Professor Lazy strikes again

I swear, this instructor...

I've mentioned Prof Lazy before and boy, she didn't disappoint this quarter. Just like before, she copied all her tests from the internet or from instructor editions of the textbook (she even neglected to change the formatting or delete the friggin' answer on some of them- thanks for that small favor!). All her exams and homework are multiple choice too- I'm sure she thanks the inventor of Scan-tron in her evening meal blessings.

Needless to say, she barely lifts a finger when it comes to exams and assignments, and she's certainly not going to change her M.O. when it comes to actual instruction. No set notes, no syllabus beyond the list of chapters for the class, and no agenda for what pertinent ideals will be covered after she lists the topic of the chapter. And due to this incredible ineffectual instruction, she has to have an open-book policy when it comes to tests. At least this way everyone won't fail her class, leading to the wondering eye of the administration as to why her pass rate is lower than the Titanic. So she literally gives the class a pass, telling us we don't need to memorize much of anything because we'll be able to use the book.

And just as she's done before, she decides at the last minute that you can't use the textbook for the final, in spite of telling you all freaking quarter not to worry about memorizing anything. So a few days before the final, everyone gets to freak out trying to memorize an entire quarter over the weekend.

The exam covers everthing from "acid/bases to zwitterions"? No problem, I am omniscient about chemistry!

But you may be wondering why does she do this? After all, she's Professor Lazy, not Professor Cray-cray. And you're right- she's LAZY. She changed her mind because she said students were taking too long to take the test, since they had the ability to refer to the book and ensure they were getting the correct answer. Yes ladies and gents, she took away the book because she wanted to get home sooner. And the best way to do that? To ensure students would throw their hands up in the air, fail the exam in 5 minutes, and leave weeping, allowing her to return home to her Barcalounger.

I assume.

So if you're out there studying for the MCAT, partying with your peeps, or even simply doing something as fancy as getting a good night's rest, think of me memorizing 8 chapters of chemistry. I could use the good thoughts.

It all sounds like a 1950's dream come true.

 

My sleep is all messed up

I work overnight a few days a week and it's wreaking havoc with my sleep schedule. Even though I'm a med student in-training, I'm not quite ready to abandon sleep completely (although if I wanted the practice, I could be awake for 48 hours straight.)

Guess it's preparation for M1, right?

But more accurately, it's messing with my motherly guilt meter. I work overnight on the weekends, so when I come home, Jr is getting up for the day. And I'm heading to bed. It sucks. He keeps peeking into my room all morning waiting for me to get up, and even though I'm exhausted, my brain keeps awakening me, telling me to get up because Jr is up. How could I possibly be sleeping when I could be spending time with my family?! So after about 3 or 4 hours, I get up. And after two days of this, I'm exhausted all week, finally recovering when it's time to work again. Thanks to this problem I fall asleep at 3pm, or 11 am, or fully awake at 3am. Time has started to lose all meaning and I'm falling even further behind in studying because my brain is too tired, unfocused, and weak.

This is the only picture I could find where the student wasn't smiling ridiculously while sleeping. Seriously- WTF?

So I'm going through a readjustment period, looking for ways to square my sleep and my studying. Two months till the MCAT...

Overheard...

...at local Urban ER in the middle of the night, spoken by incredibly traumatized guy as he's indignantly walking out with tears in his eyes:

"Man, FUCK this place, I ain't never coming in here no more! I can't handle it! I need to go to a hospital that doesn't have THESE sick people!" while he points at a schizophrenic 300-lb woman who is screaming and flailing as she's coming in the door.

Dude. You're in an urban ED, in the middle of a major city on a friday night at 3am. What kind of sick people did you think would be here? Suburban moms with their afebrile toddlers with runny noses? And what was so important that you came to the ER in the middle of the night, but easily left when the atmosphere was too much for your delicate sensibilities?

Quick time travel

I just saw a girl dressed like Madonna from 1985. She had a short badly bleached pixie cut with an asymmetric mop of curls in the front, acid-washed black jeans with french cuffs on the bottom and matching jacket, canvas backpack with ten-thousand mini buttons, and a pair of black lace-up shoes that I swear to God I owned when I was 13.

I excitedly started looking around at everyone else to see if I'd been magically transported back to the 80's. Once I laid eyes on a young hip gentleman with his pants around his knees yelling into his cell phone about his bitch, I was sad. I was looking forward to reliving the music and club scene.

Back to gen chem.

ATTN TEENAGERS:

Don't street race.

Wear seatbelts.

Do these two simple things and save your family the grief of burying their children.

