the centre cannot hold
Needless to say, i'm feeling very much better than I did two days ago.
See, it hurts to look around you and think, Hey i'm studying harder than I've ever done before. In fact, I'm studying harder than some people around me. And then to emerge from the exams thinking, That wasn't so bad. I can do this! And then to get back your stinking results which reveal so poignantly that you suck on all levels. SUCK, because you could've been living your damn life instead of studying so hard, and you wasted all this time studying ineffectively. It's like the effort of the past couple of months went to naught.
I think the worst part is not knowing where you went wrong. At least in the past with awful exams, you have your papers back and then you can go moaning to your teacher for help. Right now? Right now I've no idea how I could have done so badly- and I can't figure out and correct my mistakes. And it's frightening because CA3 covered the anatomy of the entire abdomen- stomach, liver, pancreas, kidneys, spleen, jejunum, ileum, duodenum, colon, bladder, ureters, uterus, vagina, penis, anal canal, must i go on? And the physiology of the gastrointestinal tract and the endocrine system. Digestion, absorption, assimilation. Metabolisis. Sheer volume, and the thought of having to go through all of it again and revise and try to figure out where i went wrong is just.... depressing as hell.
Hence my inarticulate previous post. Just thinking about the CA makes a part of my brain start screaming WHY WHY WHY WHY all over again.
I've been drowning my sorrows in the superficial. The night my results came back, I blogshopped for a good two hours, and then buried myself in a Katherine Kerr novel [new author!]. The next day, my mood was so incredibly bad. I vacillated between my normal self and this sense of complete and utter stupidity. The PBL session didn't quite help, until I started recalling my renal physio, but i still felt quite stupid. You have no idea how stupid you feel when you're at the bottom of the cohort and expected to be in the upper half. [I was just below the average last time, and hoped to do better this time].
Then at night I turned into a social animal for a few hours and went out to see the CB gang. I miss them! They're so full of nonsense. And it was exciting to focus on someone else's life, instead of mine, just for a while. Seeing them at the cusp of unihood is.. well it's almost like reliving the experience. Almost.
This morning i woke up in a much more stable mood.
Truth is, your brain will tell you all sorts of things that are true and valid and should be comforting. Things like, the rest of the cohort must have worked very hard as well. [And I guess they were]. At least you've maintained your position, and you didn't fail the paper. And look, in the long term, the clinical exams matter so very much more than these exams. The reality? The heart doesn't care, and it will ache until time extracts the sting from the memory.
Anyway, thinking about all this stuff makes me sad again. Sad and stupid-feeling and useless and completely lacking in the drive to study. So i shouldn't linger on this any longer.
I've been afraid to talk to God, because I know that when I find that quiet, calm place, everything will just overwhelm me. No more white noise from blogshops and dinners with friends and novels and blogs and facebook. At that point I will cry with that intense shame and confusion and anger and hurt. And crying over exams just isn't worth it.
See, it hurts to look around you and think, Hey i'm studying harder than I've ever done before. In fact, I'm studying harder than some people around me. And then to emerge from the exams thinking, That wasn't so bad. I can do this! And then to get back your stinking results which reveal so poignantly that you suck on all levels. SUCK, because you could've been living your damn life instead of studying so hard, and you wasted all this time studying ineffectively. It's like the effort of the past couple of months went to naught.
I think the worst part is not knowing where you went wrong. At least in the past with awful exams, you have your papers back and then you can go moaning to your teacher for help. Right now? Right now I've no idea how I could have done so badly- and I can't figure out and correct my mistakes. And it's frightening because CA3 covered the anatomy of the entire abdomen- stomach, liver, pancreas, kidneys, spleen, jejunum, ileum, duodenum, colon, bladder, ureters, uterus, vagina, penis, anal canal, must i go on? And the physiology of the gastrointestinal tract and the endocrine system. Digestion, absorption, assimilation. Metabolisis. Sheer volume, and the thought of having to go through all of it again and revise and try to figure out where i went wrong is just.... depressing as hell.
Hence my inarticulate previous post. Just thinking about the CA makes a part of my brain start screaming WHY WHY WHY WHY all over again.
I've been drowning my sorrows in the superficial. The night my results came back, I blogshopped for a good two hours, and then buried myself in a Katherine Kerr novel [new author!]. The next day, my mood was so incredibly bad. I vacillated between my normal self and this sense of complete and utter stupidity. The PBL session didn't quite help, until I started recalling my renal physio, but i still felt quite stupid. You have no idea how stupid you feel when you're at the bottom of the cohort and expected to be in the upper half. [I was just below the average last time, and hoped to do better this time].
Then at night I turned into a social animal for a few hours and went out to see the CB gang. I miss them! They're so full of nonsense. And it was exciting to focus on someone else's life, instead of mine, just for a while. Seeing them at the cusp of unihood is.. well it's almost like reliving the experience. Almost.
This morning i woke up in a much more stable mood.
Truth is, your brain will tell you all sorts of things that are true and valid and should be comforting. Things like, the rest of the cohort must have worked very hard as well. [And I guess they were]. At least you've maintained your position, and you didn't fail the paper. And look, in the long term, the clinical exams matter so very much more than these exams. The reality? The heart doesn't care, and it will ache until time extracts the sting from the memory.
Anyway, thinking about all this stuff makes me sad again. Sad and stupid-feeling and useless and completely lacking in the drive to study. So i shouldn't linger on this any longer.
I've been afraid to talk to God, because I know that when I find that quiet, calm place, everything will just overwhelm me. No more white noise from blogshops and dinners with friends and novels and blogs and facebook. At that point I will cry with that intense shame and confusion and anger and hurt. And crying over exams just isn't worth it.