1. I had exams
2. My computer died
So we will start with exams. Last week I had my three exams for animal body one. Exam prep for these exams was definitely different than anything I have done before. We had an entire week off to review prior to exam week. That week was spent in various different libraries and my room to try and shake up the mundaneness of studying 10 hours (theoretically...) a day, for essentially two weeks by the time exams were done.
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| Studying at the Vet School with a view of the Pentland Hills |
The first exam was an oral exam last Tuesday. It was only worth 5% of the grade but it was the one I was most nervous for. Basically you were in the dissection room filled with specimens and one of the professors would take you around to different specimens and point at something and say "What is that?" The professor who questioned me had taught all of the structures or the head, skeleton and the limbs. So naturally that is what he questioned me on. That meant a lot of, "What is this muscle? What does it do? What nerve supplies it? What other muscles does that nerve supply?" He also got on a roll about salivary glands and I was spewing details about them I didn't even realize I knew. All in all, minus a couple nervous mistakes (for the most of which I realized and awkwardly corrected later in the exam) I think it went well.
We then had a day off, followed by a multiple choice exam on Thursday. The exam was 40 multiple choice questions. There were definitely some oddly specific questions on things that were covered on one slide in a lecture of 70 slides, but I guess that is to be expected.
Lastly was the short answer exam. 9 short answer questions (most of which had subparts). There were definitely two questions that went less well, which basically became "let me tell you everything I know about this topic in the hope that I cover what you are looking for". So I know I will get marks on those questions but maybe not to the standard of the other ones.
We get our exam results sometime after October 6th. I would say time to play the waiting game but we have already started the next unit, so I think everyone has pretty much forgotten about the fact we are waiting for results. Since the marking is so different here, it will be very interesting to see what sort of mark I come out with.
Saturday after the exams, a friend and I toured around Edinburgh. We spent several hours in the Scottish National Museum. Realistically you could spend several days there. We finished the day off with a group of the class at a really nice pub.
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| Scottish National Museum |
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| The animal section. Naturally us two vet students were drawn here |
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| View of Edinburgh Castle from the rooftop terrace at the Museum |
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| The Scott Monument from Princess Street Gardens |
The second item on my list would be the fact that my computer died. The Wednesday of our revision week my computer started acting funny. So I decided to turn it off and turn it back on once it had cooled down (that's how to fix all electronic problems right?) But when it turned back on this showed up.
Unfortunately none of those options worked. So that meant I needed some expert advice. There were two problems with that. Time was limited because I was studying, and the Edinburgh Apple store isn't open yet so that meant I had to go to Glasgow. So a friend and I decided to turn it into a mini post exam vacation. Sunday we took a train to Glasgow and took my computer into the store and left it to be repaired. We spent the rest of the day exploring Buchanan street (a pedestrian only shopping street), Glasgow Cathedral, The Necropolis, St Andrew's in the Square and Glasgow Green Park. After walking many miles were were exhausted and hopped a train home in the evening.
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| George Square - Lots of Police because there had been riots after Scotland voted No |
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| An incredibly fancy mall off of Buchanan Street |
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| Gates along our walk |
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| Glasgow Cathedral |
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| The Necropolis |
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| St Andrew's in the Square |
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| Glasgow Green |
And this week we are back to classes again. This unit terrifies me... Immunology, Cell Pathology, Inflammation, Bacteriology, Virology and Parasitology. I will definitely have to stay on top of it.
But the best news of all was yesterday. I went to Glasgow to pick up my computer. They had originally told me my hard drive was toast and they would have to replace it. But when I got there they said they were able to save my hard drive by wiping it completely clean and reinstalling all the software. I was incredibly fortunate that I had a back up from two weeks prior to my computer crashing so I was able to install that so now its like nothing ever happened. But the best part of all was that it didn't cost anything to repair! And after spending two weeks without a computer I have realized how dependent I am on it so it is very nice to have it back.
I'm sure tons more things happened in the last month but those are definitely the major ones. Sorry for the mammoth post!
