Week 15

Week 1 in Purgatory. (unfortunately didn't make it out, planning my next escape attempt soon) 

We had our physiology lab final on Monday. I did so bad. To the point where I wasn't even upset. Like clearly I had no idea what I was doing. My saving grace was that no one knew what they were doing. You know it's bad when everyone turns over their exam and starts laughing. The only upside was bonding with my fellow physiology students over the shitshow that was that exam. It sucks doing bad on an exam but my spirits aren't too down because I'm pretty sure I can still make an A in physiology if I study hard for the upcoming exams. 

One of the highs of this week was that my Aggie ring got delivered to my house in Dallas. I'm excited to get back to the states and put it on. My dad was the one who signed for the package and he sent a montage of photos detailing the delivery, unboxing, and reveal in our family group chat. Here is a picture of my dad trying my ring on. It makes me laugh so I thought I'd include it here. 

All week we have been grinding on our enmodes projects. It is crazy because you put in a bunch of work, present, and then are told to go back to the drawing board. After the very first round of presentations (on Tuesday or Wednesday) I was feeling cooped up so Peri and I went on a brief walk and saw the famous cherry blossom street. It was very pretty and helped me relax a bit. I was appreciative of the critiques because I knew they would make our presentation better, but after the 3rd time it was kind of like no I'm actually not going to redraw my device graphics again thank you (spoiler alert I did in fact redraw my graphics). 

The genetics exam was supposed to be Wednesday but it got moved to Thursday which I was appreciative of as it gave me a little bit more time to prepare. Peri and I studied a bunch leading up to the exam so I was really hoping that it would pay off. It was inconvenient having our exam rescheduled several times on such short notice but I can't complain too much because that whole week was like that, not just our exam. I thought this exam was the easiest one we have had to date which was a relief. If the exam had been bad it would have been difficult to get myself back into the headspace to work on the enmodes project again. 

Friday was our enmodes presentation. That morning I saw a pug while going to the meeting point which is a good luck symbol according to Victoria so I took that as a good omen for our presentation. Overall the final presentation went well which was is always a good feeling. Our group had worked so hard on our two devices and it was nice that we could present a polished final presentation that we were proud of. Seeing the enmodes headquarters and everything they were doing was actually really cool. I loved getting to see all their facilities and the sciences and technology that went into it. After the presentation was over we ate lunch and then headed back to Bonn. I got home and crashed. I woke up around 8pm and got ready for bed and then just relaxed until I fell asleep. 

Charity day was on Saturday. I have not been feeling very good as of late (from the cold) and asked Rike if I could opt out. She graciously said yes. Waking up on Saturday I felt awful. I know it was a combination of stress, not eating and sleeping as much, or drinking as much water as I normally do on top of the cold, but I was still surprised I felt so bad. I went to try to study with Peri later in the afternoon and she said I looked awful. I know opting out was the right decision but I still felt a little sad because I like volunteering and community events. 

I'm very tired and not really looking forward to week 2 in Purgatory. It means that I have to study a bunch and take a bunch of exams, and it means that I have to return to the states. I need to decide on which mcat resource I'm going to use and need to mentally prepare for shadowing in the OR again. It'll be nice to see my friends and family again, but I think they would much prefer to visit me in Europe rather than me visit them in Texas. I can say I'm looking forward to the sunshine though.