Erk!

Help! I'm a D2 receptor expressing striatal cell and I'm dying a horrible death!

*bzzz* What is Huntington's Disease?

200 pts for the girl on the left!

Now. Describe to me in detail the indirect basal gangliar motor loop!

*crickets* ...hello? Anyone here?

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Finals are close. The above illustrates the types of thoughts that play out in my head lately. These random flights of fancy are interspersed with daydreams of getting on a plane and escaping. I spend more time fantasizing about how I'm going to pack my luggage than is probably healthy.

Immunology finally finished (with a resounding kick in our class's collective ass on the way out; thank you so very much Dr. Stanley for writing a test that contained more double negatives and excepts than I've ever seen before) leaving me with neuroscience, physiology and the BSCE I to worry about. Well, I'm not so much worried about the bsce per se. It does however ensure that I can't completely relax even after finals are over. *sigh*

The BSCE I is the 'basic science comprehensive exam I' that will cover everything from first and second term. I can't decide if I should just hand in a blank scantron and be done with it or not. I almost don't want to know how badly I've forgotten everything. Especially anatomy. *shudder* Neuroanatomy, yes, but ask me about the brachial plexus? That's looooong gone. Which is bad. I'm going to have to engage in some hard core review over the break.

Anyhow, there is no real purpose to this posting other than to delay my studying of choreoform disorders. Even though I need another study break like a need a hole in my head.
...aaand I immediately starting thinking about the ways in which I could gain said hole and what the implications would be to my personality depending on where the damage was. And what my breathing rhythms while I was in a coma (which are different depending on where the damage is) would be like.

Today's thoughts brought to you by studying neuro and watching too much NCIS at the same time. Thank you and good night. Remember, our programs are made possible by viewers like you. Please send your pledges to "poor SGU student, Grenada, 5th level of hell". Thank you for watching PBS.

@,@

Exam Policy... gone too far?

Yup, 2 blog entries in one day! I've meaning to write this entry since midterms but it was lost in the haze. I'm halfway to finals and have only just completely recovered from midterms. :D Kidding! (sorta)

In my humble opinion the exam policies at SGU have perhaps gone right over the edge. I mean, on top of the stress of taking exams and considering how close to a psychotic break I was right before my physio exam it was a bad, bad, idea to try and tell me I couldn't take my backpack into the building.

Let me go back a little. Last term as well as during our one credit wonders (genetics, parasitology, CMP) this term exam policies have been fairly straightforward. You come in, any bags or phones have to be left in the back of the room and you're not supposed to cheat. No problem. Now though they've instituted a whole new set of freaking annoying policies.

1. No bags, phones, hats period allowed in the building. You must leave them outside.

WTF? Look, many of us live off campus and can't just walk around with nothing but our ID and a pencil. At an absolute minimum I need to carry my poncho and keys around. Right? What should I do, hold them in my hands and leave them by the side of the road and hope no one steals them?
SO. Picture me, about five seconds away from murdering someone, somewhat spastically going over EKG's in my head, and some power tripping proctor tries to tell me I have to leave my backpack outside. Um. So, putting it in the back of the room (like we've always done)... the back that all of us have our backs to and is lined with like six proctors is unacceptable?? *twitch* I'm not actually a confrontational person. Really. But I about snapped and started arguing with her. I had my ipod, credit cards, money, id's, fifty billion irreplaceable note cards I'll be using to study later for the usmle, my poncho and camera in my backpack. I WAS NOT LEAVING IT OUTSIDE.
SO.
She finally relented and put it back into the A-V room behind the lecture hall (multiple people quietly filed in behind me with their backpacks as well). Were they worried I'd be able to use my X-ray vision and hidden eye under my hair to cheat or something? There isn't exactly a place to store things on campus and most of us don't have cars, we have to use the shuttles, so they are really tying our hands here.

