Thursday, June 11, 2009

De-Brief

In hindsight, the fact that our three exams were one after another (Tues/Wed/Thurs) really didn't impact on how I would have went. Because really, I think I wouldn't have done any better with any extra time in-between. So here goes:
Exam (1) was Short-Answer; this was a huge shock. First off, the first question had nothing to do with any sort of science and was 4 marks. The next question had nothing to do with science, and was 5 marks. Thereby followed a string of 4, 5, 6, and even 8 and 10 mark questions. I was *utterly shocked*. With only high school exam experience to fall back on, exam (1) felt really hard simply due to the number of marks allocated to each question; the pressure was on to do well in each and every question, and it was pretty intense. Another big thing was that I forgot to write fast. This time, although all the lecture note-taking via my netbook didn't impact on my writing speed, I was just unprepared for the pace of the exam, and especially forgot how long it took to write answers. Silly me, heh...
Exam (2) and (3) were Multiple-Choice. Exam 2 was the hardest multiple choice paper I had ever sat, followed by Exam 1, which was still hard but definitely a step lower. I found that, unlike the Short Answer paper, I had bucketloads of time (filling in a bubble is certainly faster than writing lines and lines) so time was certainly not an issue; just simply my gaps in knowledge and the rather lack of emphasis on PBL-exclusive stuff (e.g. mechanisms). I ended up tallying questions I was sure of and wasn't sure of; in both exams it turned out to be about half-half, so I'm hoping at least 10 of those unsure ones will pull through - aiming for a 60+ :)

And then we went bowling to destress.
Highlight of my bowling today: got a strike (!)
Lowlight of my bowling today: 5 gutter-balls in a row.

Monday, June 8, 2009

Tension

Less than...18 hours until exams start! Wooo............
By the time yesterday rolled into view, and I was thoroughly sick of studying, having crammed my brains out. So I decided to go on a word-count spree, just to make myself feel good.
Turns out that over the week I had accumulated 20,000 words of personal, self-typed summaries. I felt proud that my notes over a week were approaching a PhD thesis length, and also made me realise that the length of a PhD thesis had nothing to do with the actual amount of work done over the three or so years to reach it.
So today was supposed to be the ultimate final revision day. And it sort of was. A small group excursion to Parramatta Library for study purposes revealed a few very important points:

1) All local libraries are closed on public holidays. Including the State Libraries, but excluding University Libraries (as of 1st July 2009).
2) One small coffee (between the 5 of us) was not enough to stay in Gloria Jeans for very long.
3) Parramatta Library, however, has a very useful outdoor table which we did use for study.
4) Despite the best intentions of the group, and despite one person trying vainly to stay on track, and despite everyone participating, half the study time was lost talking about games, what we were to do in the holidays, and miscellaneous topics of discussion (such as Twilight)

So remains the last few hours available for intense exam cramming; I'll be back on Thursday to debrief the exam. But for now, PPD, Statistics, Immunology, Diabetes Mellitus and other Lecture revisions beckon. Toodles.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Down, but not out

First post of the month, yippee!
That's probably about the most joyous statement I can muster today; I'm smack bang in the middle of my StuVac, and let me tell you, Uni cramming is NOTHING like HSC cramming. I've managed to write up 10 000 words of concise PBL summaries so far (up to my 6th PBL out of 11) in the past 4 days, and I'm behind by one PBL, by my schedule. So not really feeling happy about my progress so far... on top of that I still haven't finished my Week 12 (i.e. last week) contribution - the writing up of the final learning objectives, so I really hope I'm not delaying 10 other people's study - I'm about halfway through.
So I've realised that despite being relatively more prepared than I was for the HSC (I started cramming for HSC trials a few days in advance, whereas this time I started a week and a half away), and despite this being the very first Semester of the very first year, I'm still managing to be behind. *sigh*
Oh, and I got snapped for my JFPP interview. Self-prophecy much, but I knew I didn't have that much of a chance; I know the people who did apply for it are really keen on the program, so kudos to them; at least next year I'll have a fair idea of what to expect (and make sure not to forget my citizenship documents, heh...). That leaves me with an empty schedule for the summer holidays (so far away, I know) so I'll be looking to fill it up with the newly announced UWS Summer Research Scholarship deal; or perhaps USyd's research program; or perhaps just go into the hospital system and see what I can scrape.
And finally, my external monitor for my eeePC is starting to die (15" monitor, second-hand when bought). At 1am yesterday it started flickering all shades of orange; so I'll be looking to replace it with a new monitor ([!] that's kind of a good thing! Big 23" LCD monitor, here I come!).

So yeah. I think the best thing to happen to me now is to manage to finish my exam preparation in time, and snap the exams so I can look at ways to solve all these problems, and then break out a new resolve to continuously stay on top of stuff for the much, much, much more arduous (but hopefully also much more interesting) second semester. I do realise though these are relatively miniscule worries in the big scheme of things. But for the moment... "I can't wait.....for the weekend to beginnnnnnn"