The Leodisian Life...

[yeliab_cram]

Exams are stupid.

Well, not all exams, but most. allow me to explain: In my experience a big important exams suffer the following problem. They need to subjectively assess the knowledge acquired by a large number of pupils on a predetermined sylabuss. It works at GCSE and A-level, it even works with spot tests (i will come back to this...) but unfortunately there is a limit to how big the potential pool of knowledge can be before the whole system starts to break down. If you are expected to know X number of topics in a vast ammount of detail, from which the examiner can ask you any minute question he likes, you are not so much testing a deeply acquired knowledge of the subject, rather how good your students' memories are, and how lucy they are that what they remembered came up.

Perhaps what we need is a change of tack. Clearly define the topic areas allowed and then let us pick what we talk about. Lets be subjective about it! If we are no going to be allowed to know what we are actually expected to know, surely the whole point of an objective exam falls down!?

So maybe you are not following, because im ranting... Here is my problem, i have the types of exams coming up where we are set between 4 and 6 essay questions per exam, usually set into 2 equal sections (2+2 or 3+3) of which we must answer at least one of each. What im saying is, we dont have a lot of choice. Problem is the topics the exams are set on are vast. and it is completely legitamate for the examiner to ask on a specific part of one topic. Means your a bit screwed if you happen not to have done all the work for that topic doesnt it.

So i guess you are thinking, well, why dont you just revise everything? well, thats the problem, you cant. there is no list of what you need to know. you go over the lecture, read the book, read a few review articles, get the general idea of what is going on. But to get the decent marks you have to quote and reference bits of experimental evidence. Which means you have to go away and read even more papers and get some experiments which back up the points you are trying to make. The problem with this is, rather than developing a deep understanding of the topic, which is malleable in an exam, you develop a deep knowledge of one area of the topic: if its not asked you are screwed.

I am concerned.

You see, i much prefer spot tests, in anatomy. You can predict what sort of thing will come up, you know what to learn, and goddamit, when the time comes round you whizz round those 32 stations in 100seconds a time and blitz it. Its like speed dating a corpse under exam conditions. Writing all these essays gives me arm cramp and makes my hand very sweaty...

Maybe im just panicking for no reason, well, im not so much panicking as having a blind unadulterated panic, no, no, not really, im just a little concerned and suffering a small bout of tonsillitis and/or cynicism with the system.

Perhaps the problem is my summer exams last year: you see each year i do more work and it never gets me anywhere. In first year i revised with my housemate for one day 8am till 11pm... i thought id failed, got a c (thats fine). Second year, revised for a week, did the exam, thought id failed even more than in first year, still got a c. In third year, i decided i was not going to panic again and revised for 5 weeks everything on pathology etc on the exam. In all the practie papers, the clinical part was a complete doss, so i didnt revise that - i knew all the practice qs already.

So i got into the exam, and all those 5 weeks of work were worthless, it all came down to what id picked up on the wards as the term went on (which was admitedly, quite a lot) but tis not the point. My 5 weeks of revision was worth 5 ****ing marks, thats not very ****ing productive is it!

So i think maybe its all going to happen again, been working my tits off all term, and i am rather concerned im going to crash and burn because of a tecnicality.

Pray for Mojo

[yeliab_cram]

Originally Posted by yeliab_cram

Pray for Mojo

ah yes... if you were wondering it is a) a quote from the Simpsons, and b) a reference to me, my dad wanted to call me Mojo, he didnt thank god, can u imagine the bullying after Austin Powers came out???

Also I am still rather ill and haven't quite made it back to leeds yet, in fact im still writing essays - ahhhh i am going mad!

[yeliab_cram]

I have been in Leeds for the best part of two hours, have listened to the radio for 15mins and have already heard two adverts promoting condom use. Welcome back to Yorkshire!

I have unpacked, my room smells of holiday mustiness, and, as is traditional, my lightbulb has gone... again... dammit. I'm back on my trust laptop, which is quite the opposite in terms of performance: it has been on for 10mins and is already threatening to overheat - it is propped up on one side with a yellow highlighter and is sounding ominous.

Anyway it is nice to be back among students in what i consider my own house. Its fairly quiet, only Mike and Idan are back so far. Mike being a budding politician and Idan being my Israeli housemate who was born in Belgium, lived in Rome and who's mum is 'Miri - Romanian fencing champion of the world" and who is doing an MA in marketing. I have lived with Idan in some shape or form since first year, but Mike is a new addition this year, and really, we are quite similar. It took us 20mins of watching Scrubs to come out with the same thought process simultaneously.

It was obvious Mike and I were going to get on, as we had a truly classic moment right away. On the first day of registration, I was one of the first in. Im sure you know what its like - many many ques (is that how u spell ques, as in long windy things made up of people, that never move, ever). Anyway after queing for rather longer than i thought would be necessary at 9:30 - bearing in mind your average student doesnt get up till at least 11 o'clock and it was freshers week so you can push the average back until at least 12. Anyway the point is it was early in the day. During registration i got a Sports User membership (which i have been far too busy to use much/at all) which now cost £45... it was £30 in my first year. Anyway i got a little recipt put it in my pocket and got on with all my silly intro lectures.

