So, I survived.

This post probably would have made much more sense to write on Friday, when I actually was celebrating the joy of being done with finals and with M1 year, but at that point I was so exhausted and mentally drained that the sheer thought of writing about what had just happened was enough to make me ill.  Today, however, I woke up at 10:00 to a gorgeous sunny morning and don't have to do anything but go eat lunch and go to the grocery, so writing is much more palatable. 

The thing about finals is, they really weren't all that hard.  In fact, a lot of it was easier than our previous tests.  It's just that they're so long, and so draining in terms of nervous energy.  The way they work our test days is an effort to simulate the experience we'll have taking the boards next summer (oh my god...next summer.  That's scary.).  Essentially, for the boards, we have 7 one-hour blocks of time with something like 48 questions each and 60 minutes in which to complete them.  You get a total of an hour break throughout the day, which can be taken in whatever increments you like--ten minutes after each section, or you can skip some and use more for lunch, etc.  At school, they attempt to emulate this by having us take our exams in 6 one-hour blocks with fifteen minute breaks between each (although we take a 45 minute break for lunch).  The problem here is that in the boards, if you finish a section early, you can add to your break time, or you can just forge ahead and get done early.  On test days at school, if you finish early, you get the added bonus of just sitting around outside the test room for all that extra time, thinking of all the things you probably got wrong on the previous section.  They also put fewer questions on each exam (only about 30), so it's really common that people get done early.  I took about half an hour for each section, which meant I had a good 45 minutes between every block.  I was actually waiting to take tests longer than I was taking them.  Which gets kind of tiring.  

The good news is, I did really well on all my tests, although I left the first section sure that I had failed and was going to die.  Of course, I didn't, and I ended up getting good enough scores to get Honors in physio and biochem.  Hooray!  Then I went home, sat around, and ended up going over to my parents' house for dinner and a glass of wine, and then the whole family went to see Star Trek (which is awesome.  If you haven't seen it, go now.  Now!).  I was lucky enough to spend pretty much the entire rest of the weekend with D, which was a first since he just started his new job and finally has weekends off now.  It was lovely--we went shopping, got him a new phone, watched a movie, grilled out with some friends...it's the life I never knew existed outside of medicine and crazy work schedules.  If every summer weekend is like this one...well, it's going to be an awesome summer.