That Time Again...

Well, the sun is finally shining and Milwaukee is finally heating up beyond the freezing point. That's right, spring has sprung, and that can only mean one thing...time to bury ourselves in the library studying for spring finals! That's right, while everyone else is busy shaking off their cabin fever by doing all sorts of ridiculous things outdoors, I and my 205 cohorts will be busy busting our humps trying to "re"learn about 800 pages of Neuroscience notes, roughly 1000 pages of physiology notes, and thankfully less than 10 lectures worth of material for our Cell & Tissue Biology test (which is the only non-cumulative exam). These tests run throughout next week, and as you might have guessed that means we are busy this week in the lecture hall, learning brand spankin' new material to cover on these exams in addition to the myriad details we learned once up a time earlier this semester.

I have strategically declined to attend these lectures, as they will not only suck up 4 productive morning hours of studying, but also tend to leave me feeling deflated and overwhelmed before I even start my real studying for the day. At this time of the semester, caring for your own psyche and avoiding stress is probably just as important for your performance on the Finals as 12 hours of studying a day. Luckily, I have made it about halfway through my first pass of the cumulative material and even the oldest stuff seems to be coming back pretty well, which is a good sign. If nothing else, at least I can probably avoid completely stressing out over the exams (like I did for at least one exam last semester). I'm also pretty well removed from any grade cut-offs in 2 of the 3 classes, which means that I would really have to screw things up to move down a grade. Overall, it just means that I can continue with my general study strategy (which consists of putting in a lot of time and reading through the notes in their entirety at least 2-3 times in the days leading up to an exam) and hope for the same results I've had previously.

It's late, and I should really be reading up on acid/base balance. I'll try to make sure to update as the week goes on, if nothing else than to pretend that I am communicating somewhat with the world during the next two intense weeks.