Blog time: A must read article.

It’s been a while again since I had anything to blog about. My blog was suppose to be about small things of life and how they matter, I guess I am going astray to what I had in mind. Well, it’s time to get back on track.

So here is a must read article, (hopefully its goanna be as good as I am planning to make it).

I felt like it was time to wrap up some things about my two years of MBBS, as I will be completing my preclinical in a about two and a half months.  There’s so much to write about, so much to share, but today I chose to talk about my exam experience here. I recently appeared one, my repeat paper from my first semester, and it was a disaster, and that just reminded me how every other examination has been one too.

First semester examination…the best memories ever.  Now, how should I start? My first semester was spent by sleeping in the lecture hall. My friends have a huge collection of pictures of me in sleeping mode.  So, obviously when the exam approached I was not only not prepared, I was unable to study as well (because I had been lazing around for far too long beginning 14^th of December 2009 to December 2010). It’s a miracle that I passed even a single paper that semester.

I still vividly remember the night before my foundation module paper (the paper I had a repeat on). It was 2 am, and I had only finished studying Anatomy and Physiology, and they make only a very small portion of the module. The biggest part is made by Biochemistry, and that night I hadn’t even touched it, moreover, no matter how I studied all those cycles, I had never been able to retain anything. So, consequently, I was in huge trouble and I knew it. It was the first time I experienced palpitation before an examination. It was like….palpitation…you know how it is… and I knew that this fear was goanna do me no good.  So I just laid down on one side of the bed, books scattered on the other side, and patted myself on the shoulder and said “sleep Puja, it’s no big deal. It’s just an examination. The worst that can happen is you will fail. You are not goanna die. It’s no big deal Puja. Everything will be ok.  Just relax and sleep.”  And I did and I failed my paper.  Hopefully, I will pass it this time.

My parents had some holidays on hand and wanted to visit me. I gave them the date to come and all according to my timetable but it got messed up. When they were due to arrive I was still not done with my exam. The flight was to land at 2 am in the morning.  Its 3 hrs from Kandy to the airport, but at night we were able to cover it up in about 2 hrs. A senior of mine said he will accompany me to pick them up from the airport, so at 12 we left Kandy, we were there by 2, it was around 2:30 to 3:00 when they came out of the airport, and it was almost 6 when we reached back home, and I had a practical examination at 8:00 am.  So one can derive how it went.

There was a viva following the practical the very same day and… oh! My god, was it a disaster!!! I wasn’t able to answer one of her questions. Since then I have never felt confident in a viva.

Another funny incident and that is the end of my first semester experience.
In the gross anatomy spot, there was a specimen of the heart, with a flag on the apex, and the question went, “give the surface projection of the area marked” and, the answer I wrote was “apex of the heart”.  Only later did we know (we, because it wasn’t only me with that stupid answer, thank god) that what they were asking for was the surface marking of the apex of the heart.  Thank god I passed my Cardio-vascular module.

There isn’t so much to the other two semester exams.

Y1S2, CLR (communication, learning and research) module was based on statistics. Well math had always been one of my favourite subjects, but the lectures were so so so damn boring, that I didn’t attend 90% of it, and I slept through those I attended.  And the problem with us is we don’t take this module seriously. Though we knew it was goanna be bit difficult, it wasn’t until the last moment that we started preparing on it. We were in a group discussing, and there was no synchronization, some had already gone through it and they were going ahead and some of us had difficulty catching up.  So I figured it was a waste of time and left them to discuss and came home.  Once home, I thought I will take a nap, get up later and study. When I got up and started studying, I realized I couldn’t understand anything. There was a bunch of formulae and I didn’t know how to apply even a single one. The panicking started, it was getting late. And though my immediate senior whom I live with did say to ask her if I needed help, I didn’t admit I needed help big time. And I tried studying online, searching for how those formulae were applied, and I still couldn’t understand, it was way too complicated. Then I started crying and decided I won’t appear the paper. It was better to get a 0 by not appearing than to get a 0 after appearing.  But somewhere in my heart I knew a miracle would happen.
However I was online on Fb, complaining to another senior about my situation.  He was like, “go ask her, she will help...” I knew she would, she always did, but I didn’t know anything that I feared she wouldn’t be able to help me.  However, after much crying, I finally summed up some courage and went to her. It was pretty late and she was already sleeping. I knocked fearfully, and asked her to help me solve one problem. Then she said “wait, I will check my papers” and I was like “Acho Kinley didn’t take it?!!” “No.” “Can I have it? Thank you very much.” She had all the problems solved…”YIPPEEE!!!” I wiped my tears, arranged the papers, and went to sleep. Got up at 3 am, studied the whole thing by 7:00, and appeared my paper and passed.  Miracle did happen.

Year 2 Semester 1, the result is still due, so I can’t say if miracle happened here too.

Again the CLR paper, I tried to pull the same feat, and slipped.  Was suppose to get up at 3 am and study again, but it was 6 when I woke up, I studied for one and  a half hour, and appeared my paper. I know I am not goanna pass, just hoping to avoid an F, but I should get the recognition for writing the most innovative answers.

And CNS (central nervous system) module is where I first experienced palpitation during an examination. The SAQ (short answer question) paper is suppose to be an hour and a half long, but somehow I got thinking that it was 2hrs long, and had my time distributed for answers accordingly.  I was still to write 3 more questions for about 200 marks and had also left a few blanks here and there, when Dr. Sanjaya Adikari said “keeps your pens down” . I was so shocked, I exclaimed to Sangay who was sitting in front of me “is the time over already?”  She said, “Yes” calmly. Then I started panicking, my hands were shaking, I couldn’t even use the few minutes left till the paper was collected. I barely managed to write a sentence. My eyes were tearful, my heart was hammering; I had never felt that feeling ever in my life. So that’s how sympathetic nervous system acts I guess, I don’t know if that was fight or flight or inability to do both.

So that’s a long one right. These have been the things worth remembering from my exam experiences. I don’t know if this is any good, but I tried my best to express in a way that u would see and understand the situation.
Happy reading. J