Over the past 2 weeks, I’ve realized the following:
1.
I hate exams. I thought I lived for them, but I
don’t.
2.
If Final year is supposed to be hard, it doesn’t
even compare to the stress you go through during the exam. Looking back, I don’t
know how I made it through in one piece.
3.
Papers always turn out differently this year.
They are all expected questions, yes, but you don’t feel like you’ve written
expected answers (or this might just be me talking).
4.
The age old superstition : the lesser you’ve
done something, higher the chance of it actually ending up in the paper. It
sucks through your brain. Oh, it SO does! And probably, that’s why you end up
staying awake the whole night.
5.
Everybody but you, seems to be less concerned
about the examination. It’s almost as if, you’re in one boat and everybody else
in the other. It actually isn’t like that, but that’s how the world looks to
you.
6.
The MUHS does NOT care about us students. They
prepare papers full of spelling mistakes, repeat short notes in the same
question (which is: Answer any three out of five. So that effectively reduces
us to answering 3 out of 4. Or taking that bold step of writing the same answer
twice hoping you’ll get 3 marks two times over.
7.
Surgery still freaks me out. I did it almost
twice. Almost, because, there were a few chapters I did not do twice. Yet the
day before both my papers, I was freaking out. And I was almost wishing I hadn’t
taken up this course of Medicine.
8.
I always fall sick before my exams. Thing is,
the week before my immune system decides to take a holiday, and I suffer.
Surprisingly, this time, I got better like 2 days before the exam began, to
reach my designated centre and end up with the flu AGAIN. Seriously, there was
a time during the paper I had to allot to clearing my blocked sinuses!!
9.
I am exhausted. I don’t want any more testing, I
don’t want any more theory answers to be written. I’m so tired of taking all
this stress, it’s reduced my weight to more than is normal during a preparation
leave.
10.
And, did I mention, I’m still hating Final year?
Oh yeah, I’m still hating it, and I simply can’t wait enough for 13 Jan to
come.
So how were these exams? The same
exams I was so worried about, the exams on which nothing depended, my parents
had absolutely no expectations from, I had no expectations from, the exams for
which I literally turned the entire household’s lives upside down….yeah they
were ok….all of my papers were more or less the same…I didn’t find any paper
extremely easy, but no paper was pathetic either….I liked my Obstetrics paper
best, because I drew a lot of diagrams, and they didn’t ask the questions I’d
dreaded. I think I like my Paediatrics paper least, but that’s just because I
couldn’t give the finishing touches I’m so used to giving all my papers. And it
sucks to end your undergraduate examination on that note.
It’s what I’ve been through in
these past 2 weeks, that’s so important. I suck at managing stress. Oh man, I
really suck. My mind plays all sorts of games with me, and it’s so freaky. My usual
method of calming myself down went to the dogs this year. When I told myself, “Shut
up, stupid little girl, you’ve prepared well!!”, another louder voice used to
come up behind me slowly and say, “Oh yes, little girl, you’ve prepared well.
Tell me, do you know that you can’t remember the treatment charts? Or diagrams?
Oh and by the way, you’ve not even touched contraception yet….and what about
Skin….and you have even done your usual dose of MCQs this year.” It’s so hard
to get rid of that voice once it starts.
This past month has been dreadful.
I don’t think I’ve ever suffered so much in any preparation leave. It has been
a combination of low confidence, sucky memory and a vast portion that refuses
to even come close to the finishing line. The result : a complete wreck of a
person, worried parents, indecision about the future and an ardent desire to
just let go. They say Medicine is tough, so this is just the beginning. I’m
really worried about my brain and its tolerance capacity. So, yes, there are
some tough decisions to make in the coming month- regarding my future, what I
want to do, how I want to do it, and the best way to keep my brain stable. I
almost resorted to some anti-depressants and I don’t want to go down that road
ever again. That’s why this decision will be so important to me.
Right now, I’m already worried
sick about my practicals. The worry doesn’t make it any easier to start
studying again, but it does affect the general day. I wish I had some
confidence in myself. I really do. I hate this low self-esteem I have about my
case-taking and practical skills. Of course, I have good enough reasons to feel
this way, but I also have good reasons NOT to feel this way. Our timetable isn’t
out yet. All we know is that, practicals in our college will be held from 1st
to 12th of Jan, 2013. Nothing more. I want to know the exact details
as fast as possible…that way, once I have a deadline to get to, it’ll make it
easier to manage my study timetable.
God bless me and my case-taking skills. One
ordeal over, another to start very soon. Oh I hate Final Year! 
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