Getting That Study Mojo Back

I should really have been doing hardout study for my OSCE (oral exam) tomorrow, but I've been taking it too easy! It must be what happens when you get all your hard written exams out of the way, and it then feels like your holiday has already started.


I even spent all last night watching those Halloween movies like Scary Movie 2 and Scream 3, but I have to say I was quite let down as they were quite bad!


Anyway today I was meant to be doing a lot of study to catch up for yesterday's lack of study. I was going to study during the sermon at church, but Aonghas, who had been working on a 'year in review' video for the church's AGM, stayed up all night working on that video and we all woke up late. My mum was too ashamed to go into church late, so we just went to Pak N' Save during the service and went to church after. 


A few of us were going to sit in on the AGM so we could watch Aonghas's video being played, but we were told that the whole thing was in Chinese and would just be about the church's financials, so Jireh and I just left for the teens' Sunday School which was a bit more entertaining!


I TRIED to get some study done when I went home, but I really don't know how to study for this oral exam! Maybe I'm just pharmacotherapy'd out. Hopefully it'll go OK tomorrow!

The Final Written Test

This morning was hopefully my last ever written exam - my pharmacotherapy exam! Pharmacotherapy is usually the toughest subject, as there's so much to study for! We also usually have the oral exam before the written one as well. 

I wasn't sure how prepared I was, so I wasn't overly confident, especially after Thursday's exam which didn't go so well! 

I was originally going to catch the 6.50 bus (yip, early for a Saturday morning!) but I missed it, so my dad drove me in. It was quite deserted! I just sat outside reading my notes before having to catch the uni bus to the Tamaki campus where the exam would be held.

I actually wrote quite a bit in the exam! We had to answer four short answer questions and write up four pharmaceutical care plans. One question was 

'Discuss the pathophysiology of meningococcal disease'

which I had absolutely no idea how to answer! I ended up trying to think of some creative way to answer that question that would sound remotely plausible!

I actually wrote quite a bit for the cases, but obviously not as much as James, the guy sitting behind me. One of the exam supervisors would regularly go over to him to hand him extra answer booklets!

By the end of the exam, my hand was cramped! We all went outside to see each other and talk (or avoid talking) about the exam, as well as to get our 2010 Pharmacy t-shirt! This year I actually remembered to buy one, which had a 'Pharmopoly' board game on the front of it.

My friend Natalie then offered to give me a ride back to Grafton along with Kunsala and Anisha.

When we got there, Kunsala said she had a spare train ticket and that I could catch the train with her! That was nice of her! We got to the train station to discover that the next train would be arriving in an hour's time, so we walked back to Subway for a bit of a feed before returning to the train station to catch the train.

Even though I have an oral exam on Monday, I don't think I've done too much study all day since the exam! I'll have to get back to it tomorrow...if I can!

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxqgOjZBNqE)

He's a Eurasian!

I spent most of today in the Henderson Library, trying to study for tomorrow's big Pharmacotherapy exam, and I'm even going to miss out on youth group tonight to study!

Unfortunately though the Henderson Library closes early at 5pm on Fridays! When I had to leave, I was quite hungry and decided to reward myself with some food for doing all that study! I went into the bakery and bought a sausage roll and apple pie, and as I was paying, the guy at the bakery asked me

"You're mixed aren't you?"


After I explained to him my ethnic make-up, he started asking me more questions about whether I could speak any other languages, or if I had ever been back to Hong Kong before. He even asked me what kind of girlfriend I would get!

He told me I looked more Asian than European, but if I dyed my hair then I would look more European!

That was kinda cool. A lot of people think I look more European than Asian!

Off-Count

I had my first written exam today - PHARMACY409B, which really means Professional Pharmacy Studies...which really doesn't mean much to anyone!

Anyway I spent all of yesterday studying at the Henderson Library, which almost froze me towards the end of the day!

Whenever I try studying in the library I always seem to start off half falling asleep before finally being wide awake and able to do some proper study! I guess I have to plan ahead and allocate some dozing off time before I ever do any study in the future!

