Working too hard

As third years, you'd think it would be hard to do. However, here are some pretty good signs:

You regularly go to the library when it's closed.

You learn where the motion sensors are for the lights in the library so you can flail at them when the lights go out.

You read more than half of the essential reading, or more than a few of the recommended reading.

You've spent all week working, and know...nothing.

You happen across a piece of discarded paper reading, 'Need DAPI' and wonder what else they were staining with.

Your friends are sick of hearing about your PCR not working. Real PCRs never work. The song never told me that, and I am annoyed.

You start far too many conversations with, 'I was reading this paper...'


Anyway, I am deciding not to work too hard any more. I am off to the zoo.

Geraldine

Freshers' Week

OK, so it's been a while. Things happen, as things tend to do. Then boredom happened. Then more things happened. You get the idea. Point is, we are now third years. Third year is a mythical time for medics, when you are told you have free time and can actually do things with it except for complain about how you have no free time. More on that later. For now, freshers' week.

Most universities have a week or two of absolutely nothing, usually devoted to drinking and getting people settled in. Freshers' week in Cambridge means cramming all the start of term things in as quickly as possible so that the hope-destroying work can start as soon as possible. In first year, this means being vastly bewildered by everything going on at once and not having a clue what any of it means, then being disappointed once lectures start about three days in, while friends at other unis have been drinking constantly for what seems like a month. Second years have it much easier: having been through it and feeling pretty savvy, they are free to enjoy reunions and the main point of freshers' week: free stuff. They are also able to marvel at how tiny the freshers are. Third year, however, is different again. Having probably become someone important (or a nameless goon) in a number of societies, it is your job to make sure that every single fresher knows that they exist as soon as they've matriculated. As this follows about three months of doing exactly nothing, it comes as a bit of a shock, and everyone's triple-booked the whole week. Plus, of course, there's re-learning how to fend for yourself. This year, freshers are not just adorable and naive, they are annoyingly clueless and disease-ridden. As soon as lectures start, you miss being so small and having the same lectures you complained about in first year.

Ugh. I miss being at school.

Easter Term Is Here - Self-diagnosis time

We've all gone crazy. Joanne just walked into Geraldine's room (while I was here) and made a noise you'd normally expect to hear from a swamp - and has become the third person to be tucked up into Geraldine's bed in the last hour. Not all at separate times.

I am suffering from the two less useful symptoms of dysexecutive syndrome (see, I know something), namely catatonia (where you stare into space for hours at a time because you can't start doing anything) and distractibility, which pretty much does what it says on the tin: workworkworkwo...ooh, butterfly. INTERNET GAMES.

I am also the proud owner of a new toy - namely a baby tapir (google it) called Timmy. He has become our revision mascot, and spends pretty much all his time being cuddled by someone trying to cram - and having his nose used for eskimo kisses.

In conclusion, the exam term crazy has well and truly hit, but in about a week's time, we'll all have finished and we'll be sane again. Sort of.

In other news, we have it on good authority that Julia's laptop just exploded. Rather than embracing this with open arms (no laptop = no internet = no distraction. Ish), she has informed College. Who have bought her an emergency one. Reasons to be at Cambridge number 493.

Love,
Felicity xxx

Today, I am thankful.

Yes, yes I am.
What for? Well, partly for my continued sanity despite all odds (sanity is relative, I'll have you know. I maintain that I am sane until I can no longer function a toothbrush.), but mainly for the healing power of cramming.
Cramming is bad, yes, and revision should be done twelve years in advance and all that, but not one of us can truthfully claim that we haven't been saved by cramming, at least to some extent. So, that's four Cambridge medical students, hundreds of hours of lectures and practicals, and of course more supervisors than you can shake a dismembered gangrenous leg at, and it's the cramming that gets us through. If that doesn't say something, I don't know what will.
So, please excuse me while I spend my Easter holidays lazing around surrounded by books hoping that information will diffuse into my head- cramming will save me in the end. I just need to wait for The Fear to kick in.

Geraldine xxx

Long Time No See...

Yes, we're still alive- 2/3 of second year has not succeeded in killing us, however hard it's tried. However, we have Easter term to go, and that can only mean one thing: complete and utter insanity. Well, more so.
In a few days or so I'll get round to telling you all about what we've learned so far this year, but for now, some thoughts on experimental psychology:
'It's not like we can do those kinds of experiments on humans, anyway.'
'What, you mean with levers and naked prostitutes?'
'Yes, they tend to frown on those.'
'But those are the best kinds of experiments!'

Geraldine xxx