Today was a difficult day for me. Exhaustion had kicked in finally after a blink of a weekend and challenging exams during the first part of the week. I sort of caved today and lost focus earning a "less than adequate" grade in comparison to my last 5 exams. If you don't earn a bad grade once and a while the good grades mean nothing. Right? Thinking back to the material for today's exam, I couldn't get into it, at all. It was full of nasty infections associated with parasites (i.e., worms etc.). My motivation was lacking for this exam and I am lucky to have passed with this attitude. It is a crazy life in graduate school. One day you're on top of your game and the next you're down in the dumps. You learn to pick yourself up and keep on going no matter what!
As the quarter wears on the challenges are going to increase. Each day is one we can grasp ahold of and make it our own for our own benefit. What we are doing is not easy nor is it immediately satisfying. Sitting for hours on end looking at dry science-based literature sort of bites. Yes it is interesting but sometimes it is nice to not have to think! I wonder how next quarter will pan out with boards. They are scheduled the weekend prior to finals which will be a little more refreshing than taking them after finals like most other students have done previously. The total amount of testing will be enormous and quite taxing mentally. There is no way around it though. We'll just have to adapt to the stress and hopefully shine bright enough to pass them all. It is crazy to have dreams and ambitions with so many obstacles looming out there.
We can talk all day about what we are "going" to do but we can't do anything unless we meet certain standards set forth by our school and it's accrediting agency. For instance, we are taking a genetics course right now which is quite difficult. It is getting more and more complex each day we log a class. If we aren't able to meet the demands of this course we can't obtain our future licenses. Another course is pathology. Many of these disease we'll never see or touch in real life but we have to know them well enough (which is done by pure memorization) to pass exams and our boards in April 2010. Stress is what this all amounts to and sometimes I just want to hitch a ride to Hawaii and sip an intoxicating blue drink!
The funny thing is, during every single quarter thus far I always crack midway through and lose all focus. I have to rekindle the "love" in the next day to get going on the nutrition exam on Friday. In a way, it comes down to wanting to be smarter versus studying for exams. When you have the drive to learn no matter what the material is, motivation skyrockets out of control. Before you know it, you've finished the notes and retained all the information. But, if you freak (like I did for today's exam) and rush through the notes with the intention of "passing" the test, you don't learn crap and you get a crappy grade.
Lesson learned. Resting tonight will be blissful and a new focus tomorrow will bring great results for Friday.
All for now
No comments:
Post a Comment