I spent 12 hours of my day today on campus. Thats right, 12 hours! Who would have thought I would enjoy studying. I arrived on campus at 8:30 a.m. and headed to the library cafe where there was none other than STARBUCKS waiting for me. My favorite burnt coffee when nothing else is available.
I picked a cozy chair, pulled my books out, drank some coffee and people watched for about a half hour. I was gearing up to study but in the interim I decided to observe my surroundings and take it all in.
Did you know that most students do NOT look happy? In fact, the majority of students and staff did not look happy. I was trully surprised to find that those observed didn’t even smile. I must have looked really silly with a big grin on my face while studying but I trully feel lucky, blessed and relaxed. Yea, yea, I know I made some of you crazy with these tests I’m taking but thats all par for the course (no pun intended).
Okay, back to studying. Anatomy is tough, no doubt about it. And I’m only studying anatomy and physiology of speech, language and hearing. I can’t imagine what medical students must go through. In anycase, at one point, I could not find the answer to a question I felt I needed. It was nowhere to be found in the textbook and it wasn’t in my notes. So I text messaged one of my brainy friends who I thought might know the answer because she knows anatomy.
My buddy called me and gave me the answers to two of the muscles I needed to know. In my text to her, I told her the two definitions of words I did know (at that moment at least). I felt assured that I knew some of the material but there were definitely some things I would not know.
Sitting in the classroom, you can hear the students complaining of anxiety and panic attacks they were having over this “quiz.” I was not feeling any of that but I was sort of hoping I would get stuck in the elevator on the way up to class. It would have at least given me more time to study or worse, have a panic attack. The test was handed out and we were given a half hour to complete the exam.
The first question looked familiar….ah yes, the one I texted my brainy buddy about. Lots of questions on planes, tissues, sternocleimastoids, a diagram of the rib cage having us identify locations of the sternum, the pectoral muscles, the scalpular, the clevicle, etc. The one thing I messed up on was a medical term for lack of growth. hmm, I really didn’t study the medical terms and I felt a bit lost. The only word I could think of was “stunt”. when your growth is stunt? naturally, that is not the correct answer, but I thought it was a pretty good guess and so I put it down hoping it was close to the right answer.
After class, several of us congregated to check out what the answers were to the questions we were uncertain of. I’m glad I’m not the only one who got wrong answers. Several students were pretty upset but I assured them that we would have other opportunities to improve our grade or screw it up even more.
In reviewing the answers though, I realized that I did NOT answer question number one correctly. Jeesh! now I was annoyed because this is the one I got right in my text message to my brainy friend. I wonder if the Professor will accept my showing her the correct answer on my cellphone?
Oh yea, I got a 90 on my Spanish test. The teacher took off five points each on two answers because I spelled it incorrectly. Am I allowed to yell FOUL play here! I mean, afterall, maybe I heard the word the way I wrote it? Can I claim my hearing disability as a means of getting those ten points back?
In anycase, is it good when the professor knows your name so early in the semester? because my Spanish professor called out my name, volunteering me to read from the textbook. Naturally, I wasn’t paying attention at that very moment and gave her a very DUH look. She rattled off something in Spanish and my buddy next to me, pointed to where I should read from. Jeesh! thank goodness my spanish accent saved the day when I read from the book.
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September 21st, 2007 at 3:15 pm
I think that’s a good professor, the one who’s learned your name quickly. That’s a teacher who takes her/ his responsibility seriously, who’s teaching people more than a just subject. That’s always my biggest struggle as a deafened prof, learning everyone’s name at the beginning of a semester.