More time, please

Vet school really has done a number on my conception of myself as a good student. Now that we have one month left of lectures before we start clinics, it seems a little late to make any significant changes, but I still get very regretful on the nights before exams that I don't have a couple more days to show that I can study, I can be a good student, I just ran out of time. Unfortunately this trend has been going on for two years now, so the best I can do is pass the exams. Even if I study my butt off, at this point there's so much background information I'm trying to make up for that I realistically can't ace an exam. (I did try--I started studying three weeks ahead and attended all the lectures in a state of awakeness and so forth. I got 52 percent. On the other hand, the class average was 68 percent, and I had company down on my end of the curve, so I figure that particular exam was designed solely to crush our spirits.)

Being in a class full of overachievers doesn't help. ALL of them complain that they have not studied enough for the next exam. They then quiz each other on things that I am lucky if I remember from lecture, and which I haven't gotten around to reviewing yet. Really annoying when this happens five minutes before the exam.

Then there's meds. They screw with my concentration and my sleep schedule in maddeningly unpredictable ways. One day I'm fine with five hours of sleep, and the next day--although I may stay awake--I won't be able to recall a single thing from lecture aside from a vague sense that horses' joints came into it somewhere.

But part of it is really that I just don't spend enough time studying (unpredictable sleep schedule doesn't help, I will concede that much). Studying is like writing, I find--it won't get done if you don't sit down, and it's surprisingly hard sometimes. So It's especially frustrating when technology sabotages an hour of writing up notes by crashing the moment you try to save them. >.< Aargh. I already had one panic attack today, I refuse to have another one, plus my boyfriend told me he'll force me to e-mail the professor about not taking the exam tomorrow if I do. And even with a medical excuse, I don't see that going over well. Radiology exams involve lots of actual radiographs, which I suspect they don't want to put up and take down more than once.

At least I have the comfort that the act of creating questions was the point of the write-up. It would have been nice to go back and read through them (again, aargh), but realistically I would have run out of time anyway. So it's on to the next batch of write-ups, and this time remembering to save--if only as proof that yes, I studied!