To catch up: Finals Week(s)

Losing Eve six weeks ago hurt, a lot. That loss along with being truly and insanely busy with finals (enough that I probably lost about five pounds and made myself sick), rather took blogging further off my mind than unfortunately it normally is (unfortunate for those few yet faithful readers). In return, I promise to be more diligent and keep this updated every few days.

So, how did winter quarter end? I survived, to say the least, and managed to pull out a few surprises for myself. I scored two A's and one B, which is an improvement over my one A and two B's from last quarter. Guess what I plan to get this spring J? The B came from Fundamentals of Molecular Biology, which is actually quite sad considering how relatively elementary that class was compared to Cell Biology of autumn quarter (what I consider quite possibly the hardest class I've ever taken, period, except perhaps orgo one and two). The A's were in Cancer Biology II, in which a B would have been not only downright embarrassing but pathetic! My A was a pretty good one nonetheless, certainly one of the top three in the class (a rare statement from me about a science class since high school; to be fair I've done but seldom superlatively well unlike in some of my English classes).

The second A was in Signal Transduction which went from being possibly the easiest to the scariest to the easiest class on Earth all in the space of a few short weeks. To begin with, the three cancer biology students in that class (myself, Kelly, and Tanmayi) were there because we were told there would only be one exam and a take-home at that. Score! This is what we thought for about the first half of the quarter, a thought that allowed me to guilt-free zone out a bit during some of the more tedious lectures. Then, after checking with the TA that "this class really is just going to have a take-home final, right?" We're told, "no, we're changing it this year since so many people skipped class last year." Frak! The next few weeks went by in a bit of a panic that was accompanied by furious and diligent note-taking. Now comes the week before finals. Tuesday is the review session and Thursday the in-class final. I bring with me all 8 weeks of notes which were derived from the wood pulp of an entire acre. Instead of our usual classroom, we find ourselves in a conference room with a video from a Nobel Prize-winning lecturer ready to begin. What was going on? To allay our fears, our professor informs us that due to "excellent attendance", they've decided to make the final take-home after all. A collective sigh of relief exhaled from the students and suddenly the day become a whole lot brighter. I was saved! The final ended up being five questions and required just five lectures (out of 16) to answer. All in all it probably took me just over two hours, and most of that time was spent flipping through pages to find the pathway I needed. Total length? Just fewer than three pages (compared to the eight of my cancer biology take-homes). I don't know the final distribution for that class (there were only eight of us in it), but I must say I am grateful for my A despite not being as attentive (or smart) as most of the other people in there.

As for my other classes, Can Bio II wrapped up well yet rather hectically. My poster presentation went fine (I could have been more prepared, but still did well) though getting my final in nearly gave me a heart attack. The Friday before we were informed that our final would be due no later than 9 a.m. on Tuesday, March 18 (the poster session was the 17^th). Since I mostly worked on the poster/studied for Mol Bio over the weekend, I didn't devote much time to the final except doing some background research on the questions. So I get home on the 17^th around 1:15 to find an email from my TA asking that our finals be sent in no later than 3 p.m. so she can distribute them to our professors. Needless to say, I almost had a cardiac infarction and immediately informed my TA of what our professor said. I went on to spend the next nearly 12 hours typing away almost without break. The final product wasn't my best, but at least it was done. Considering I headed into the final with almost the highest grade in the class, I wasn't too worried…

Anyway, enough about classes. Next post: spring break!