Thursday, July 2, 2015

A Quiz, An Interview, & A Frisbee

When I climbed into my bed and laid down to sleep for night, I was hoping that I would get a refreshing eight hours of sleep, eat a healthy, wholesome breakfast, and briefly review whatever I could in order to put myself in a position to get the best grade possible.  Absolutely none of that happened.  I woke up around feeling groggy, sleep-deprived, and famished.  My roommate was gone so that meant it was at least past seven in the morning, but I still had no conception of the time.  I scrambled around my bed and found my phone.  The phone's clock read 9:25 and immediately I started freaking out because I was about to miss breakfast, which ends at 9:30.  I threw on the only clothes I found, briefly brushed my teeth, and then ran to the cafeteria, where I was just able to get in before the doors closed.  My breakfast was less than desirable; the only food item that I hadn't really grown sick of were the waffles.  Unfortunately, I burnt my waffle and no amount of butter or maple syrup could make up for the overly crispy, undesirable taste.  I tried washing it down with some orange juice, but it proved to no avail and the burnt taste lingered in my mouth.

Following my breakfast, I tried to locate the Albert R. Mann Library hidden deep in Cornell.  In yet another stroke of bad luck, I got lost and the directions on my phone were of no help.  Luckily, with the help of a stranger, I was able to track down the library and meet up with Andy, Sam, and Deena, my three classmates and studying partners.  Here, we went through the material we believed that we knew the least and tried to understand the book.  We went over a couple of examples from the book, but I had a hard time connecting the concepts, so the studying period just added to the stress I had already accumulated.  We briefly ate lunch at the Trillium around 11:30, then we headed to Ives Hall about 30 minutes early to do some last minute reviewing.

The Albert A. Mann Library

The quiz, which I thought would be the main focus of the session, was actually the last thing we did.  For about two hours, two speakers came in and talked about the history of medicine and about neuroscience in regards to mental illness.  While their speeches were interesting and informative, I could not help but think about the quiz.  I took notes on both of the subjects to clear my head, but not even that would ease my stress.  It sounds ridiculous that I'm so nervous over one quiz, but because this is the only class that I'm taking, I feel like I have an especially obligation to secure an A.'

Once the speakers wrapped up both of their presentations, we were immediately given the test.  When I grabbed the quiz, the butterflies in my stomach were throwing a tantrum and I was ridiculously nervous.  As I eased into the test, however, it wasn't so bad.  It became immediately clear all the studying I did prior paid off, and the answering the questions came easily to me.  There were multiple choice and written portions of the test, and I believe that I handled both relatively well enough to secure a good grade.  I handed my quiz in after about forty minutes of work, then headed over to an interview with the associate director at Cornell, Janna Bugliosi.  At the interview, we discussed my experience at Cornell, what I liked about the school, the club I joined, the food, and the people.  The interview was only about five minutes.  Ms. Buglosi was incredibly friendly and it was nice to talk about my experience.

Taking in consideration the amount of stress I experienced in the morning and over the past couple days in preparation for the quiz, I tried limited myself to only reading the textbook and nothing more.  From 6 to 8, I again participated in ultimate frisbee.  Today, it was a lot more intense because the level of competition was much higher.  Thankfully, I didn't catch another frisbee to my eye, but I did occasionally slam into other players.  There were instances on the defensive end when I had to box out other players to make sure they didn't get the frisbee, so the game did get a little physical.  I focused a little more on the defensive side today, swatting away a lot more throws and intercepting passes, to go along with the offense.  The personal highlight of the day was when I had a great defense/offense sequence when I swatted down a frisbee in my end zone, quickly picked it back up, then flung it all the way across the field into my opponent's end zone right to my teammate en route to a touchdown.  It was another great experience and I'm anxious for next week when we have our last games.  

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