Unlike some things in life, we really don't mind if you finish early.
We do mind, however, if you go at double speed so that you finish 20 minutes early. That kind of thing leads to chafing.
Geraldine
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Clinical School
When you make the ominous decision to apply to Cambridge to study medicine, you are warned that you will need to reapply for clinical school. However, this warning comes at the time when you still consider yourself reasonably, or even very, intelligent, and therefore falls completely on deaf ears. You think to yourself, 'If I can get in the first time round, surely doing it again will be no problem?'
You promptly forget about such things, merrily failing exams and perhaps trying a few bits and pieces here and there until third year, when a horrifying application form finds its way into your inbox. It is awful. It wants to know everything. And now you have the sneaking suspicion that while on UCAS you were some shining goddess of a student, you are now just so much insignificant mediocrity. Perhaps your DoS has even said that you stand not a single chance.
Come January, you attend an interview, and are briefly reminded just how much sheer terror makes you want to evaporate in your interview suit. You are asked awkward questions that you agonise over for weeks to come. You dread that answering something just a little wrong will land you living in London, paying twice as much to do a course you didn't really apply for.
And then...you wait.
We are still on stage three. Today is the 17th February, and according to our handy timetable our offers were made nearly two weeks ago, and we replied to offers yesterday. Good to know the clinical school cares so deeply about our wellbeing.
You promptly forget about such things, merrily failing exams and perhaps trying a few bits and pieces here and there until third year, when a horrifying application form finds its way into your inbox. It is awful. It wants to know everything. And now you have the sneaking suspicion that while on UCAS you were some shining goddess of a student, you are now just so much insignificant mediocrity. Perhaps your DoS has even said that you stand not a single chance.
Come January, you attend an interview, and are briefly reminded just how much sheer terror makes you want to evaporate in your interview suit. You are asked awkward questions that you agonise over for weeks to come. You dread that answering something just a little wrong will land you living in London, paying twice as much to do a course you didn't really apply for.
And then...you wait.
We are still on stage three. Today is the 17th February, and according to our handy timetable our offers were made nearly two weeks ago, and we replied to offers yesterday. Good to know the clinical school cares so deeply about our wellbeing.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
The lecturers you'll meet in third year
We still see a lot of the old characters (the mumbler, the one with the inexplicable accent that's particularly confusing when they're teaching you signalling pathways and you've no idea whether they're introducing you to a new molecule you've never heard of or massively fudging the word 'therefore'), but we also have a few new faces. Here are a selection:
The one who will get to the end of their lecture time and realise they're overrunning. They won't slow down or cut their lecture for next year, just keep going. They frequently ask, 'I might run over, is that ok?', and no one will ever dare refuse.
The one whose references are a twelve page list of everything that's ever been written on their subject, with no indication of what is a good idea to read, and what will actually lower out IQ by a few points
The one who references only himself, even if his papers are all twenty years old and are biographies of someone everyone now thinks was wrong about everything.
The arch-enemies, Professor This-subject-is-really-complex-and-interesting-but-here's-a-picture-of-a-tree, and Doctor This-sucject-is-simple-but-here's-an-in-depth-review-of-one-specific-and-confusing-paper.
How I miss Professor Mumbles.
Geraldine
The one who will get to the end of their lecture time and realise they're overrunning. They won't slow down or cut their lecture for next year, just keep going. They frequently ask, 'I might run over, is that ok?', and no one will ever dare refuse.
The one whose references are a twelve page list of everything that's ever been written on their subject, with no indication of what is a good idea to read, and what will actually lower out IQ by a few points
The one who references only himself, even if his papers are all twenty years old and are biographies of someone everyone now thinks was wrong about everything.
The arch-enemies, Professor This-subject-is-really-complex-and-interesting-but-here's-a-picture-of-a-tree, and Doctor This-sucject-is-simple-but-here's-an-in-depth-review-of-one-specific-and-confusing-paper.
How I miss Professor Mumbles.
Geraldine
Monday, February 7, 2011
The medics get nostalgic
Tomorrow is our third RAG Blind Date. We are reliably informed by our tutor that Blind Date has been running annually since SHE was at Cambridge, and thus is at least twenty years old. This is pretty awesome for a charity event that basically relies on people going 'ah, what the heck, I'll just give it at shot' and kind of slightly hoping that maybe they'll meet the guy/girl of their dreams, but inevitably being disappointed. And then doing it again the next year, with roughly the same thought process.
We, obviously, are taking part - because it's Cambridge and Lent term wouldn't be Lent without an achingly awkward four-way date with (inevitably) three guys (one of us always gets stood up) who spend roughly an hour and a half to two hours gazing bemusedly at us while we act as crazy as possible; somewhere around the halfway mark, they either decide 'screw it, I'm going to just run with it' or 'this is the single worst experience of my life' and either join in the insanity (the former, in which case we subtly claim their souls for ourselves) or start checking their watch.
So, tomorrow, it is Joanne's turn to be stood up (leaving Felicity REIGNING CHAMPION at never having her date fail to show), and we are all going out for Chinese, probably, of which approximately half will definitely be peppers, just so that Felicity's date (and everyone else's) can judge her when she picks them out.
Blind Date is made even more hilarious by the fact that both Felicity and Geraldine are firmly attached, and thus could care a lot more about what their dates think of them by the end of the evening.
We'll let you know how it goes.
Love,
Felicity xxx
We, obviously, are taking part - because it's Cambridge and Lent term wouldn't be Lent without an achingly awkward four-way date with (inevitably) three guys (one of us always gets stood up) who spend roughly an hour and a half to two hours gazing bemusedly at us while we act as crazy as possible; somewhere around the halfway mark, they either decide 'screw it, I'm going to just run with it' or 'this is the single worst experience of my life' and either join in the insanity (the former, in which case we subtly claim their souls for ourselves) or start checking their watch.
So, tomorrow, it is Joanne's turn to be stood up (leaving Felicity REIGNING CHAMPION at never having her date fail to show), and we are all going out for Chinese, probably, of which approximately half will definitely be peppers, just so that Felicity's date (and everyone else's) can judge her when she picks them out.
Blind Date is made even more hilarious by the fact that both Felicity and Geraldine are firmly attached, and thus could care a lot more about what their dates think of them by the end of the evening.
We'll let you know how it goes.
Love,
Felicity xxx
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