Hello everybody again!

Mocks have come and gone, and not quite as bad as I thought. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best I suppose. It was crazy to see the amount of people trying to find out what was coming up. And I’m not talking about the typical no hopers. Some of the cleverest people I know had seen the papers before hand. What, could they not contain their excitement to see what was coming up? That’s probably not the answer but even still, they ruined the whole point of the mocks in doing so.

For me, it was getting the timing right. I’d never sat down to do a full paper in one go before so it was great to see what timing is going to be like with the LC. I managed to time everything pretty ok, and got everything answered and usually an extra question or two (or even all eleven in Chemistry!). English paper 2 was the only exam that I was writing until the very end, I never thought it was humanly possible for me to 21 a4 pages, but with only two or three words per line, I suppose it wasn’t too difficult! The only exam that went bad as such was Maths paper 2. I started a Biology paper at 7:30 that morning and ran a cross country race in between, so by the time Maths came around I was mentally exhausted! As far as I know I had all DEB papers, how did everyone else find them?

It’s less than a week to go to the HPAT and usually I’d start getting a little apprehensive about such an event by now, but I don’t think I will be. I’m doing it in Trinity which is handy ,seen as it’s closest, but everyone else I know got UCD. As for strategies for the test, I’ve got a few worked out, so hopefully they‘ll happen! I’ve been contemplating lately the thought of if I actually was offered a place in Med school (even though there‘s ridiculously little hope!). I don’t know if it’s something that would suit me. Don’t get me wrong, I love science and the idea of helping people, but the workload I’d be taking on, it’d be like re-sitting the LC another 5 times! If I was to get in though my dream would to end up in the army, that’d be my route in!
So now for the dramatic irony, because I’m not too pushed about doing well in the exam (well of course I still want to do my best!), I’ll end up doing better in the exam than if I was hell bent on getting a place in Med school! (Nerves do get the better of me sometimes!)
So if I do get in, I’ll owe it to the fact I didn’t really mind, I kind of like that!!
It annoys the hell out of me though when you hear ‘Oh well you really have to want Medicine to get it’ comments. Absolute BS! If that was the case there would be a bloody attitude test and interviews, not an aptitude test!

That then got me thinking about my other choices on my CAO, like Pharmacy and Actuary. Frankly, all the have in common is a y of their names. Pharmacy is third and fourth, while Actuary is fifth and sixth. Being pragmatic(I hope!), I’ll end up doing one of these. I’m having serious problems deciding which one however. I went on work experience back in the good old days of TY in the local Pharmacy and really enjoyed it. I mean the guy who owns it is the nicest you’d ever meet, an inspiration of sorts. But then I sat in on two Actuary lectures in UCD and DCU during the week on economics and absolutely loved them. I met up with a guy who got 600 in his LC and he claims to love it. So I’ve been thinking, maths and economics or chemistry for the next four or five years? Hmmmm….

I have my French oral left to do later this week, and to be honest, I can wait for it. I said I’d practice for it over the midterm, but I thought I deserved the week off! I started reading Wuthering Heights again for my English comparative. And when I say again, I mean for about the 6th time, I just can’t read the bloody thing! I’ve lived off chapter summaries from the internet to find out what actually happens because I could never follow. Finally I’ve started to start comprehending what’s going on for myself! I used to love reading but ever since I’ve started secondary, sport has just taken over and I’ve never really had the time to indulge in a good book!

I’ve decided to give up Facebook for Lent, forty days I thought I could handle it. And then I discovered Lent is actually forty-seven days long, never have I felt so cheated! But it’s probably a good thing, there’s nothing worse than spending copious amounts of time on stuff like that and the feeling after. Although I’ll probably just replace it with MLIA!

I reckon it’ll be a while before any results come back, but fingers crossed by Paddy’s Day I’ll have everything back! Best of luck to all of ye doing mocks this week, and the HPAT too!!!!
Slánners!

So I was at the RCSI open day this morning as the title will suggest:) Although I will probably be biased as I haven’t been to any other open day I will be very honest! I thought it was a great day,there were quite a few people, considering the road conditions, around 500+ I’d say…It ran from 10am to 2pm. We were brought into a lecture theater and were spoken to by RCSI staff, present and past students of school of med, pharmacy and physiotherapy. The admissions office also spoke to us about the HPAT, general admissions to the college, the point system and the random selection process..we were then brought up to an exhibition upstairs that included workshops and info on different subjects in RCSI. These included; biology, pharmacy,GP,pathology,anatomy and much much more, lecturers and staff members were there on hand as were pupils to answer any questions we had. We then returned to the lecture theatre to get more talks and a junior doctor’s perspective and also an idea of his time in RCSI.