Verbal is stagnant

I just *can not* get better than 10 in verbal. I've read a bunch of comments by people who have the same problem- they want to know how to improve their original score because it never budges. It's almost as if once you learn how to approach these questions, you're kind of stuck, like you've reached your own personal optimal. I'm hoping that with continued work on learning the tricks, I'll get up to 11, or even a 12, but for now, I'm 10, sometimes going down to 9.

I got through two chapters yesterday, one in ochem and one in bio, and today I'm working on physics and gen chem. I have to work tonight, so here's hoping for it to be slow, but with at least two patients, because I need experience.

Reality isn't as I'd expected

I've been so busy these past few days, I haven't studied more than a few hours. I did 4 VR passages and finished reading ochem Ch 3.

It's distressing.

I was so convinced that when I was done with work, I would have all this free time to study, but in keeping with my nature, I over-scheduled that time with a new job, the gym, a research study, Jr's new activities, consulting work with my old job, and more. I will get one night and one weekend morning back starting next week when soccer is done, and I won't be scheduling any affiliate work as long as I can, so that will help a bit. Class is over in four weeks, but by then I'll be beyond stressed that I lost too much time.

I'm getting nervous and scared. I'm afraid of running out of time, focus, and the ability to do well.

Being scared isn't fruitful, so instead, I need to harness that fear and turn it into focus and energy.

Life is getting busy

I worked all day yesterday, went to the gym, had class at night, and once I got home 14 hours later, I was exhausted (there's a big difference between working 8 hours sitting vs. standing. who knew?!). I spent time with the family, and when I put Jr to bed, I went too, but I brought my books with me. I got through half of ch 3 in ochem until I was too tired to continue.

In other news, my new job is totally awesome- the people are fantastic, my boss is an unparalleled amazing mentor, and I couldn't be happier. I just need to remember that I won't have all the time in the world to study, and that working with doctors isn't the same as *being* one.

I should have most of today and tomorrow to focus. I need to stop worrying about catching up and just go from where I am. I started taking B12 and iron to help with my fatigue, and I think that going to the gym for over a month has helped too. The next thing I will do is include glucosamine and chondrotin to help my aching hips. In superficial news, my young co-workers said I didn't look my age. Even if they're liars, I'll take their emotional charity.

Common theme- always behind

Man, yesterday was just about a complete bust. Soccer went longer than expected, laundry took more time than I figured, Jr.'s outing with friends was further away than originally planned, etc. I'm ashamed to say I got through only one item on my Study To-Do list, gen gem ch 3 passages, so I decided to spend the rest of the evening catching up on House with the hubby.

 

So today I have 5 chapters to re-read, 1001 questions to do for each chapter, and the second third for all those chapters. There's no way to do all that today, seeing as I'm not The Flash, so I'll still be behind. I also have homework for my night class, so that's more time away for that too. And tomorrow is more orientation at New Job, soccer, and the gym.

I wonder what it feels like to not only be caught up, but ahead?

Why I have trouble studying at home

Jr. had a few friends over the other day, and when they were getting some snacks in the kitchen, I overheard that there was only one drink left in the flavor everyone wanted. The kids were pleading their cases to each other about why they should get the coveted drink, when the exchange started to get loud and heated. I heard my son yell over the bedlam, "Let's settle this like MEN!"

 

As I was rushing out of my chair, heading into the kitchen fully expecting the fists to come out, I heard all the kids chant, "Rock.. Paper... Scissors...!"

I had a hard time returning to full focus after that. Maybe I should have watched The Karate Kid with them instead.

Today is full of re-reading chapters, doing way more passages than time will permit, and fitting in soccer, shopping, laundry, and dropping of Jr. to another social engagement. As always, still behind, still doing mediocre.

I need a better accounting system

I didn't realize I forgot to do the second third of passages for Bio chapter 1 and Physics chapter 2. Whoopsie! I need to keep better track of what I've done and what's left to do.

I recently discovered that you should never dumb down your knowledge to your children:

Jr: "Mom, how is gasoline made?"

Me: "Well, oil is pumped out of the ground," *suddenly debating internally if I should go into oil drilling, refining, chemical changes, etc. I'll keep it simple, he's in grade school* "and then hocus-pocus, it's gas."

Jr: *raising one eyebrow and titling his head* "So... you don't know."

OChem takes a long time for me

I had hoped to get through both ochem and bio yesterday, but I cannot get through ochem that quickly. This second chapter was on structure and IR, NMR, etc- the former being pretty simple, the latter being much harder for me, since we did that pretty quickly at the end of the class I took. I did meh on the passages, so we'll see how the second third of questions go.

Today is ch 2 in bio, and then slog through the numerous passages. Ugh, I really dislike the bio passages since they ask questions about stuff I haven't reviewed yet, so I get low scores on the sections. I hope today is different.