Hibernation Will Begin Soon

I'm only 3 weeks into this semester, but I'm so far behind in all of my classes. I thought I would get caught up this weekend because we didn't have classes friday due to the state veterinary conference going on. The plan was to review all of the material we have covered so far in all my classes. This would be my last chance to catch up before the exams begin on Tuesday. However, reality happens. I was invited to attend a wound reconstruction wet lab. This is a $500 lab that clinicians around the state pay to attend. There goes half of my Sunday. The catch: help set-up and clean-up. Then I find out I need to attend 5 hours of lectures on Saturday to prepare for it. Goodbye, Saturday.

Don't get me wrong, the lab was awesome. I was learning meshing patterns to extend existing skin to cover a defect, relieving tension in the skin and on sutures, and isolating vessels to be preserved in rotational flaps. Yeah, I don't know what that last sentence means either. Apparently, we'll learn this stuff later this semester so I have a little headstart. It was also good practice suturing which I will also officially learn this semester.

The good thing is that I did close the gap in clin path for being 150 pages behind in the reading. I reviewed for my virology exam everyday and reviewed musculoskeletal material. I feel like our class schedule gives us a lot of free time, but my extracurricular activities are eating up needed study/sleep time. I don't even feel like it's that much either. I tutor 2 nights a week for a total of 3 hours, try to prepare for a presentation later this month, try to look for literature about my possible research project this summer, (the last 2 are more on my to-do-list than my actual list of things I do) and then indoor soccer starts this week. It's frustrating at times thinking that I'm so far behind, but I had every opportunity to be caught up. Oh well, I guess that's living the vet school dream.

Anyways, exams will begin on tuesday which means I will enter hibernation mode where I study, sleep, and attend class. As usual, my goal is to do well on these first exams to give myself room for error/slacking off at the end of the semester. I'm a little scared that my test-taking skills have been subpar so far this semester exhibited by my misreading questions on a couple quizzes. I don't think my brain knows the semester has started and it's game time.