So, you're eager for more eh?  Well then, have I got some news for you...

Midterms are over.  I feel like a free man!!!  Actually, come to think of it, I'm
behind a week's worth of lectures in pathology.  Hmph.  I guess I'll be a slave to
higher learning once again come Monday morning.  But for now I'm a free man!!!

I got all A's!!!  (Actually, I got all A's for questions 47-49 on the Physiology test,
questions 50-52 were C, B and B respectively...which I got right too, but it's just
not the same as REALLY getting all A's.  It was a nice consolation prize though.)

There were some that told me that the first year of medical school is the worst. 
That has decidedly been proven to be a base deception.

Microbiology just about ate me for breakfast Monday morning.  I scored one
percentage point above what is neccessary to pass.  I studied my bacteria off for
that exam.  I know a lot, honest!  I just can't prove it.  I try and try to train these
professors to ask the questions that I know the answers to, but they are not
cooperating in the least.  I'm losing my patience with them.  Still, I'm confident I'll
do well when it's time to go on the wards in the medical center.

For example...I don't think they'll care that I don't know that the capsular
polysaccharides are utilized to divide N. meningitidis into 13 different groups, that
the basis for dividing S. pyogenes into 50+ types are their cell wall proteins or even
(and I hesitate to admit this glaring lack of basic medical knowledge...) that
Xylulose-5-phosphate, Acetyl-phosphate AND Ethanol are ALL found in the
pathway for heterolactic fermentation!  I mean, can you believe that...how could I
be sssSSSSOOOOooo ignorant.  Listen up kiddies, and all you MD wann'a be's out
there... if you like the game Trivial Pursuit, you'll LOVE medical school.  The
stakes are high and everyone from school administration, financial aid and the big
bank loan officers taking your money are playing for keeps, so when you win at
this game you've really accomplished something!

I knew my stuff.  I just didn't know their stuff!  Personally, I'd rather have a solid
66 than a lucky 99!  And I'm sure my future patients would agree.

Psychopathology was amusing, to say the least.  Some of those case scenarios were
just short of desperately needed comic relief amid stress and tension that would
require a Binford 3000 chainsaw to cut.  We don't have our scores for that one.

Physiology was OK.  I passed that one fine.  What cracks me up is that 11% of the
exam came from 3 lectures that I studied for a total of 35 minutes just beforehand. 
I nearly got them all!  One that I missed I intend to get credit for anyway, as there
were 2 answers that were essentially the same (to anyone with common sense, that
is).  Consider:

A patient with multiple sclerosis would need the following advice when planning an
exercise program...

A.  Supplemental O2 will probably be needed.
B.  Use low impact exercise.
C.  Exercise in a humid environment.
D.  Prevent overheating and fatigue.

Answers A & C are to ferret out the people who become stupid when under high
stress situations.  However B & D are the same thing...B underlying the reasoning
of D.  Being a common sense, lowest 1/3 of the class kind of guy, I chose B. 
Wrong.  D.  Well, we'll just see about that.  The course director is supposed to
have a little chat with the individual who submitted this question.

Speaking of these kind of conundrums...   I have so consistently suffered the above
scenario of cutting the possibilities down to two answers, and then deftly choosing
the wrong one, having to go debate it with some jokker who gets his feelings hurt
when you show him that even though he holds a Ph. D. in who knows what he can
still make a mistake, (take a breath) that for the questions I wasn't quite sure about
in my Pathology exam, I chose to narrow my choices down to the two I thought
were good, but wasn't sure which one was right, then immediately cross out the one
I felt like choosing and write down the other as my answer!  I call it the George
Castanza Method of Sure Elimination.  I figured, "How can I lose with this?  I
either go with my gut feelings (which have always seemed to be wrong), and get
the wrong answer, or do this.  Even if this completely backfires, I'm still right back
where I was before...what's the difference?!!"


So on Pathology, I used this method and got 5 questions right that I would've gotten
wrong.  I passed this exam with about 7% points to spare.  Need I say more?

The tension is always bad during test week.  Morale is often low, and the troops are
worn out.  I mean, if you knew repeating a year would cost an additional $26,000
(without interest), would you study hard?  People were staying up all night.  The
Oriental students are notorious for this...they can go for days without sleep and not
get tired.  It's just not fair!

The weekend was wonderfully relaxing for all, standing in marked contrast to
recent, heated battle on the front lines, armed with our #2 pencils.  I got to mop the
floors for the first time, and clean the toilet (not for the first time) and spiff up
those hand rails in the tub.  Of notable improvement was the walking surface in the
kitchen, which had suffered from a region of hyperviscosity where I had
unwittingly allowed some juice from a mango I was eating in early September to
run down my hand, wrist and forearm and drip from my elbow onto the floor.  Its
presense has been a repeated domestic annoyance, which I've relieved myself of
with no little degree of personal satisfaction.

So, midterms are history.  And at this point in time, everything is a blur.  I looked
at my watch and was surprised to see that it's almost November.  You know it's
been a long week when you open the clothes hamper to instictively do laundry and
it's empty.  I don't even know how old the food in the fridge is!  If it hasn't started
to sprout, grow or mold...I tend to heat it up and eat it anyway.  I still have to
throw out the potatoes that I bought my first trip to the grocery store back in
September.  Which reminds me...I need to take that out now before I forget, and
for time constraints, have to belay that order until the end of exams in December.

Tally ho!