who knew?!

I can study!? It's shocking! I've spent days in the library, with folks coming and going from the room, but we've methodically plodded through exam blueprints and powerpoint slides. We've gone off on tangents, and yapped about meaningless stuff, but to a relative minimum. We've made up songs about antibodies, and interpretive dances for drugs, and I can tell you that our mnemonic for the cranial nerves includes nary a european beer drinker!

It has not translated into A's. And in the class that's 4 credit hours, I didn't even pull a B+. But I feel like I can actually sit in a room and review material - and even learn material - for extended periods of time. My brain feels all open and receptive, like I can easily rifle through the files and pull out what I need or stash new info. For most of the semester, it's felt like I couldn't even yank open the file cabinet.

Part of the reason that I started doing this at the end of the semester is that for the last week, we've had no class, so I have been able to get up and take a shower and then head to the library for hours of study time. During the semester, it was simply not happening for me to drag my ischemic ass to the library after a three hour class to review that material. It was also hard to get motivated to study in the smaller chunks of time available between classes.

One of the things that I've learned this week is that my know-it-all tendencies need some careful release. Studying in a group is good for me, and as long as I'm not an asshole who talks the entire time, it seems good for those with me. Trying to figure out how to explain something solidifies it in my brain. Reading it alone makes me sleepy.

Summer will be pretty different schedule-wise, with smaller chunks of hours in the classroom, the addition of clinical hours, and only two classes to focus on instead of the six of this semester. Overall, though, I'm ending this semester feeling really positive about summer.