We had our written test today and our lab practical. The ones I have been focusing on during my 12-15 hour stints at school.

I have never felt so unprepared for a test as I did that one.

It was horrible. I felt like I had spent hours and hours and hours studying the wrong material. All the stuff we were told not to focus on popped up again and again. I write my own practice exams asking about almost every sentence he says in lecture so normally I'm quite prepared, but apparently not this one. At one point I thought to myself "Were we given the wrong test?" When you're taking a 100 question exam and you have to guess on over 40 of them, you don't feel so well after. I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach. Everyone I talked to after felt the exact same way. Actually, a few of them told me "We knew this test was horrible when you didn't leave until an hour and a half into it." I'm a fast test taker, and I've never spent more than 30 mins on an exam (and I do well grade wise). I had to stop and think and rack my brain and make the best educated guesses that I could. It wasn't even hard material, it was just I had no idea for so many of the questions.

I did the best I could so I'm not going to worry about it, I'm just kicking myself for not going the extra mile to learn the stuff that we were told not to worry so much about. It will be important for clinical practice. It's just when you have so much volume thrown at you at once, you have to pick and choose what you are going to focus on. And the silly thing would be to assume that just because the prof didn't spend much time on it in class, it wouldn't be on the exam. I mean, I don't need someone to waste class time saying "This is the corachobrachialis, it's innervated by the musculocutaneous nerve and attaches to the medial humerus." That's boring and I can learn that on my own. But that was what killed me, not reviewing all the origins/insertions/actions/innervations/vasculature. I did cover most of it in undergrad, but that was almost 5 years ago. I couldn't remember the details.

For the record, I don't believe the prof did anything wrong. I love him and you can't get much better than him. You could tell when we were taking our lab practical that he was taking it personally that we didn't do so well. I just found out that he did end up giving us a 9 point curve (which means I passed! phew), and is giving us options for extra credit later on, which is so unheard of. Monday will be interesting, to say the least. I wonder what the average was...

Then, to make things better, I was able to finally take my car to a mechanic. Let's just say that when I heard "Worst case scenario, $900, and we can't let you drive the car it's that dangerous" I almost started laughing at the irony. Thankfully they were super nice and gave me a ride home, because otherwise I would have had to find a bus or a taxi to get to my apartment. My dad talked to them and then talked to me, saying that they weren't ripping me off and I was in good hands, which was reassuring. I'm also thankful that my car didn't die on the way to school. I travel two heavy commuter roads and it would have been bad news if my car had died in the middle of one of them.

Tonight I plan to catch up on episodes of Boston Med and Royal Pains and do nothing. Maybe early to bed. :)