Smug As Pug With a Bug

Life: it sneaks up on you. What can I say? One day, you're ankle deep in mud pretending to be Godzilla, and the next, you are eight shots of espresso deep in an Anatomy book, wondering if you shall ever see the sun again. It's strange to think that there ever was another life besides this, and, yet, I'm always wishing that I had such a life.

As it stands, two study days are between me and my first final. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be enough time in the day for me to learn all that needs to be learned. I know that others in my class find themselves in the same difficult and taxing position of mediocrity that I find myself in, and that some sit in far more perilous positions. As we approach finals, my fondest prayer and wish is that my entire class and I shall emerge victorious from finals with our heads held high and be able to exclaim that we survived first year and made it to second year.



The Final Countdown:
Sunday: STUDY ALL THE THINGS! O_O
Monday: Study butt off for Anatomy. >_<
Tuesday: ANATOMY FINAL!!!!!!!!!AHHHHHHH!!!!! T_T
Wednesday: Virology Final
Thursday: Physiology Final
Friday: Epidemiology Final >_<
Satuday: Move to new apartment.
Sunday: Study for Parasitology.
Monday: Parsitology Final (AND SWEET SUMMER FREEDOM!!!!!)
Tuesday-Sunday: Sleep! <3
Monday: Back to work at the clinic. ^_^ Yay Monies!

I'm Just Hypersensitive About This, Okay!?

Only one more final left in Finals Week 2010. It's been horrible, grueling, disheartening, but I fought the good fight, regardless. Tomorrow's stab about my intelligence is Immunology. I've been studying all day, but cannot seem to focus correctly. I must admit, I am incredibly exhausted. To say that I lack the enthusiasm to go on would be an understatement. Vet school does that to you. While I know that they want us all to graduate, I feel like there's constantly a laser from a sniper rifle pointed straight at my forehead. I think that's why so many people in medical professions suffer nervous breakdowns. You're put in a place where everything is at odds with you. Usually, you don't have time to sleep, eating becomes a chore, and you lose social contacts because by the time you can talk to them you are exhausted and lack the verbal command to carry on a conversation. And, then, there's finals week which usually consists of 6-9 finals, all in varying degrees of "I'll just jump out the window" difficulty. You spend all your time focusing on your biggest problem class and get to a class that would have been easy to Ace, had you had more than a night or a few hours to study for it.

Regardless, in 8 short hours, my first semester is turning the final corner in its race to the finish line, and I think that I've been riding this pony long enough.

The Final Countdown: 1 DAY!!

Thursday: Immunology Final
Friday-January sometime: Sleep!!!!!!!

Your Argument is Invalid Because I Have a Rocket Launcher

You know those days that stand between you and freedom? The day you have worked so hard to prepare for, and you are burnt out on. So you strap on your best pair of combat boots and prepare for the final assault. You know that you will probably not sequester the fiend to achieve glorious victory, but that doesn't mean you won't give it your best shot and head out, head held high and guns readied.

This is kind of how I feel about my anatomy exam tomorrow. When you have spent well over 100 solid hours studying for something, you start to not really care anymore. You know that you don't know everything you need to (most of us). Though how anyone can when your teacher hands you a 300 page lab book and just says, "It's all in here", I'll never know. At this point, I find myself wallowing in a field of information so vast that I could never pack it all in even if I spent my life at it. After all, very few clients walk in and demand a list of innervations for the muscles of the thorax off the top of your head. You have your base knowledge of commonly used/lost muscles, innervations, and vessels, but you have a huge stack of reference books to fill in the gaps. I guess that what I am saying is that I now have this base knowledge, but I am not a reference book. I have trouble remembering what I had for dinner last night. I'm more adept of employing skills over a long term. I pick up information and continuously apply it over a span of 3-4 years and then it's there if I continue to use it.

I know this probably all made no sense. It really doesn't have to. I have given it my very best (more than I've ever given anything), and I just have to leave it at that. Do I know everything? No. Will I ever? No. But I'm here for the long haul. That's what school is about, right? You learn pieces to add to an ever increasing mental library of information. It isn't in the short term that you see results, but rather in the long term. I have no doubt that I will someday be a fantastic vet, not because I know everything or made A's on all of my tests in vet school, but because I truly, honestly, madly, deeply, unfathomably love the animals I hope to treat, the people I hope to teach, and the medicine that I am learning.

So, Dr. Anatomy, don't work so hard to discourage us. I know you probably don't mean to, but it really drags some of us down. It's okay though because we're all going to be wonderful vets in different ways. I'm sorry that I could not live up to your standards in anatomy class, but I have learned a lot, and it will stay with me always.

(Also, 55 days left until the end of this semester....THANKS GOD!)