Halloween is Scary but Midterms are Scarier

In other words, Halloween is my favourite holiday but midterms made me cry.

So it’s been a while since I posted, I had orignally planned on sharing another post once I submitted my applications but that didn’t happen so I thought instead I would talk about this past October AKA the most stressful month I’ve had in four years of university.

October 1 – 6

October first Med school applications were due for Canadian schools. Now when I started my applications in the summer I had planned on finished before September so that when the deadline came alll I had to do would be review and submit, I KNEW that if I didn’t I would be scrambling to get them done while trying to study.

Well guess who didn’t get them done before September? Yes that’s right, you guessed it, ME.

To add to my stress I had two midterms this week. So I spent the weekend trying to balance studying and writing for applications.

The night before everything was due (and my first midterm) I was up until midnight writing and editing my applications. To make things even more stressful for myself I made a last minute addition to the schools I was applying to that required extra essays.

I may have ended up in tears, stressed that I wasn’t going to finish in time but I told myself to pull it together and just write. In the end I did get everything submitted.

So applications were done now onto the marthon that was midterms. In all my previous semesters of university I don’t think I’ve been so stressed for midterms. Usually I have a few midterms clustered together, then a break, then the rest of my midterms. This time however I had a total of 7 midterms spread over four week. And just to mix it up I also had two writing assignments, a presentation, and two lab reports to do.

First week I had Genetics and Psychology midterms. Because I spent so much time working on applications I didn’t do nearly as much studied as I would have liked (and it was definitely reflected in my grades). This stressed me out but both classes had a second midterm, so I would have a chance to redeem myself. Oh yea and the same day as my psychology midterm I had a history assignment due!

October 7 – 13

This was my “easy” week. I had only one midterm…. and a lab report … and I was officially a week away from my presentation. The midterm too be honest wasn’t too bad, again I didn’t study as much as I would have liked but that was true for literally every midterm I wrote this month. The lab report I wanted to set on fire. It was a detailed report, that need research and that I procrastinated. Bad idea. I ended up staying up until 4 am to write it, then stayed up for another hour writing a flow chart that was also due for lab. Thank god my first class wasn’t until noon.

The all nighter was not worth it. I did terribly on the report… and it turned out it was only worth 5% of my grade. Oh well lesson learned, I would start the next one earlier.

Once the assignment and my midterm were done I had to get some serious work done on my presentation. I had to pick a paper (already selected at this point) that researched cancer, and present it to my Cell Biology class. I hate public speaking and was not looking forward to it.

But as a fun break, and since it was October, Friday night I went to a haunted house with some friends. Did my hand go numb from my friend holding on so tight? Yes. Was that still preferable to midterms? Also yes.

Oct 14 – 20

The week of The Presentation. (Also my Microbiology midterm but to be honest not what I was focused on). Also UK applications were due but to be honest they were way less stressful than the Canadian ones.

So the midterm was on the Wednesday, the presentation the Thursday. Needless to say, I spent more time on the presentation than studying for my midterm, oops. But to be fair the presentation was worth 45% of my grade and the midterm was worth 20%.

Not going to lie I was pretty terrified for this presentation. I thought I was going to get really nervous and shaky while I was talking or stumble all over my words, or that I would misunderstand the research and present it wrong, or that someone would give me a really hard question that I wouldn’t be able to answer.

The day before my presentation I had a meeting with my prof so he could give me feedback on the presentation. I was 20 minutes late 🙄. This meeting was also in the morning before my first class, in which I had a midterm. At ten to twelve we were still discussing my presentation and I had to cut it short because I was on the other side of campus and had 10 minutes to get to my midterm. I quite literally ran across campus, well as much running as I do lol, and still ended up walking in the room late….

No lab this week meant I had extra time to work on my presentation. I ended up staying up until 2am working on it and onl actually practiced it once.

In the end it went smoothly (well mostly). I had to borrow an old laptop from my mom because I don’t have my own and during the question period it decided that would be a good time to install updates. I also ended up talking too fast but everything else was good.

Oct 21 – 27

Ok so I lied before, this was actually my easy week. The only things I had were a lab quiz for Microbiology and my Cell midterm. The quiz was easy… the midterm was not.

The midterm was a total of 15 pages long, all written. It ya not sound like a lot, but trust me, it’s a lot. The midterm was based on a paper we were given to read before hand, a selection of the student presentations on different research, and then finall on the material our prof presented on at the beginning of the semester. I definitely wrote too much, and ended up not being able to finsh. I was stressed to say the least. I was also bummed out because afterwards our prof invited the class out for drinks on him (how cool is that?), and I couldn’t make it because I had another class. Sad.

But to make up for it I had break number 2 of the month and went on a Halloween pubcrawl with some friends on the weekend. (This totally backfired on me because I had two midterms the next week, but OH WELL)

Friday night I went to the mall with my friend and went shopping for our Halloween costumes. She was being Barbie, and I went as Maleficent. OF course we don’t go the easy route and get store bought costumes but rather assembled them ourselves. This was mostly because I am broke AF and I already had Maleficent horns at home that I had made in high school.

We ended up spending all of Friday night and most of Saturday working on the costumes. I went much more risqué than I normally would … my family was shock to say the least. When I pulled out the top I bought ( a cute tube top that had lacing in the back, they called it and eyepatch LOL.

The pubcrawl was a lot of fun, and y only chance to celebrate Halloween but definitely put me behind in regards to studying. The Sunday afterward I had to be up for volunteering at noon. By the time I was one with that I was exhausted and laid down for a short nap… I woke over two hours later (oops) when my friend texted for help on her homework. So I got up read through what she needed help with and then proceeded to procrastinate my own studying (don’t be like me). I haven’t seemed to have figured out the fact that if I start studying earlier I can sleep earlier (what a novel concept right?).

October 28 – 31

The month ended with two final midterms. Including one on Halloween which meant I missed out on any Halloween activities like handing out candy.

So that is a condensed account of my very stressful, very hectic October. I would like to officially say screw you October. I definitely cried more times than I admitted to here, but I survived. Also shout out to my best friend (and probably one of the only people who is gonna read this) for keeping me sane this month and studying with me, even though sometimes we are less than productive.