What medical school exam blocks look like - in pictures

I was reading an article in Popular Photography some time ago (it must have been around Christmas, because I don't think I've had a chance to read one since then) that issued a challenge - on a particular date in January, I think - to photograph your day. One picture every 5 minutes. Well, I didn't think I could do THAT (flashing 10 times per lecture would not be cool) but I did want to do a sort of "day in the life" photo blog. And I picked one of the worst days ever - the first day of block exams. So on this day (which was March 12th) I had a patient care exam and then a pathology exam, and then I had to go to the apartment and study for pharmacology and genetics, which was given the next day. Here's what the day looked like:

8:11 A.M. - May not SEEM early to you, but it sure felt early to me. Note my trusty Propel by the bed. And a backup Aquafina.

8:11 A.M. - Particularly when I cram late at night (okay, that's ALWAYS) I fear that either 1) my brain will tag the information I've just stuffed in as useless and delete it while I sleep, or 2) it will leak out onto my pillow. So here's my pillow. It appears to be covered with flowers, not pathological central nervous systems, so we're okay. (By the way, don't you love those sheets? They're Toscano from Pottery Barn.)

8:12 A.M. - I wake up in a panic attack every single morning of my life. Very exhausting way to wake up, actually, with your body thinking it's being attacked by a cheetah or something. So I reach for my lorazepam (Ativan) first thing, to calm the racing heart and the shaking so I'll feel like a normal person again.

8:12 A.M. - In the morning I look like a greasy troll. You don't get to see that, so here - here's my eyeball. And Scott's camera, which he let me borrow for my project. It was much easier to tote around for the whole day than my suitcase of a camera bag that carries my baby Canon 30D.

8:13 A.M. - I always sleep with my TV on all night. Somehow it is an anxiety soother for me and always has been - having a TV on somewhere keeps my brain from focusing on scary things. A psychologist told me once that a lot of anxiety sufferers do the same thing. Speaking of scary things - look at that hair. Ack.

8:14 A.M. - Oliver helps me put in my contacts every morning. And by "helps", I mean "makes it take twice as long". He LOVES to drink the saline solution as it goes into the sink. Does anyone else have a cat that drinks contact stuff? If I try to shut him out of the bathroom, he can still hear the sound of the saline being turned upside down, and he sits outside the door and HOWLS until I let him in. A little fuzzy weirdo.

8:18 A.M. - Email check. Is the school still standing? Do I have to take my exams? Yes on both accounts. Drat. (Not that I'm going to destroy the school - stop looking at me, campus police!)

8:54 A.M. - I ::heart:: my Bare Minerals. They take away at least some of the troll-ness (see above).

8:59 A.M. - Slim-Fast - the breakfast of champions. Or fat people. Or fat champions.

9:18 A.M. - I clean up all right, I guess. (If it weren't for those pesky 60 pounds.) And then take blurry self-portraits.

9:43 A.M. - School sweet school.

9:43 A.M. - And look, I'm early for my 10AM exam. That probably means that I'll still have to sit in one of those miniscule desks that I think they stole from an old kindergarten class. They bring in these wee desks (most of them left-handed, even) on test days and put them in the aisles, because they make us sit every other seat, lest our academic integrity be challenged or some such crap. I hate those mini leprechaun desks, though.

9:58 A.M. - Two minutes 'till - and I actually got a real seat. Yay!

10:50 A.M. - One test down, one to go. This is the "between tests" period when everyone is cramming for the next one. Look at that poor girl, her face has become permanently melded to a Pathology grid book. Shame.

11:03 A.M. - More cramming. One of the best things about medical school is the other people who are going through the exact same thing you are. Puts a soft spot in my heart for them. Awwww.

12:59 P.M. - Patient Care and Path are a distant memory, and Christy and I are going to lunch it up at Taco Bell. Look at the sad amount of money that I fished out of my purse.

2:31 P.M. - Christy and I get into some anti-fungal pharmacology at my apartment. Great fun.

3:26 P.M. - Christy studies reads InStyle while I try to end it all by flinging myself off of the couch backwards. It didn't work.

3:53 P.M. - We hit a snag during our anti-viral review. Christy was following a printout of the powerpoint lecture, and I was reading the lecture handout. When we came to the drug "Foscarnet", we were trying to figure out a way to remember that it causes electrolyte imbalance. So I said, "When electrolytes are imbalanced, they need a NET under them - hardy har har." (Go ahead and make fun of me, but you'll remember that now.) And she was like, "Well - that's kind of a stretch - but whatever." Then we found out that there was a typo on her powerpoint - heh. I wondered why she was being all cool and pronouncing it "fahs-CAR-nay" - you know, with the silent "t". Whatever. It was hilarious at the time, while we suffered from delirium.

5:20 P.M. - Sophie and Ollie have grown bored with us and gone to sleep in their matching boxes. I'm jealous.

7:16 P.M. - More studying. That's Christy. That's my feet. That's also my Diet Coke.

7:22 P.M. - It's nice out, it's Daylight Savings Time, and people get to be in the park instead of trapped in an apartment surrounded by a mountain of notes. I'm jealous of them, too. Fie on them - fie on them all!

9:22 P.M. - Christy is gone and I'm skidding back into troll-land. I need a shower.

9:52 P.M. - I still haven't cracked open my genetics stuff. That's not so good, y'all. And that little card in the frame - I have to be reminded of that several times daily. When I try to handle stuff myself, I mess that mess up.

9:54 P.M. - Still on cancer chemotherapy - haven't touched immunopharmacology or vaccines yet, haven't started genetics. Yikes.

10:27 P.M. - A desperate phone call to Christy. She reassures me that I'm not going to fail. Too bad she's a pathological liar. (Just kidding.)

11:02 P.M. - I STILL haven't started genetics. I think I'll just take a hit on that one.

11:40 P.M. - Goodnight Scott. :-)

11:54 P.M. - Sophie could not care less.

11:56 P.M. - You know what? Me neither.

That is all. Hope you enjoyed it - should I do another day?

Maybe Basil's readers will find this interesting ...