Mini III

Mini III is done! After a long and grueling week of studying and an exhausting 40 hour study weekend, yes you read correctly I said weekend, Mini III is finished. It went really well. We have our rough scores back and even if we do not get any points back, I did well. The exam was over the cardiovascular system and respiratory system. It was 106 questions and it took 2 hours and 20 minutes to complete. I finished 10 minutes early and spent the rest of the time making sure i keyed the answers correctly.
So far durring semester every block has been heavy on material from one core duscipline or another. Mini 1 was was heavy on biochem. Mini 2 was heavy on pathology and microscopic anatomy. Mini 3 was over 50%  physiology. Fortunitely for me there was a large focus on resperatory and cardiac physiology in MERP so alot of the material was a review.  I found this particular block exhausting, partly because it's the end of the semester and partly because there was so much material. I can honestly say that i have never studied this hard in my entire life. The sheet dedication and mental endurance necessary for pure survival is of note. The amount of inner strength required to excel beyond just average is almost unimmaginable. So how does one do it you might ask? The only answer I have is from my own personal experiance. You don't think about it, you just do it. You set goals every day and you meet them. You dont go to sleep until you complete it all. During orientation week the academic success people came and talk to us. They used pancakes as an example. I thought this was stupid at first but it makes total sence. If you get a set amount of pancakes every day the catch is that if you dont eat all your pancakes you have to finish them the next day plus the new amount. At the end of the week if you didnt keep up with the pancakes you have a huge stack. So they told us "make sure to eat your pancakes every day". This holds absolutely true. It's difficult to describe the amount of information that you are required to, not only memorize, but know, understand, and apply in a single day is phenomenal. This almost impossible to explain to new and incomming students, you almost have to experiance it for yourself.
So what comes next...Well, the mother of all tests for the semester is comming up. We have 7 days to review the material from the entire semester and be ready to take the final exam next tuesday. It represents 45% of each block's grade, so anything less than average is unacceptable.
Well I wrote this post two weeks ago and meant to post it then but I guess I never did. Since this post a lot has happened and the semester is over. The final was long and exhausting and I am happy to be spending time with my family and getting ready for christmas. Grades should be in next week so stay tuned for details. I will also write more details about the final soon.