Another Pair Of Eyes

Aftermath

They are over, and after sleeping for 11 hours solid last night (possibly helped along by a generous quantity of alcohol) today got going with a cleanup. It was a strange feeling, picking up the empty pizza boxes and doing the piles of washing up, sweeping aside the last two weeks and putting them into the bins, down the sink, sucking them away with the hoover. You remember the feeling you have after an epic party when you’re wandering about in a slightly zombieoid state of weary necessity, slowly but inoxerably turning tip into tidiness? It was like that, with undertones of frantically trying to scrub away the filth after inadvertently falling into a heap of manure. Lovely.

Still, that’s done and I’m sitting in a freshly hoovered room, clear and tidy, laundry in the washing machine, nothing revision-related in sight. Yesterdays exam wasn’t the worst, nor the best, and I’d anticipate getting around 50%. While far below my usual standards, if I pass it I’ll be happy (not that it is relevant considering Tuesdays debacle of an exam which I have almost certainly failed).

Still, lesson learnt, the next term will be tackled with a vengence. On a final, positive note…during the hellish revision, the dire exams, the lows of crap food for days on end, one of my housemates said: “It might be shit, but it does remind me of why I love medicine.” He was right, it does, and I do.

Purely, abjectly, no hesitation.

Fiasco

Firstly, might I say that in the unlikely event that I have, through some miracle, passed today’s exam, it will still constitute the worst academic performance of my life. In fact, my only chance at passing is currently sitting in my inbox:

“Dear student

The School is aware that there were some problems associated with the BM5 Year 2 Semester 3 Short Notes examination this morning (Tuesday 27th January 2009) in the main examination venue.

Please would all those students involved be assured that, once the School has received the invigilators’ report providing further detail of the events, due consideration will be given to what happened. The incidents will be brought to the attention of the BM5 Year 2 Semester 3 Board of Examiners.

Good luck with the rest of your examinations.

Kind regards.”

The problems they mention include the distribution of the wrong paper, the redistribution of the wrong answer booklets, the mention of 20 minutes extra time as a consequence and the subsequent removal of that 20 minutes (you guessed it) 20 minutes later, and the finishing touch of having the fire alarm go off halfway through the fiasco and the ensuring cheating/chaos. Combined with the fact that it would appear that general, widespread absence of knowledge on anything the paper was asking for (10 mark question on something we had a 2 hour practical on, and were told not to bother learning because “You’ll be taught that in 4th year.”) I’m hoping that I might, just, have scraped the 50% pass mark via moderation and the fact that nobody really knew what hit them.

Annoyed, frustrated, disappointed. Tomorrow has better be good!

Painting Pictures

I’m sitting at a cluttered surface in the kitchen, on a stool with one bent leg and holding a pen with no lid. I don’t know where the lid is – hell, the body of the pen came from another pen which had run out in the first 6 pages. Realistically, I don’t know where very much of the pen is.

I’m surrounded by paper. Behind me, on the floor, is a 1200 page textbook, and open next to me, another. In front of me is my laptop and an open book, A4, like the ones you get in school. It cost me exactly 59p and around 20 hours so far, before it I just wrote questions and printed them. The paper to my right is less threatening – empty and half-empty Galaxy wrappers, a card with the words ‘Meropenem’ and ‘Aztreonam’ written on it dozens of times. Some bread, an empty bottle of vodka and a full one, though none has been drunk for days. Glasses and plates litter the surfaces in the kitchen, the sink is full, the drying rack is fuller, the stove is full of empty pans and there is no cutlery to be found anywhere. It should feel oppressive.

Music is on the air, it is angry music from a playlist helpfully entitled ‘ANGRY!!!’. Normally I’d choose silence, but when concentration slips angry music keeps you focused. That, and caffienated drinks – I’ve drunk 5 litres of coke in the last 3 and a half days, and I’ve got 1 and a half left. Tasty? Maybe. It’s ok. Many things are tasty when the last proper meal you cooked was on saturday, and only because people were around to make sure you did. It’s a shame that junk food makes you feel like junk though, otherwise it might be good. Non-sense.

Tomorrow, if I am very, very lucky, I will pass my first exam. The questions will have to be lucky indeed, the execution of those I do know, flawless. They will only get harder up until thursday. I don’t tend to think about anything after thursday, that can wait. The vodka will come with me on thursday though, someone else can bring the champagne. Perhaps the skittles bottle belongs too. We’ll see how it goes.

Quite the change from last year, eh?

In Rainbows

Sometimes you look up out of your window and something is different.

Colour is good.

Stats

I had a quick glance at the statistics on my site a short time ago, in the vein of upholding my repuation as a Person of Procrastinatory Excellence, to find that only 90% of you guys reading this are from the UK. Second place is held by Canada, with 5%, and the third by the US with 1.5%. The remainder all get that ‘Trace’ label you always find for ingredients like fat in orange juice, but include hits from all over (and down under).

I’m surprised, because I thought the only people who read this were people who either knew me or people I ‘know’ off the internet.

Hello, all you other people!

US Stem Cell Research

This has been a long time coming.

Story

As you might or might not know, this week has been All About Revision. And there is a lot of it, too: 10 weeks of neuro and 4 of GI and combined you’ve got the ingredients for a world of fun and games.* Hence why I’m here today, writing this rather than revising general anaesthetics. Hmmm.

Either way, the other day in a lecture I heard a story about a man who found he was getting depressed about his lack of success with women. This was regarding the ABC model of depression: Activating element (in this case, his lack of success with women) Belief (he believed that he was unlovable and would always be rejected) and Cause (his belief that he was unlovable and would always be rejected). Point was, a lot of people go directly from A to C, without acknowledging that there is a B in the middle which is the root of the problem – this is one of the things that CBT aims to address (which is what the lecture was about). In recognising this, he had something of a eureka moment and decided to go out into Central Park and ask 100 female passers-by if they’d like to go for dinner, and to hell with the consequences if they rejected him – it wouldn’t matter. The 87th lady he asked said yes and his depression was averted by his realisation that it was his belief causing the issue.

Simplified? Certainly. Harder than it sounds? Equally certain. Element of truth applicable to many? Lecturers tell me that evidence backs it up, although I’ve not gone and looked for myself for want of time.

Either way it goes, I think it’s a lovely story. Even if they didn’t get married. Life isn’t THAT perfect.**

I’ll get back to revision now.

*fun and games like not sleeping at night because you can’t switch off, not eating properly because you can’t be bothered to cook, no friends about, no love no joy and no escape because every minute you spend doing something else is a minute you later mentally berate yourself for skipping.

**Apparently if the continuing trend for being about as single as it is possible to be continues in our house until the last week of the year, we have to all go out to the common and ask out 100 women. Could turn interesting!