The library closed at 8 and I ended up taking a little 'dinner' break (mainly just to avoid the noisy school-kid period) and ended up buying a cheap bag of chips!

Anyway, I thought I was more or less prepared for today's exams, except for a few lectures such as wound care and skin cancer (why do we even need to know about incisions and biopsies?), and OTC...which I probably should know...

The exam was over at Tamaki, and got off to a rocky start for our room. We were sharing the theatre with another group of students sitting an exam for another paper. All of us pharmacy students at the back though only had question booklets, but no Scantron sheets for the MCQ section, nor any answer booklets! While we had our 10 minutes' reading time, the exam supervisors tried to get it sorted out and ended up giving us one extra minute at the end of our exam!

I had to make up a lot of stuff and guess quite a few MCQ questions in that exam.

After the exam I did something I usually don't and shouldn't do...I went back through my notes to see if what I wrote was correct in the exam, and it turns out some of the stuff wasn't!

Now I'm a little scared...As my friends have tried telling me though, I've got to move on and focus on the next one!

The Big Presentation

Today was the big day of our pharmacy research dissertation presentations! There was greater pressure on me compared to others though as I was the only person in my group speaking.

I spent the night before practising the speech with my cue cards (instead of studying!), and freaking out over the fact that I couldn't get the speech within six minutes. According to our guide, it was recommended that the speech was six minutes to allow for four minutes of question time and a total presentation time of ten minutes. My group and I eventually decided that we'd just stick with what we had rather than cut things out as everything was kinda important.

The very next morning I got to uni, wearing pretty much the same clothes I usually wear for dispensing lab plus my old school (Rutherford College) tie, not that you could really see much on it since I was wearing a vest!

I did a quick run-through with my group members in the IC before we all went into the Lewis Lecture Theatre to begin presentations. Our group was at 10.30am so at least we'd get it done early on. While we were all asked to stay to watch all the presentations, there was some talk that some people would leave after their group had presented their own presentations so that they could go and study. I guess at least by being early in the morning, at least most people would get to hear about our research!

I set up a camera to film the research presentations but I was later told I wasn't allowed to upload them anywhere as they contained details on unpublished data.

Some of the presentations were quite interesting. There were quite a few pharmacy staff in the theatre, either watching the presentations, marking presentations or asking questions. 

It was finally our group's time to present. We didn't have a chance to check if the sound in our presentation worked though as we had to start pretty much straight away. As it turns out, it didn't work! We originally had a few quotes read out in our slideshow, but I don't think the sound files were attached, so they didn't play, and Becky (one of our group members) had to read them out instead.

I was relieved that the presentation went smoothly! Maybe it was because I was standing behind the lectern that made me feel more confident and able to speak more fluidly. 

When it came to question time, we got quite a few questions from students in our class! I guess they were interested in what was being taught in pharmacy schools. Becky answered all the questions really well. Professor John Shaw, the head of the pharmacy school was sitting in the back and spoke last. We thought he was going to ask us a question, but instead he explained to everyone how there was a bit of discussion on our research topic, how he was interested in watching our presentation and how impressed he was!

I was surprised afterwards at the positive response from everyone about our presentation! Everyone was complimenting me! I suppose I don't really do much public speaking in pharmacy these days ever since I left high school. Even our group's supervisor came up to me afterwards to say that she thought she had heard me speak more in that presentation than in the whole year! 

Straight after our presentation there was some finger food for morning tea provided for the pharmacy students.

 After morning tea we went back to the lecture theatre to watch more presentations, right through to the afternoon. We were also provided lunch too which was nice!

Once presentations were over, we all got together for another class photo, the one that would be sold to us. We took several photos before we all dispersed.

(Thanks to Ravnit for taking this photo!)

It was a great feeling knowing our research dissertation was finally complete. At least one paper was over! Now we just have a couple of written exams and an oral exam to go till we all hopefully graduate!