On brains and sledgehammers

On Friday I took a test. It was in Neuro. I studied for it all week. I basically didn' do anything last week except study for this test. And it was a brutally hard test.

I woke up on Friday morning with a headache. I didn't sleep well the night before because I had a lot on my mind. So I woke up with a headache. Usually such headaches kind of go away as the day goes on. They kind of wear away. I get them all the time...probably because I don't sleep as much as I should. Clouds also seem to increase their intensity...but that's neither here nor there.

The point is, I started praying when I woke up that I wouldn't have a headache for the test and that I would still be able to do well. I kept it up all day...I can see why monks uses to flog themselves or put their thumbs in vice grips. Pain really tends to focus your mind on prayer.

But this stupid headache wouldn' go away...at least all the way. It diminished to the point where it was only a minor disturbance to my stream odf thought. My test was at one. So I took the test, and while I was taking it I was a little annoyed that I still had a headache. I thought, "So much for this prayer thing"

As I said it was a brutal test. They picked out the minutest details to test upon and wrote the questions to confuse and flummox even the most prepared of test-takers.

When I left the room, I felt like someone had hit me on the head with a sledgehammer as I walked through the door. I could barely walk. I still had to drive home. So there I was driving home with sunglasses on and my eyes half closed to keep out the light, with tears flowing down my face. Luckily there wasn't much traffic. And I was able to hold off the pain induced discharge of gastric contents until I got home. It was one of the worst headaches I've had in a long time.

So praise God for headaches

boring

I took a test today. The rate-limiter on the test was reading speed. the first person out of the room was done in 17 minutes. That's more than 4 questions a minute. The last couple weeks have been really slow. It's as if, for both of the classes we have right now, they had too much material to fit on the last test, but not really enough to justify another whole test. That's ok though because it has allowed me to really not spend any time on schoolwork.

After I finished the test I had some extra time and didn't feel like studying for next weeks test, so I went to the hardware store. I replaced the thermostat and a broken light fixture. Now I can see the clothes in my closet and we have a functioning thermostat, which I guess is better than being cold all the time.

On not writing and difficult tests

I know that perhaps you have checked the sight a couple times since last I wrote. In fact if statistics are anything to go by you've stopped checking it entirely.

Anyway...I had a test today...and I had a test yesterday...and I had a test last week...Now I don't have anything looming for a few weeks.

So in a sign of how priority inverting curved test scores can be, I have decided that I prefer difficult tests. Especially when I don't know they're going to be difficult and they really knock you off your feet.

Here's why:
I pretty much get the same score on every test. I've only been outside the 90-95 area a couple of times when I moved up near a hundred. So when the test is really difficult the average plummets and my standard score shoots through the roof. When tests are really easy the average rises and my standard score falls.

Yesterday's test was tough. I struggled on at least a third of the questions. I couldn't see straight by the time I left. Everybody else complained about how tough it was...I smiled. Today's test left me blurry eyed too...but for a different reason. It was so boring I felt like I was going to fall asleep. There were only a handful of questions I even had doubts about. (probably missed a few because I went too fast though). Everybody else smiled as they left the room...

On Tests

I just had a test today. It was a final exam. Tests make me feel so inadequate.

First the teacher presents material. I learn it. Then the teacher tests me on that material. Nothing on the test is new. Everything is something i was expected to learn. So every question I don't know represents something I failed to do. And realistically, how often do you get a 100% on a test?

Every question I get wrong is an expectation from the instructor that I didn't fulfill. So tests just make me feel like I'm not good enough. That's why I don't like tests

study harder

Today we disarticulated the atlantooccipital joint and bisected the head. In other words, we pulled the skull off the vertebral column and cut it in half. It was a little weird, because we used a hand saw and just cut down the middle of the face. It was cool though to see the middle of the head.

In other news school is going well. Nobody has brought an AK-47 to school yet, so that's good. Also we have another test next week so the next round of feeling rotten about not studying enough has begun.