Hell Week Extended Version

Okay, so I mentioned how the 7 days before exam week was called Hell Week, right? Well, exam week wasn’t any better. And the days following exam week aren’t exactly the light at the end of the tunnel either. Why, you should ask? I just learned there were two freaking papers due Thursday, the day right after exams! I mean, what the hell? Can’t they give us a break??

Okay, rant over. I do usually get like this whenever the stress of medical school takes its toll. But I do love medicine and everything that comes with it, and I can’t really imagine myself doing something else. Sometimes I do wonder what I could have been doing if I’d just stuck to my first choice in college which was Chemical Engineering. I know. It’s such a long shot from taking up Medicine. But I had to pick through courses in high school. Exactly how many kids knew what they want for their future while they were in high school, right? Especially when all I was thinking back then was how to bag Valedictorian and the big fat juicy accusations of me being a relationship wrecker. High school, right? So much drama. But that story is for another time.

So, medical school. I should probably tell you that I have wanted to become a doctor since I was a kid. I remember playing with a toy stethoscope and other toy doctor stuff since time immemorial, really. When I finished elementary education, I put in “To be a doctor” as my ambition.

In high school, I attended career talks to figure out what I wanted to do in life, for real. You see, as I grew older, I also grew more conscious about our financial status and the fact that medical school simply cost too much for my parents’ average salaries on top of the private education they were working hard to provide for the four of us (my parents are very adamant with paying for high-quality education).Being a doctor meant four years of pre-Medicine, four years of Medicine, one year of internship, then two to six years of specialization (depending on which one you wanted). So when I had to fill up college forms, I put in a more financially achievable course: Chemical Engineering, five years. My father was an engineer, you see, and engineering is kind of the family go-to course on his side. I also put in other courses as second options with different first options on different colleges, expecting I’d probably only be accepted in one and whichever college and course it was was probably meant for me. But when push came to shove (that is, all schools that I had applied in accepted me), I jumped the gun and just remembered that I wanted to become a doctor (my discovery of House, M.D. and Grey’s Anatomy around that time influenced my decision, too). I talked to my parents about it and they said they were going to support me all the way. So my high school yearbook said “To be an obstetrician-gynecologist” on the ambition part, and now I am working on getting that suffix fixed to my name.

Anyways, Hell Week wasn’t so much of a Hell Week, really. I stayed in the coffee shop near my apartment building most nights, making papers and reading on different subjects (no news there). Usually, I’d feel guilty about using up a table for hours in exchange of only a couple large cups of coffee and some sandwiches, but this coffee shop isn’t really a place for guilt. There were a ton other students there, and most were my schoolmates. Several were ickle firsties (as I’d like to call them) and honestly, I don’t get why they feel the need to study outside all night. I mean, I wasn’t like that during my first year. At all. I usually studied a subject the night before said subject’s exams. Because if I hadn’t made it clear to you yet, I am a huge crammer by nature. And it has worked for me since forever. Sure, there are lots of times I regret not having studied several days before, how I could have covered that trivial question if I had bothered studying in advance, but really, I have maintained academic scholarships by the skin of my teeth with cramming and I never thought it was a bad idea at all. Oh, and BTW studying a week before exams is already cramming at my level: 5 subjects in first year versus a whopping 13 in third year, there’s no surprise there.

There were a couple nights when Luke dropped by at the coffee shop for several minutes after doing some database repair overtime. Or some days when he’d walk me from school to my apartment when our schedules matched. Being with him was always a nice thing for me. It was a real break from everything else, and I very much liked it. We have yet to go on that formal second date though. And he would always remind me that “this is so not the second date yet, I swear” whenever he’d show up with a huge smile on his face.

When exam week finally arrived, I was reduced to a blur. I was always in a hurry every morning (since I cram and procrastinate a lot). No, I wasn’t taking any more cabs. It was the last week of the month and my monthly allowance was almost burnt through from the coffee shop all-nighters and the need for breakfast. I rarely eat breakfast, and I do know that it is unhealthy, but I never make time for it when I lack sleep (which was most of the time) since extra sleep time trumps breakfast in my book. But, since it’s exam week and I need my brain cells to work at top speed and not think of food during the morning exams, I always made it a point to eat breakfast during exam week.

Post-exam hallway huddles were also a thing at our school. I don’t know about other medical schools, but it was a common sight every time an exam was done. People confirming whether they answered (or guessed) the question right, people relaying the difficult and confusing questions, people arguing which choice were the right ones, people pointing out which keyword was the key to which answer, those sorts of things. And when the last day of the exams was done, there were no celebrations (within my batch). There would usually be some binge drinking sessions at someone’s apartment, some embarrassing drunken demeanors that don’t necessarily have to be shared in this blog, and the worst hangover ever the next morning. But since there were 2 papers due the next day which happened to be Thursday (which is now officially the worst day of the week), all celebratory plans have been cancelled.

I had to stay over at the coffee shop again that night just so I could keep myself from falling into a state of coma. My eyes were watering from both sleep deprivation and excessive LCD exposure, and my body kept tingling its shutdown warning every time I tried to rest my eyes for a couple minutes. Seriously, I was thinking it was in Medicine where an irrational fear of falling asleep develops. Anyway, I noticed a text message from Luke a couple hours into my paper making session with a time stamp of a half hour ago. (I forgot I had a phone; that was how out of it I was).

The elevator posts say your exams ended today. Congrats! And get the sleep you deserve. Then, how about that second date?

I smiled and texted him back.

Sorry I replied late. I didn’t notice my phone go off. I have papers due tomorrow, so sleep has to wait even though I need some shut-eye so bad. :( How about this weekend?

You in the coffee place? I could come over.

I texted a quick “Yes and please” and hit send in no time. Luke was going to be the answer to keeping myself awake. I enjoyed his company so much, he has to be the last sure thing that could keep me awake.