TEE revisited

this year's exams are a little bit like the TEE. as a fresher (year 7) you start hearing some ominous things, but shut it out to worry about later. by the time you get to fourth year (year 11) there is massive foreshadowing of the fifth year exams (TEE). and when you're in fifth year you spend all year studying/intermittently revising for the exams because you realise that at this stage all-nighters (even several in a row, if you're resilient enough) just won't cut it.

this is not just the Upper Years trying to scare us- everyone in the hospitals is trying to impress upon us the magnitude of these exams. you'll often hear something like this: "you have your BIG osce this year, right? Mm... i remember that..."

still, i doubt anything can ever meet the intensity of year 12.

my biggest concern at the moment is probably ophthal.
it's the one subject i never learned properly, and my first rotation of the year (ie in the shadowy corners of Memory).

and i have further reason for concern- we had an ophthalmology exam in term 1, and laid out on one of the question pages were three pictures of a fundus. the task was for us to write down the cup:disc ratio in each. easy, right? no.

i cannot interpret those images, they just all look pretty much the same to me. hyperaemia? new vessel proliferation? swollen optic disc? silver wiring? uhh yeh actually... no. nope. can't see it. so i just made up three ratios and surprise surprise- they were ALL WRONG. i actually got a whopping 0/3 for that page.

this morning i looked at some of the ophthal notes that my classmates have been studying from.
31 page+ 6 page+8 page documents, it's feasible. as long as i'm not asked to interpret any images.

also, i received the outcome of my UK visa application: rejected. i was quite crushed- the whole process of applying is quite arduous and expensive, and to top it off i have exams in two weeks. still, i am choosing to trust that everything will work out fine.

i shall stick E's messenger status here, because it has been encouraging me: "If things go wrong it'll be alright- cos someone greater is watching over me".