Exams are OVER!!!! Now, to start studying for the next exams...

Woohoo! Exams are finally over! I have never felt so antisocial in my life for the last few weeks. Basically, most of my days consisted of sitting in the living room or my room and studying for 12 hours non-stop (except when I was eating). This was probably the most intense studying I have ever done in my life. Kristen and I haven't been able to do a whole lot like going on random trips because we have both been so busy. She made me a bunch of pre-made dinners so that I would have dinner for the whole week. She is amazing! The dinners were curry and rice, so I was eating quite healthy too. So, for this exam, we were basically examined on the entire animal body (neurology, urinary, digestive, cardiopulmonary, metabolism (with a lot of biochemistry, blah!), reproduction, auditory and visual. I started out studying and thought that there would be no way I would be able to fit all that information in a couple of weeks. I basically went through the notes and shortened the professor's lecture notes from about 60 pages to about 28 pages. There really was a lot of fluff in the professors notes that we didn't need to know and a lot of pictures as well. It's always nice to cut back on the professors notes and go from 60 to 28 pages, what a feeling of relief! I managed to get through all of my self-typed notes and answer past-exam questions, which were very helpful.

The exam on Tuesday was the essay questions and I am hoping I did good on them. I managed to answer all 4 with no major problems. There was one question on describing the respiratory system of mammals and the structures throughout and describing what the major structures functioned to do. The next question asked for the mechanisms by which calcium homeostasis is regulated. The third question was asking to describe the conscious proprioception, unconscious proprioception and pain pathways from the limb to the brain. The last question asked about Glomerular Filtration Rate. I remembered information for all of the questions and did not get stumped once. Hopefully all of the information I wrote down was correct. Before Tuesday's exam began, there was a girl outside of the exam hall doors that was on the floor crying. I felt so bad for her, can you imagine how embarrassing that would be? Apparently she did not have major exams back at her last university and instead they had the students do projects and papers. That's horrible to do to students and not expose them to an exam, because that's usually what grad school is going to give you, LOTS OF EXAMS! I went to lunch with a couple of people after Tuesday's exam and as we were waiting outside of this cafe, there was a very cute dog walking by. It almost looked like a black lab/corgi mix. I made a very light whistle and the dog looked up. I didn't think it would come over, so I began talking to Nicole and all of a sudden I felt this paw on my leg. I looked down and it was the dog I had whistled at and he was sitting on his back legs in a begging position. He was extremely cute and very friendly. His owners were walking away and weren't paying attention, except for the little girl that was with them, she was calling out for her little dog to come back. This dog was enjoying all of this attention and forgot that it's owners were way ahead. The dog finally noticed that the owners were far away and he scurried off in a hurry to catch up.

Yesterdays exams were the short answer and multiple choice question. The multiple choice question section was slightly horrific, with a lot of biochemistry questions. Out of everything we learned over the past few months, they want us to know the recycling carrier molecule in the urea cycle? Really? Come on! I would think questions pertaining to cardiopulmonary or neurology would have been more important for us to know. The short answer was okay. I answered all questions and left none blank, so that is good. The question that I had been hoping would show up, did show up on the short answer portion. It was to describe the path of CSF flow from the site of production to the site of absorption. EASY! There were 5 other questions as well. I left about 30 minutes before the exam was over and went straight to the gym since I hadn't been since before Christmas! I am now regretting that I worked out so hard because I am extremely sore today... I now have to begin packing for North Yorkshire because I am leaving at 8.35am on Saturday. I also have to begin organizing my lectures from the Animal Health Welfare and Food Safety lectures because as soon as I get back from lambing, we have another big exam...ugh! I am done with exams already, jeesh! Well, I better get going, will try and post some more pictures today while I have a chance. Talk to you all later!