It’s the final week of my Community Health Rotation and that means exams, exams, exams. We’re graded by way of oral presentations and multiple choice papers. I have four such presentations to prepare and deliver between Monday and today. On Thursday and Friday I have to sit two papers  for Paediatrics and Comm Health.

What all this boils down to is a remarkable lack of time to scratch my butt. I like scratching my butt. It’s a welcome distraction from the gargantuan piles of work looming over me. My one saving grace so far is that I apparently haven’t failed my Paediatric OSCE (read: practical) since I wasn’t asked to contact the course coordinator like some truant schoolchild.

Regardless, I still have to study my socks off for what is allegedly the hardest exam to get good marks in. Not that I’m overly concerned with good marks. I’m more interested in hanging on by my fingernails to this sham of a medical education. Which is why at 11:11pm on a school night I was in someone else’s dorm having a group study session instead of catching up on my well-needed beauty sleep. (Yesterday I woke up with dark circles under my eyes. Dark circles, you guys.)

The other people I was studying with are A students. Well, at least one of them is. If I was a self-motivated student capable of studying effectively on my own, I would definitely not not have subjected myself to that kind of sleep deprivation.

Why must I always be surrounded by over-achievers?