Hi there; Birdie here!
I've survived my first anatomy exam! We had the hour-long practical on Tuesday afternoon and the two-hour written part on Wednesday morning. For the next one I really want to start studying earlier...it was pretty tough to be studying so intensely, especially between the practical and the written, and I wasn't quite 100% comfortable with my knowledge. Luckily my classmate who makes flashcards on the iflascards app (sidenote: I got iOS7 on my iphone and it's really weird) apparently agrees and has already made a set for origins and insertions.
On Sunday one of our class reps (he actually interviewed at the same session I did, and he's a pretty awesome rep) set up a mock practical. It was great practice, and the real practical was much easier than that mock practical was! For instance, the real thing only had two 3-part questions instead of nearly every question being 3 or 4 parts, with some of those parts including questions about insertions or action. Apparently that's pretty standard for mock practicals set up by students, according to one of our anatomy professors. The practical exam was really clear--it even listed what exactly we needed to include in our prepositional phrases (like process, bone, and side for acromion of the right scapula), so I guess I didn't need to worry so much about whether I would get points off for leaving something out. The written wasn't bad either, even if it wasn't all multiple choice like it was last year. After the exam I didn't even want to talk about it with my classmates--you know, the whole "47 was D, right?" thing. That was definitely a well-deserved night off studying. I made a cherry pie and watched Netflix instead. :) We still haven't gotten our grades back, but the coordinator said so far we've all done well, so that's good.
We haven't gotten back our PBL grades, either--one of my classmates theorized it's so we'll all put effort into the last little assignment (due Monday) instead of knowing it won't affect our grade--but we did get back the cell bio exams. I'm happy with how I did, but there were some mean questions and several that we as a class disputed. Unfortunately, one particular professor is notorious for mean questions and is too politically powerful for us to dispute his questions. We really want to...his supposed "gimme" question only had 35% of the class get it correct! When our reps went to talk to him, he said we should have looked at his old test questions and that these questions were the same as last year. We do have test files from our bigs, but the most recent test in there is from 2007 or 2008. His response when the reps reminded him we aren't supposed to have last year's tests--"Well, aren't you smart enough to get a copy?" I don't even need the credit back on his questions, but I am really upset about that. He's just...WRONG! We've gone to the year coordinator and the department chair, and I really hope they can get past the politics and do something about him.
Speaking of policy decisions that aren't necessarily a good idea...they're restructuring our physiology course to include reproduction/therio stuff. That's not the bad idea; the bad idea is that this year for the transition, they put the therio stuff much earlier in the class and put us in the same lecture as third years. Seriously, who thought that sounded like a good idea to put the noobs in with the ones who are about to start clinics? Especially when our first joint lecture was Wednesday right after the anatomy exam--NONE of us followed it at all. It's actually been much better after the first day, in my opinion at least, but we're still pretty worried for the exam (which is next Tuesday--luckily it got moved from Monday).
By the way, I did end up going running on Saturday in my new shoes. I just happened to go at 8 instead of 6:30...a little more reasonable. ;) They worked out really well. I also did the 5k again this week, but it felt much shorter. Maybe I'm getting used to it? I was such a nerd while running it, actually. The mass of us running in a group reminded me of red blood cells in circulation, and there was one part where we did a little loop with a turn where we could see the runners ahead of us that reminded me of a loop of Henle in the kidneys. This weekend there's a football game so we might end up doing a run on Sunday instead of Saturday.
In fact, I'm going to the football game. I'm not really big into football, but my dad wants to go so he got us tickets. He knows some people tailgating, and I know some second years tailgating as well, so we're going to hang out with them. I actually went to the bookstore on main campus (during the two hours I didn't realize we didn't have class this morning...the third years had an exam so our joint lecture was moved to late afternoon) and bought a Tigers T-shirt to wear tomorrow. I have a lot planned next weekend, too. SCAVMA is doing a cat spay day on Sunday that I'm going to help out with, and there's some sort of business not-really-clinic that VBMA is putting on that I want to do as well. Path club is going to be doing wetlabs during the week soon, too...lots to look forward to.
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