Last one up!

Man oh man... my last exam of fourth term is in 11 hours, and do I ever *not* have the impetus to study for it.

This week was started off by the last path exam, as mentioned, and in it being the last came one of the biggest feelings of relief of my natural class. The boogeyman of SGU is no more. Well, hopefully. It was pointed out to me that they're not going to post the grades until Friday at 4. Now, they usually don't post until the Friday afterward, ostensibly so you aren't distracted for your other exams.

So then why, 4 PM? Hmm... Friday before everyone leaves, post the scores at the end of the day, most people leaving this weekend, so there's no way anyone can contest anything. Clever, path department. And fairly typical of them.

I had my CPD lab exam on Wednesday and got the super duper nice examiner with the half-compliant, barely awake patient. And no, that wasn't his "condition"; that was actually the way he was. He also didn't have deep tendon reflexes, which is disheartening when you're trying to perform them for an examination, until the examiner informs you of this, and lets you beat on her with a reflex hammer.

But she was really sweet. Complimented me on my kit; asked me really fair questions, didn't do that "insane amount of pressure and criticizing your every move" thing which some of them do, and it really screws up people's mojo.

So that was good. But it still is hard to get up the effort to study for the written. Instead, I'm so overwhelmed by the fact that in a week I'm going to be in Berlin that it's hard to focus on anything else. I'm examed out. I'm tired of filling in scantrons, tired of my student ID number, tired of standard issue #2 mechanical pencils, and wish to increase my etOH content.

On the plus side, the frequency of exams is starting to reduce the catastrophizing I did previously upon their arrival. It's easy to completely freak out when you're in your first term ever of medical school, each exam is worth roughly 50% of your grade, and you haven't figured out yet whether you're smart enough to be in med school. By the end of fourth term, it's almost an "Oh my god, I don't care anymore" sort of vibe. "Let me drop a letter grade because I can't focus for an hour. It's all the same."

More and more, people are planning less for the exam itself, and more for how they're going to schedule their packing around the festivities planned for ending 5 and a half months of pretty hard work.

The lack of nutrition is probably also contributing. After discovering my milk had gone bad, I had dry frosted flakes for breakfast and then at dinner, discovered a packet of chicken flavored top ramen hiding behind my IGA shopping bags, so didn't have to go hungry. And I can't go to the store because there's too little time, yet I somehow have a ton of food that I don't have the base ingredients for. I could have an 8 course fine dining dinner if only I had that cup of milk, or that one egg or those two tablespoons of butter.

Pretty collegey, eh? Now... to endocrine or not to endocrine. That is the question...