At 5:30 i was sitting on the wall outside my house having a chat with some friends who had popped round - obviously we never quite made it into the house, and low and behold Mike (who is also known as Mr Livingstone - dont get confused) came wandering, quite forecefully upto me. "oh my god" he declared as he handed me a little red bit of paper - "Mr Bailey I presume" indeed, he had my sports user receipt. He found it on the floor, and as he was in a long que picked it up to have a read, its a funny old world, there must have been thousands of students in that hall during the day, i was one of the first, he was one of the last, and he found my user receipt.

Living with him has actually been a fairly interesting experience actually, not only due to his political prowess and quite startling ability to read people, but by the fact that a few weeks into term he managed to get appendicitis, at 3am, and i was nominated for waking up as i was a) a good second opinion and b) own a car. Obviously the last thing i could do at 3am was figure out the best way to A&E (im better at knowing where to park - or so i claim) but was able to take a history, which is always a useful skill.

By the way he is Scottish, and says "chicken" funny, he also has an immense eversion to tomatoes, which is kind of unsettling as the housemate he replaced was also Scottish and had a phobia of bannanas, maybe its something to do with the way they bring them up over the border?

Anyway, exams are looming, first on on 12th; I am informed that i am about to enter the worst period of my academic life to-date, oh goody. If it was a medic exam i would say bring it on, but its not, and i am stressed. I dont really care what either MuSK, MASC, RATL or Rapsyn do, but i can tell you, but trust me you dont want to know.

[yeliab_cram]

ahhhhhh; i just went down to the kitchen, i realised i forgot to bring the pack of Twinings English Breakfast tea with me from home... how the hell am i going to work in the morning without a decent cup of tea????

To quote Eddie from Lock Stock: "The entire British empire was built on cups of tea, and if you think I'm going to war without one, mate, you're mistaken."

I shall have to make do with Tetleys Goodnight!

[yeliab_cram]

I have just completed yet another practice essay, and my head hurts, so thought i would introduce you to the rest of my lovely household before i do another!

I mentioned Mike and Idan (briefly) the remaining two are my fellow medic Danny, who shares my stresses, pains and is generally someone to confer on medical issues with - which of course annoyos the hell out of the others when we do it in the kitchen. We met on the first day of uni, and have been friends every since. Although i will be the first to admit that we do annoy each other every so often, mainly because we spend far too much time together what with doing the same course, and now the same BSc!

The final housemate is a girly (oooo) called Lucy, who does broadcast journalism, and is another unique character; shes has a fluffly handbag named bernard and a purple flower, which is currently next to the sink in the kitchen named Bernice... i am not quite sure why it is there - probably because Lucy is not. She has some terrible form of gastric flu and it dying quietly at home at the moment. So we are a man down... well woman down, well you know what i mean.

We are not very good at house photos and never seem to have any with us all in, but i thought i would shove up this for you to ponder over. You can make up your own mind which ones we all are!

Yes, i know half of us are all looking the wrong way; i told you, we have no photos with everyone in!

[yeliab_cram]

For the second night running i cannot sleep; not even a little bit! perhaps my brain is too filled with molecular pathways and the names, dates and methodology of random experiments, or perhaps i am more concerned about the forthcoming exams than i let on...

I like to consider my self a well refined and carefully crafted round peg - however it would appear that the school of biomedical sciences is very much a square hole. Whilst i can do medical exams and pass with flying colours, i have no idea what to expect from the forthcoming hours sat at a desk with just pen and paper for moral support - dammit, the last essay i wrote in exam conditions was on Hitler for GCSE history! I cant help but feel i am masqurading as something i am not. I am no neuroscientist-o-biologist.

Put me in theatre with a consultant, or on ward rounds or in outpatients and when i get a grilling I have learnt to stand my ground; i have enough basic background medical knowledge to sensibly stumble my way to some form of vaguely logical answer. Medics are always chonically lacking in basic scientific knowledge - mainly because they teach us the entire content of a normal BMS module in 1 lecture and expect that to sink in. In fact one of my major reasons for doing a BSc was to go back to basics and pick up some of those basic scientific skills which i feel are lacking, thus helping me on the wards.

Unfortunately i seem to have missed the boat; in BMS these basic skills are taught during the first and second years for application in the third year. So I find myself pretending to be a neuroscientist and cell biologist, reading the latest cutting edge experiments, pretending to understand all about confocal microscopy and in-situ hybridization and the ins and outs of producing a transgenic mouse, without any of the background knowledge to fall back on. Its like driving a Ferrari after 3 driving lessions; not pretty.

So i can happilly 'learn' all these theories and experiments and concepts, the problem is, that i have absolutely no scaffolding on which to mount this information.