Overall I thought the day lived up to my expectations. I thought the lectures were really well done, kept us interested whilst at the same time informed, the students’ attitudes were just brilliant, they were probably the NICEST people I will ever have met, they were so enthusiastic about the school and remained realistic about the whole experience, outlining the pros and cons, these students really put it into perspective,a lot of them first did different courses and then decided on medicine, their opinions really gave me at least, an insight into what the school really has done for them…I’ll always remember those students if nothing else, they were just…it’s like unnatural how nice they were!!! ha:) A 6th year med student and 4th year med student highlighted the different clubs and societies the school offers, wow…there’s such a variety of crazy, funny and basically any and everything known to man…there’s clubs for it…the latest: The friendship club, the gourmet food club and much more, RCSI is competitive in sports too, having a current student represent Ireland in the winter Olympics is something alright!

Something everyone seemed to mention was the fact that the school was very inter-cultural (and extremely proud of it),as in they have students from all over the world, the 6th year med student stating that he was of Indian descent, from Austria and spoke french,another student was from Finland and said that approx 19% of students are not from Ireland..one student commented “You see? You’re all white!!” his fellow classmate replied “Uhhh yeah, were in the minority guys…but that’s the beauty of it..” There was defo a lot of positive energy in the room.The junior doctor’s talk was really informative, gave us a realistic idea of his actual job, he strongly said that it’s nothing like Grey’s Anatomy or ER (some ppl seriously think you get to work with amazingly handsome(P.Dempsey *cough*) doctors whilst keeping interesting relationships with different people etc, etc, he works on average 65-100 hours/week. The students actually continued to commend their teachers, saying they are the best in Europe and they are insanely talented and in general very nice:) I also loved how the school was quite small,apparantly everyone knows each other and its really tight unlike a campus in UCD/TCD etc, that stood out to me i think:)

I was sitting in the theatre with 500 other people wanting the same thing as me, we all thought the same! So as you can prob guess, man were we motivated, hearing people next to me whisper to their neighbours “I’m gonna go home and study now”, “year right” were the replies..it  felt as though i was thinking aloud..over 3000 people apply for med every year, less than 40 places are available for undergrads in RCSI and its random selection…so,like I usually do, I got really nervous and started predicting the future, “omg I’ll have to repeat..how am I gonna get in…seriously though..me? I don’t study! ahh God!!!!”, I gave up though, there was no point having such a negative attitude, I can only do my best right?

We then got a tour of the college, I loved the little community-like facilities and lounge rooms, but my favourite part was the anatomy room…omg…the smell of formaldehyde was just unreal! Bodies were covered in thick white plastic and laid out in a linear pattern on metal tables, there was over 30 bodies I think….just being there was so cool..ha..i get amused way to easily:(

Anyway, I thought the day was great, I really recommend going next year if you want to do any of the following: RC001 Medicine,RC101 Graduate Medicine,RC004 Physiotherapy,RC005 Pharmacy..They like to have an idea of numbers so around about September 14th 2011 make sure to get a ticket (just check out their website and follow links). I’m more than 100% sure this is the college for me and its #1 on my CAO right now..if anything I’m motivated to study more, really am:) Hope i haven’t bored you to death at this stage, if you couldn’t make it iIhope you got an idea of how it went down, most people enjoyed it too, not only was the school of medicine well presented the other school of Physio and Pharmacy were also well introduced.

It was funny,we were eating lunch in St. Stephen’s green shopping centre and I was telling my mum about the day, she got really enthusiastic! Ha, it was funny, I was just like “Hmm,yeah pathology and forensics seemed really interesting, but then again, Dr. Hugh didn’t like it, now he’s in Psych now!”, she replied by going into detail how pathology is lab based and kind of boring if you prefer more interactions with patients and then started talking about how she loved doing the forensics module and seeing if it was animal/human blood, which way the knife went in of how the bullet cracked this and that…it went on for a while and I just sat there, listening, eating my soup and brown bread, nodded every now and then, looked up too actually…she was just so happy, so I let her proceed, recalling her time in the good ole days. Good stuff:)

Anyways, Bonne chance for now, I shall and will see you all soon =)