2. For Immuno we weren't allowed to use out own pencils.
?? Am I the only person who thought this was patently bizarre? What did they think we were going to do? Etch the interleukins into the little clear plastic side of our pencils? Again, proctors stood at the doors confiscating pencils and erasers and handing out approved pencils and erasers. It was like a pencil grave yard in front of the lecture hall! Now, I'm most certainly not the only type A here. I don't know about others but I was downright annoyed to have to use some stupid pencil belonging to someone else. Grr.

3. Assigned seats.
I kid you not! And with several hundred people, and not revealing said assigned seats until half an hour before the exam starts, you have something of a logistical nightmare. And the best part? They did it alphabetically! This is highly amusing to me since our lab groups are also assigned alphabetically, thus, the assigned seating only served to make sure people who knew each other were sitting together! I've never sat so many tests next to people I knew before than those midterms. Pointless endeavour on behalf of the school? Hell, yeah.

Stress by exams + ridiculous new regulations = twitchy me

Hn. Apparently I still have a lot of resentment still simmering over all that. *wry grin* I guess I'd better get used to it though. I doubt they'll rescind all their new rules. No doubt they feel it will cut back on cheating. *rolling eyes* I never did understand people who cheat anyways. What could it possibly accomplish in the long run? Especially here. It's not like someone won't notice later on that you don't know how to perform a basic neurological exam or can't describe the myotatic reflex arc. We have to know what we're learning. Period. I wonder what the actual incidence of medical students cheating actually is? I would sincerely hope that it's a negligible number.

Ah, sorry for the ranting. This post turned out more 'angry' and I was trying more for 'funny commentary on stupid policies'. Oh well. No helping it. Just laugh at the Mr. Bean clip. :D Life is better with humor added in.

Post-midterm pre-final's slump

As the title indicates I've entered into a slump of a sorts. I'm far enough away from midterms that the 'must study or die!' feelings have dissapated but not close enough to finals to re-enter the pre-test freak out. Historically this is the time during which I study the least. >_>' Which is probably bad. Ah, well. I will attempt productivity after this procrastinating by writing this blog entry.

The second half of the term is turning out to be the carbon opposite of the first half. In physio we already finished the behemoth that is pulmonary. Can we say graphs? It turned out to be surprisingly workable though. I was worried since many people I'd talked to were really making it out to be difficult. The professor who taught the module though, Dr. Clunes, did an excellent job in helping us understand the material. I was sad to the see the module end. We since moved on to renal which is proving to be a tad less interesting. More to memorize and less to understand I suppose. What I'm really apprehensive about is endocrine. Mainly since it will be the last module we do and will involve quite a bit of memorization. Bleh. I hate that. Give me a complicated graph to work out any day over a list of hormones or muscles to memorize! Suffice to say, I've spending most of my time making sure to keep up in physio since I know endocrine awaits me at the end so I won't have any extra time to go back.

In contrast Neuro has slowed down somewhat. The first week or so was pretty dense, what with going through the major motor pathways (complex and integrated, hardly a part of the brain not involved in movement somehow) but since they we've transitioned over to 'softer' topics such as as metal diseases, emotions, memory and the like. I say softer since we really only have ideas and theories about all these things so there are less concrete things to memorize. All in all though it's been extremely interesting.

As predicted immuno has kinda picked up. We did a brief overview of immunodiagnostics by one of the micro professors and now have moved on with a guest lecturer to talk about autoimmunity, hypersensitivity, tumor immunology and the like. This past week in immuno was the first that I felt like I was actually learning something in that class! Which means that I should probably start studying immunology so I'm not killed by the final. Hm. Right. I'll do that in my free time.

At any rate, things are moving along at a decent clip these days. I'm just ready to go back to the states. MUST GO HOME! I've fallen to the isolation of this place. I absolutely cannot wait for winter break. And winter. Since you know, it has remained hot and sunny here. It's the neverending summer!

Listening to: はじまりの日「テガミバチ」