Senior Seminars and Oral Done

I opened my email to see an invitation to the class of 2012's senior seminar. I've seen facebook statuses saying how they're down to their last 30 days and while studying in the PA room yesterday they were all discussing their cases for their seminar talks. People are getting ready to move and looking forward to being employed and starting that phase of their lives. It is exciting for them, but hard not to be jealous!
 
I can't complain since it really doesn't seem like a year since I got last year's invitation for 2011's seminar! Time flies and it will be our turn soon. I was thinking about that last night, how this time last year I was insanely excited and very impatient to finish up my last month of work and start on this adventure. And now here I am, on the cusp of being a second year student!

I took my oral exam yesterday and passed! I don't know what my score was but after everyone finished taking it we received an email from our course director saying we all passed. I'm good with identifying organs and identifying the disease process... I am less good with symptoms/complications but not horrible. And with cirrhosis I couldn't remember a complication (spontaneous bacterial peritonitis) but knew that I knew it and my brain did that thing where it hung up on that one fact and couldn't move past it. Not horrible though.

And even though it was an oral exam and those are particularly stressful, I didn't have an awful time with anxiety. It wasn't completely absent but I could still function, which is a vast improvement over the way things were in December. I was able to push past the part of my brain that was freaking out and pay attention to the organ in front of me. It helped a lot that as soon as I looked at the specimens on the grossing table I knew what all four of them were. I was scared to look at the table while I was getting dressed because I was worried that they would all look foreign (which is, I know, an irrational fear), but once I did I was reassured. If nothing else I can sight identify organs.