Mini One is OVER!

2 hrs and 45 mins. My first Mini was today early in the afternoon. I pretty much stopped studying last nite at 2330hr. A minor confession - I even checked Facebook a few times! Some of my friends were on Redbull or Monster and pulling all-nighters or sleeping for only 2hrs etc. I thought even though that was crazy and admirable... I could not bring my body or mind to do it. (The picture to the left is of me reviewing the main arterial branches of the upper limb last night. Note my crazy dirty-bum look. Yea that is me in my ultimate study state.)

I have been studying pretty hard since Day 1 of this semester so I gave myself a break on the day of the exam. This morning I still woke up early though - biological clock has been set maybe? Oh wait, no I set my alarm at 0545hr hahaha. Don't ask why. But it worked well. I slept for 6 hrs! That's a lot. After I woke up I made myself some toast with LOTS of peanut butter, which I am running out of again. Sigh.

My plan was to not do too much studying right before the exam on the day of. And I made sure I stick with it. You could call this an experiment I guess. I had never been so 'scheduled' in my life before! Not even in my last year of undergrad when I was totally nerdified! Med school does change you in some really good ways. Anyways, after breakfast I decided to clean my room a bit. My room, either in Vancouver or here in Dominica, is not very tidy most of the time. I usually have books and notes all over my bed (sometimes on the floor, but I try to avoid that). However, things are getting better for me here. I really am trying hard to adopt some good habits that I thought were useless before :) My mom is quite happy to hear that! (The picture to the right is of me studying the amazing Brachial Plexus! Still looking like a student hard at work! And the picture to the left is my condensed notes and lectures for the first Mini exam, which tests a month's material.)

Alright, so onto the exam itself. Difficulty level - I would say medium. 90% of the material tested I was sure I had seen it before in the lecture. The test was much like a UBC final exam. The only difference is that this is a midterm for us! And there are 3 of them in total per semester, in additional to a bunch of lab exams for Anatomy and Histology. Consequently it feels like information overload. But might as well get used to it since that is what it's like in medical school :) I finished the exam one hour early but I stayed to double check some of my answers and went over questions that I were not too sure about. The exam was divided up into small sections of all the subjects but they were not categorized. They just numbered the questions from 1 to 130. Apparently they will be posting the answer key tomorrow but the grades won't be back till the end of the week. Oh well, I can wait! I am sure in the mean time I will still be busy with the next million concepts to be learned. (The picture to the right is me AFTER the exam, ready to head out to the beach party!)

My friends and I went to PBH beach party after the exam. Lots of people were there swimming, tubing, eating free burgers, and drinking Kubulis (I must say that I actually don't mind Kubulis at all now). It was very nice and relaxing, a much needed break for our overworked brains. Talk about how nice it is to have the campus right on a tropical island! I did miss my friends from the same program, because we never see each other during the term! Chatting and laughing with them just made my afternoon glow along with the Sun! I just got back home not too long ago - didn't stay out too late. I wanted to finish this post while my exam experience is still fresh and I also wanted to talk to my mom before going to bed (Secret: I am planning to sleep for a full 7 hours tonite).

Alright, I put up some photos of my pre-exam study state (I wanted you guys to have the REAL picture), my post-exam state, and some pictures taken at the beach today. Goodnite everyone!