], the 4th termers are hunkering deep down at Taylor trying to drown themselves in their Path books. I assume 5th termers are in a similar state of mind as their exams are a week after ours.

Holy hell am I scared for this Path exam. I finally understand what everyone means when they say that ‘real’ Path doesn’t start until after the first midterm. You could give me an exam on each individual system alone and I’d be scared but when you stick Pulmonary, Cardio, Heme, and GI together and top it off with a nice dollop of Peds Path, it’s surely a recipe for disaster. So I’m petrified. I realize the boards will be a lot scarier what with 2 years of material as opposed to 4 weeks of Path, but hey, baby steps here.

So that’s that. THEN, there’s my CPD lab exam which I have a mere 2.5 hours after Path. Like I’m not going to be brain-drained after 3 hours of Path, I have to get all gussied up and leave my fate up to what test I draw out of an envelope! Blargh. ANYthing but thyroid or cardio and I will be okay. And lets pray for a sweet tutor. On a related side note, the Clinical Skills Dept released an announcement on Angel specifying the dress code for the lab exam for both guys and gals. For females it specifically says that anything “topless” will be prohibited which begs the question, exactly WHAT did females in years past show up in? Just their bras? I imagine it’d be easier to practice percussion of the pre-cordial area that way but seriously?

After that, I have 2.5 days to study for Micro on Friday. We have 7 fewer lectures this time but I also haven’t spent nearly enough time with them as Path has sucked me in so we’ll see how that goes. I have a very small window of questions to get wrong to get an A so this should be wonderfully nerve-wracking.

And so you think I’m done right? Because Micro is on a Friday and that’s the end of the week? WRONG. The written CPD exam is on Monday. So that’s not one but two weekends completely borked by studying. And they weren’t just any normal weekends- Thanksgiving and Halloween at that! After the Stoplight party got canceled last term, I totally jumped at the chance to use my Stoplight costume for Halloween instead. So much for that…maybe I’ll just wear it around the house on Saturday.

So at long last, I will be partying my little heart out on MONDAY after the CPD exam. Making it to 8 a.m. Nutrition on Tuesday morning should be an interesting feat. Although there was that one time last term, I made it to Thursday morning- 8 a.m. Physio after being out at Stuart’s and Bananas until 5 a.m. the night before. But that was mainly because I needed to prove a point to everyone who said I couldn’t do it. Pretty sure I slept through half of lecture and/or had to Sonic it to catch all the parts I miss. Ah well. It’s the principle of things.