WHOOP!

First round of exams are done...well almost. I missed class today because of this stupid little dental issue called an abscessed tooth. I am feeling pretty stupid about it. I chipped the tooth almost 3 years ago, and never did anything about it. Then, about 6 weeks ago it really cracked in half--or at least it feels like it, either way it was enough to expose the root and create a nice little passage way for some seriously nasty bacteria. A month ago during orientation, I was in excruciating pain and was taking aspirin by the handful, turns out it was abscessed then. So here I am four weeks later, and I am noticing that my face is a little sore, nothing like the pain from orientation, but slightly sore when I press on it. I'll do something about that later...famous last words. I woke up Saturday morning looking like half a chipmunk--I was hugely swollen, but only on one side of my face. Nice just call me "Alvin .5" I frantically called my doctor who graciously called in some antibiotics for me, and today I finally went to the dentist. Turns out it is not so bad, the antibiotics are controlling the infection nicely and come October, when our dental insurance kicks in, I will undergo a pleasant little root canal. Nice, I thought I was going to have to loose the tooth altogether, so a root canal is a much better option, so is waiting until the insurance will pay :)

All dental emergencies aside, I made it through my first round of exams. It was exhausting, but I learned a few things:

1. Sleep is inversely proportionate to studying--well for me anyway. I can study from dusk to dawn, but if I don't get at least 7 hours, none of it will matter because I can't get any of that information out of my head and on to an exam. I was pretty prepared before I started studying (though I did modify my routine some) so it is better for me to add on an extra hour of studying each night the week of an exam, rather than kill myself and get like 6 hours of sleep all week.

2. Do not have the "freak out" herd mentality. The truth is I was remarkably well prepared for the tests, much more so than I would have been in undergrad. I would quietly remind myself that I knew the material, and not to buy in to everyone else's freak out attitude.

3. Vet school is hard, but not impossible. I might be modifying this later as this is only our first round of exams...but I did learn that you basically get out of it what you put in. If I study, I do pretty well, if I don't I am totally screwed. It has to be hard or everyone would do it, but it can't be so hard that no one wants to.

4. Med students freak out waaaay worse than vet students. While we were all pretty sleep deprived and became library rats, the med students looked like walking zombies. Maybe there is just a more layed back attitude in vet school (though it is harder) or maybe the people are just different--more perfectionists and crazy asians...not sure, but those kids were FREAKING OUT! While we were debating dropping out of vet school and going to med school 'cause it would be easier. (Not really, I couldn't deal with people medicine...the dark side)

5. Don't share grades with anyone. Though, I wanted to shout from the rooftops that I spanked my Anatomy exam, sharing grades is like sharing your salary...makes for uneasy friendships. It's better just kept to yourself.

In the end, not a bad week, just tiring. Hopefully my make-up physiology exam will go as nicely as the other three...wait and see

And on another ironic note, as I was searching for emergency dentists on Saturday morning, I typed "Emergency Dentists in College Station" into Google...it came back with a list of VETERINARY emergency dentists, as apparently no human dentist feels the need to take care of patients on a Saturday. I almost called...