Counting and Count Downs

As human beings, we seem to be compelled to make lists of things we need to do, count downs for events that are going to happen in our lives, and to generally look forward to the future while sometimes ignoring the present. I am certainly no exception to all of this. Each week I list out all of the classes, exams, and review sessions I have on a white board calendar, make a task list of things I want to accomplish for the day/week/certain time frame (although this seems pointless because I almost never get things done in the way I had anticipated), and lately we have all been counting down the weeks of class left, the number of classes left, and the days left on the island. Definitely a coping mechanism to help get us through the enormous amounts of stress placed on us throughout the semester as we tackle dozens of exams, hundreds of lectures, and thousands of pages of study material.

Here are a few of my count downs right now:
# of anatomy labs left: 9
# of anatomy classes left: 6
# of histology classes left: 9
# of physiology classes left: 5
# of exams left until finals begin: 2
# of final exams: 5 (unless you count anatomy lab and lecture separately-which they probably should be!)
# of weeks of classes left: 3
# of weeks until I am done with semester 1 of vet school: 4
and finally I leave the island for the US one month from today! I haven't been keeping up with the number of days (many of my classmates have been and I catch up on how many days I have left based on when I know they're leaving).

These are the numbers that are keeping me sane! Tomorrow I will officially be done with my third vet school class, I can't wait! We have our animal welfare and behavior final exam in the afternoon, although no one is quite sure what this really means. Best case scenario we have no exam, just a supplemental lecture. Another is that we have to take an exam but it doesn't count/we go through the questions in class. Worst case scenario we have an exam and it actually counts without being curved (this scenario is hopefully very unlikely). I'm just not quite sure what to expect so I spent a few hours this evening reviewing the material presented to us by our visiting professors. Nothing too difficult so hopefully any sort of exam would be fine. We'll see!

And just a little update on the nutrition exam from Tuesday: remember how I said I wasn't worried? Well I scored a 24/25 on the exam and intentionally picked what I assumed would be the "wrong" answer for the question I missed. This is because the question wasn't worded well and although I was 99% certain that she was looking for a specific answer (and I was right), I wanted to make sure to cover my bases by picking the one that was technically correct based on the wording of the question. At the end of every exam (after we submit scantrons) we review the correct answers and are given the chance to write any "challenges" we have for any of the questions. I had my fingers crossed that we could get the question thrown out (a lot of people challenged it) and I was right! So that means I technically got a 24/24 and I am THRILLED to have gotten a 100% on a vet school exam! Hopefully I can keep this trend up throughout the last couple of exams and finals to finish out the semester strongly!