The second major problem seems to stem from a lack of planning for what is, after all, a completely new intercalated degree programme. There was a limited module choice, and the results of this lack of autonomy have lead us to a situation where we had all our coursework at once, and now have 4 exams at once, and thus in the last two months i have taken the grand total of 6 days off. At least in medicine they give you actual holidays! even if they are not that long, you can just catch up on sleep and socialising. It looks like perhaps i am reaching the lower reaches of what i can deal with in academia. I do sometimes wonder why i am bothering to put myself through this - i am however convinced it will serve me well in the future even if not right now.

Anyway, to finish, i thought i would take you through the states of mind through which we all seemed to pass this term - from happy excited medics to depressed, over-worked, un-shaven BMS students.

Stage 1 - Naiivety [ooo, this year's going to be fun]
Stage 2 - Irony [how ironic, this was supposed to be my year NOT working hard]
Stage 3 - Depression [oh dear god, so much work]
Stage 4 - Anger [why can't these idiots plan a ****ing course?]
Stage 5 - Amusement & Disbelief [hehe, we dont know Jack Shit! We are screwed]
Stage 6 - Dispair [i thought xmas was a holiday time...]
Stage 7 - Panic [8hours a day and i still dont know enough]

the question is, what shall follow? Triumph, or Anguish?

[yeliab_cram]

Ah, so the storm commeth:

9:30am tomorrow - BMSC 2112: Functional Anatomy of Head & Neck; Roger Stevens.

Now one would hope that i will be ok with this one as its on the actual subject i enjoy, however revision of anatomy has taken a back seat to revision for all the other stuff, so we shall just have to pray that the stuff i know well comes up and i dont get shafted. The joyful anatomy exam is followed up by one i am really shitting it for:

2pm on the 13th (shit just realised thats friday the 13th, do u think thats a bad omen?)

BMSC 3110 Developmental Neurobiology - in the moot court room - where the f-ing hell is that?

If good questions come up, i could manage some good answers, however there is a possibility of big shaftage if they are harsh with the qns, i am praying that it wont be the case.

Am i ready? no, probably not, but will i ever be? honestly, probably not either - you can keep reading for ever and ever. It is just time to grin and bear it - wish me luck.

[yeliab_cram]

ahhhh, i cant sleep again... do u think its a bad sign that i just cracked open the Bowmore Single Malt Scotch that my cousin gave me as a present for being an usher at his wedding, that has been sat on my shelf for the best part of 6months?? I'm hoping it will help me sleep. It not nerves so much, as lack of phsyical tiredness despite a gross mental tiredness...

Anyway, i have now finished my 'peaty' pallated whiskey with an aftertase of citrus and honey (according to the bottle) and am going back to bed...

hmm palate, made up of the palatine process of the maxilla and the horizontal plate of the palatine bone which join in the....zzzzz

[yeliab_cram]

Right, back to revision, post exam numero uno.

Thankfully, the anatomy exam was nothing out of the ordinary, and three great essay questions came up in the second section. I think it is fair to say it was an anotomical tour de force. It felt like i well and truly violated the exam, however i do feel that the developmental neuro one tommorow will seek revenge on behalf of his anatomical brother and may well be giving me a right buggering, i sincerely hope that by tomorrow eve, i do not have a metephorical arsehole like a clown's pocket. [Excuse the graphicness of my metophor, i think it refelcts my being sat at a desk for 8 hours a day, practically everyday for 5weeks!]

[yeliab_cram]

I bet your wondering how the exam was... well let me lay out the worst case scenario that danny and i calculated over lunch first off:

The exam structure was 6 essay questions split into two sections of 3. We were to answer 3 questions in 3 hours, with at least one from each section. Both me and Danny were strongest on the second section, and hoped to answer two from that section, and pray a good topic from the first section came up.

Possible Section A topics: Neural fate, DV identidy, AP identity, Stem cells, Axon Guidence, Lateral Inhibition
Possible Section B topics: NMJ formation, NMJ elimination, Superior Colliciulus, Cerebellum, Ocular Dominance Columns.

My strongest topics: Ocular Dominance, NMJ elimination, NMJ formation, Axon guidence, Cerebellum, DV identity, Neural fate

Qns that came up: A: Neural fate, DV identity, Axon guidence; B: Superior colliculus, wired cerebellum & neural patterning Q, NMJ formation. This was pretty much as bad as it could have been: i was forced to answer two qns from my much weaker section - section A.

I did the Axon guidance, NMJ formation and DV identity questions, all of which i have a fairly decent understanding of, but i didnt have that many papers for any of them. The ODC or NMJ elimination essays had around 8 papers in each all of which i could talk about at length - purely because the topics were so much more interesting. It is frustrating to know that all that information is now completely redundent! I mean i cant see me knowing all about Horton and Hocking, 1996 and what they did with Macaque monkeys being all that helpful in my life as a doctor! I guess i shall just have to hope that one day in surgery the consultant says "so Marc, why is it important to remove cataracts in infants within the first three months of life" and i can reply, "well, its funny you ask; it all begin with Hubel and Wiesel in the 1960s..."

Anyway, i know have 3 days to forget all the anatomy and developmental neurobiology and replace it with cancer biology and pathology of the forebrain. However i have not looked at these notes for nearly two weeks as i revised them towards the beginning of the holls, so it really is going to be rather tight.