I'm in the midst of my Thanksgiving break and what am I doing...studying! Urgh!! I have a Pathology exam the Wednesday I return from break & 20% of it is cummulative. I'm wondering if he'll put Primary & Secondary Amyloidosis on the exam again? Oh well, I guess its just nice to not be sitting in a dull & dreary lecture hall from 9am-4pm, minus the lunch hour. Just so I don't forget the wonderful sounds of my professors' voices I decided to listen to them on my digital recorder while on break...actually I do this anyways because certain professors have WAY TO MUCH java in the morning and talk pretty fast! My java drinking doesn't have my fingers up @ 9am & ready to write furiously.

I finished my last Bacteriology skills test Friday by identifying 2 unknown bacteria based on colony morphology, Gram stain, and growth/color change on special media. I must admit I did quite well but it wasn't without my extreme perinoia getting the best of me. Most people who know me pretty well know I stress quite a bit. This skills test was no exception:

• I kept rechecking to make sure the labeled tops of the petri dishes were on the correct culture.
• I always held my breath when opening the plates...yet my cultures still got contaminated?!
• I made sure all of my plates were taped so the top & bottom of each plate never got seperated.
• I checked the answers I circled over & over again to make sure my A organism & B organism were circled correctly.
• Even after I turned my sheet in I wanted to make sure I had labeled my sample # correctly (I already checked that 15 times before I handed it in).
• I saved everything I did...just in case!

I have previously taken a stress class to help me deal with my stress test anxiety & it has helped but there are certain exams that still stress me out, especially when a decent amount of points are riding on them and 1 stupid mistake can screw it all up! This last exam I could chalk it up to me being just my anal self. I have realized the only one putting pressure on me is me and I need to give myself a break because @ least I made it into vet shool!